Skeletal Swarming

Enchantment

Each Skeleton you control has trample, attacks each combat if able and gets +X/+0, where X is the number of other Skeletons you control.

At the beginning of your end step, create a tapped 1/1 black Skeleton creature token. If a creature died this turn (was put into the graveyard from the battlefield), create two of those tokens instead.

Tokens

• Skeleton 1/1 B

Legality

Format	Legality
1v1 Commander	Legal
Alchemy	Legal
Archenemy	Legal
Arena	Legal
Block Constructed	Legal
Canadian Highlander	Legal
Casual	Legal
Commander / EDH	Legal
Commander: Rule 0	Legal
Custom	Legal
Duel Commander	Legal
Gladiator	Legal
Highlander	Legal
Historic	Legal
Historic Brawl	Legal
Legacy	Legal
Leviathan	Legal
Limited	Legal
Modern	Legal
Oathbreaker	Legal
Pioneer	Legal
Planechase	Legal
Pre-release	Legal
Quest Magic	Legal
Standard	Legal
Standard Brawl	Legal
Vanguard	Legal
Vintage	Legal

Discussion (14)

legendofa on Official missing/incorrect card/token thread

4 months ago

Thee Case of the Stashed Skeleton Skeleton token might not have been added yet, but the 1/1 created by Death-Priest of Myrkul and Skeletal Swarming isn't an option in the playtester for me.

Skeleton 4/1 B and Skeleton Pirate 2/2 B show up, but Skeleton 1/1 B doesn't.

wallisface on Skeleton Control

9 months ago

The list at the moment looks a lot better than what was there before, so good work!

The current adjustments i’d make are:

• go down to just 2 copies of Skeletal Swarming. I’m not convinced you need a third. Between that and the 3 Grave Pact you have pretty good odds of putting your opponent in an awkward position.

• Fatal Push instead of Assassin's Trophy. Trophy is good but risks ramping your opponent into their win condition. If you play with sideboards, Trophy fits really well in there.

• i’d play Carrion Feeder or Viscera Seer over Vermin Gorger. Feeder helps be aggressive, while Seer helps you find your combo.

legendofa on Skeleton Control

9 months ago

Welcome to the club, Hundrumleek!

Bubbling Cauldron doesn't feel like it offers that much here. How many games has the life gain made a difference for you, where it actually bought you the time to win? Unless the life gain from Bubbling Cauldron regularly and reliably helps you win matches, I think that adding another source of pressure would work better.

Sticking with the "cheap sacrifice outlet" idea, life loss from Lampad of Death's Vigil or Vermin Gorger would offer another chance for Gutterbones to recur. Cabal Therapist or Nezumi Bone-Reader can force discards. While not Skeletons, these are "safe" and affordable options, if budget is a concern.

I also think you can safely cut one of the Skeletal Swarmings and add some more draw cards. Village Rites is another Corrupted Conviction, for example. This will help lower your mana curve and reduce early game dead draws. Since this deck is more control-y than ramp-y, getting SkeleSwarm before you can use it is just a dead draw.

Skeleton is my favorite creature type, and {B}{G} is my favorite color combination, so this sort of deck always gets my attention. Above all, have fun!

legendofa on Golgari Skelly Bobs

9 months ago

Welcome to the club, Nezkul! I always get excited when I see a Skeleton deck.

To offer some specifics on wallisface's tips, the planeswalkers don't offer too much to your plan. Garruk, Cursed Huntsman in particular doesn't pull his weight in this deck, at 6 mana for either a couple of expendable bodies or some removal and draw. (Don't rely on a planeswalker's ultimate; unless your deck is loaded with proliferate effects or very hard control, more often than not you're not going to reach it.) Lolth, Spider Queen is a little better, since your Skeletons can be easily reclaimed. Still, though, it's primary function is as a draw engine, so maybe Phyrexian Arena or some "burst" draw like Village Rites would work better.

For removal, Hero's Downfall is more flexible than Murder, and has been reprinted enough that it's very affordable. I don't see your creatures getting more than maybe 3-4 toughness on a good day, so Grim Contest might not be the best option. There's lots of pretty good removal at 2 mana, so that is a potential switch. Prey Upon needs either Skeletal Swarming or Death Baron to be fully useful, so switching it for Bone Shards might work better.

Persistent Specimen is a decent 1-mana skeleton, as is Rimebound Dead if you can find some Snow lands.

Above all, have fun!

legendofa on Remains of the Tuskmother

1 year ago

TypicalTimmy The {B}'s for Death Baron, Skeletal Swarming, Death-Priest of Myrkul, Dramatic Finale...

legendofa on SKELETONS!

1 year ago

As far as color goes, black is vital. Green is probably the next best, for Skeletal Swarming if nothing else. Red isn't critical, but offers options like Flameskull, Lightning Skelemental, and the new Gut, True Soul Zealot. Blue is weak; Demilich is okay in a spell-heavy build, and Skeleton Ship and Mortus Strider have good art. White has virtually nothing for skeletons specifically, but Brave the Sands and Mark of Asylum and that sort of thing is useful if you have a lot of regenerators.

PhocusEnergy on Battalion of Bones

2 years ago

Epicurus Thanks for the suggestions! I actually completely agree with you with the curve concerns here. With regard to the cheap sac/removal cards, I was running this with Eaten Alive and it worked quite well, but my issues with it were two-fold - I can only sac so many skeletons and bring them back so many times without burning a lot of mana, and that a lot of my sac synergies are in there to work with the triggers for Skeletal Swarming and Death-Priest of Myrkul, both of which trigger on any creature death, not just our own, which makes me want to keep our sac triggers and removal segregated to maximize our resource/death trigger ratio. As for bringing down the mana curve, I agree that that's likely a good move, I was testing with this more resilient, slower build, but I think replacing the Vraska's and two of the Hero's Downfall with Infernal Grasp or Heartless Act would be a great way to achieve this.

Epicurus on Battalion of Bones

2 years ago

This reminds me of a Golgari spirit tribal deck I had built long ago, because it has numerous synergies and the potential to blow up, but also has an atrocious mana curve and zero ramp.

I understand that you're not going for competitive here, but I do think that you could drop some copies of the higher cost cards to add some ramp, and maybe take out Vraska altogether.

Or, you could forget the ramp and add more removal instead. Mutual Destruction and Bone Shards would both be on theme, without hurting the budget the way that Modern staples like Abrupt Decay would. Doing so would lean the deck towards a Midrange strategy, thus minimizing the need for ramp and increasing the possibility of still being alive when you can afford to cast Skeletal Swarming.

Also, forgive me if either of those are not Pioneer legal. I'm no good at making suggestions for that format. +1 all the same.