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Raving Dead

Creature — Zombie

Deathtouch
At the beginning of combat on your turn, choose an opponent at random. This creature attacks that player this combat if able.
Whenever this creature deals combat damage to a player, that player loses half their life, rounded down.

CMC
5
Mana cost
{4}{B}
Color identity
B
Rarity
rare
Set
Commander 2014
Price
$1.20
EDHREC rank
#15940
Buy on TCGplayer
Raving Dead card art
Raving Dead turns a single attack into a table-warping political event — randomized targeting plus halved life totals means one hit can functionally eliminate a player. The six-mana cost and lack of built-in evasion are real, but pair it with Wound Reflection and the first trigger that connects often ends a player outright.

Format Analysis

Where it lives, where it can’t

FormatVerdict
commander legal
legacy legal
modern not legal
pioneer not legal
standard not legal
vintage legal
pauper not legal
oathbreaker legal

Raving Dead is a Commander card through and through — the multiplayer table is the only context where randomly selecting among multiple opponents becomes an advantage rather than a liability. In Legacy and Vintage, where it's technically legal, six mana for a 3/3 with no immediate impact gets you killed before you untap. Commander rewards the card's political chaos: opponents can't coordinate cleanly against a random target, and the halve-your-life trigger scales brutally as life totals diverge across a long game.

Key Combos

Combo lines featuring this card

Price Context

Current price

$1.20 cheap tier

At $1.20, Raving Dead sits in the sweet spot where you're paying almost nothing for a card that routinely ends players in the right shell. Casual demand keeps a small floor under it, and as more zombie and reanimator commanders get printed, that floor isn't going anywhere.

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Sources

Mentioned

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Updated . Data from Scryfall, EDHREC, and Commander Spellbook.