A classic tutor. Any card that lets you search your deck for a card
is usually a good card. This one lets you search
for up to three creatures-- and they can even be
three of the same creature if you know exactly
what you want. The catch is that it puts those
creatures... into the graveyard. You need a
second card to go get them out of the 'yard, or
you need creatures that confer benefits from the
graveyard. Buried Alive is a combo classic-- a
card that appears to do nothing at first, but
can be exploited through combination with other
cards. And the fact that it costs one less mana
than Zombify, a perfect choice for comboing with
it, makes the effect all the sweeter.
Constructed- 4
Casual- 4
Limited- 3
Multiplayer- 3.5
David Fanany
Player since
1995
Buried Alive
This is probably the quintessential reanimator
card, and the quintessential graveyard-block
card (surely it's going to appear somewhere in
the Innistrad block?). The fact that it can look
for any type of card means that it's endlessly
adaptable to any strategy from traditional
reanimator to Unearth Aggro to Burning
Vengeance.dec, and it's only going to get better
with time. If you're a fan of graveyard-related
strategies in casual settings in particular,
Buried Alive is probably the single most
important card you can own.
Welcome back readers as we continue reviewing
cards from the premium deck series Graveborn,
today’s card of the day has been a historical
player in reanimate decks. The ability to stock
your graveyard for future reanimation is quite
powerful. In standard extended and eternal it is
not legal but if it was I would suspect it would
help define a new archetype. In external formats
Entomb is the card of choice to set up your
reanimate along with various discard outlets
like careful study and putrid imp so this card
is left in the dust for competitiveness. In
casual and multiplayer is where this card shines
the most stocking graveyards is a risk free
proposition due to the small amount of people
who play graveyard hate in casual and
multiplayer making eat easy to set up your three
best creatures and then simply Animate Dead to
bring one back such as I don’t know Verdant
Force. In limited formats where this is legal it
is good for triggering threshold and can act as
reanimation tool as well. Overall a card that
was once super powerful has fallen out of
constructed favor but is perfect for casual
reanimator decks.
Today's card of the day is Buried Alive which
is a three mana Black spell that allows you to
put up to three creatures from your library into
your graveyard. This is very powerful in
the right deck as it can fuel reanimation and
cards that count or require other targets to be
in the graveyard. This is only held back
by requiring you to have cards in hand or play
to take advantage of the graveyard as it does
little aside from thinning your deck otherwise.
For Limited formats where this is available it
is somewhat unlikely to have both worthwhile
targets and an available effect that wants those
creatures in the graveyard. The Graveborn
deck itself is an exception, but in Booster and
Sealed tournaments there aren't many
opportunities for Buried Alive to shine.
It can thin out weaker creatures from your
library in a situation where you need something
specific, but that is minimal gain and not a
compelling reason to run this in your deck.
