The 50 Best Zombies in Magic Ranked

Last updated on October 22, 2025

Cryptbreaker | Illustration by Darek Zabrocki

Shambling. Noxious. Ghoulish. Putrid. Rotten. Murderous.

All words used to describe the zombies of Magic. What can I tell you about zombies that hasn’t been said already? The trope’s been done to death. No need to bring any old cliches back from the dead.

Hopefully, I’ve got the brains to guide you through the best of Magic’s walking dead. Sorry Rick Grimes; you’re gonna need more guns.

What Are Zombies in MTG?

Diregraf Colossus | Illustration by Vinent Proce

Zombie is a characteristic creature type in Magic, closely tied to black’s color identity and often associated with token generation and reanimation effects.

They’re the standard undead creatures of Magic, and if you’ve ever seen half of a George A. Romero zombie flick, you’ve already got a good idea of how they work: They swarm the battlefield, often with their iconic 2/2 Zombie tokens, and they excel at coming back from the graveyard.

There are over 600 of these braindead suckers, so when I say best zombies I’m narrowing it down to the absolute best. No room for Tier-2 filler here; these dead heads are leading the horde. And I know how people get about their zombies. If you don’t see classics like Relentless Dead, Grimgrin, Corpse-Born, Sedris, the Traitor King, or Phyrexian Delver here, it’s because I truly don’t believe they’re better than the 50 entries I’ve included.

Some sets stand out because they pack in a ton of zombies, especially the ones that pull in multiple planes of the Multiverse. A great example is Aetherdrift, where the zombie faction played a huge role and really boosted the tribe’s presence, so it's worth looking at those to uncover zombie hidden gems.

I’m heavily focusing on Commander here. Zombies have one of the most popular typal draws in EDH, and they’re rarely played for their zombieness in Constructed formats (though they’ve had their moments!).

#50. Refurbished Familiar

A recent Pauper staple for both Affinity and Jund Wildfire decks, Refurbished Familiar is a quirky zombie rat with artifact synergy. Thanks to affinity for artifacts, it often costs less than 4 mana, especially in lists packed with cheap artifacts like Ichor Wellspring or Chromatic Star. On top of that, it forces opponents to discard when it enters, and if they can’t, you get to draw. This mix of disruption and card advantage makes it a sneaky powerhouse that slots neatly into both artifact-heavy shells and discard-focused zombie builds.

#49. Vengeful Dead

Vengeful Dead serves as a break-off point between the best zombies and the next tier below, however close those might be. It’s one of those “don’t let the door hit you on the way out” types that keys off creatures dying. Oh, and it triggers off opponents’ zombies dying, too.

#48. Putrid Goblin

Putrid Goblin is a dorky little zombie, but never underestimate persist. There are tons of known infinite combos involving this mechanic, and Putrid Goblin’s the exact type of creature that might create an infinite combo you didn’t even know you had in your zombie deck.

#47. Balthor the Defiled

Mass reanimation’s a zombie mainstay, with Balthor the Defiled giving it to you at a reasonably low cost. Even in multicolored zombie decks, most of your creatures end up being black, so Balthor should nab almost everything. It affects your opponents too, so be careful of the timing. Thank goodness your minions get +1/+1 to break up the parity!

#46. Bone Miser

Bone Miser’s a strong discard payoff reminiscent of a reverse Waste Not. It’s not an auto-include for zombie decks, though zombie commanders like Varina, Lich Queen and Nekusar, the Mindrazer do enough discarding to justify its inclusion.

#45. Diregraf Colossus

Diregraf Colossus goes both wide and tall, usually coming down as a sizeable threat that spits out more zombies over time. All it’s doing is adding stats to the board, so I don’t consider this a “must-play” zombie.

#44. Cleaver Skaab

Cleaver Skaab’s one of the many stitched zombies from Innistrad. It’s slow, gangly, and telegraphed, but anyone who’s ever split a Gray Merchant of Asphodel with Saw in Half knows the potential behind this activated ability.

#43. Dreadhorde Arcanist

Dreadhorde Arcanist is a weird card to rank because it’s so much more powerful than most of these other zombies in the decks that support it, but it’s also operating on a different axis than most zombie creatures. It’s not likely to make it into your zombie typal decks, which aren’t red that often anyway, but this card puts in exceptional work in a Feather, the Redeemed deck, for example.

#42. Varina, Lich Queen

Varina, Lich Queen’s in an interesting position, because it’s usually the commander or bust. Nevinyrral, Urborg Tyrant is the only other place where it fits, but most alternative zombie commanders didn't gel with Varina’s color identity until Temmet, Naktamun's Will came about.

It’s an effective commander, though, and my personal zombie legend of choice. Adding white gives you access to absolute zombie bangers Corpse Knight and Wayward Servant, and the card filtering’s perfect for burying a ton of zombies in the graveyard for a mass reanimation effect.

#41. Zahur, Glory's Past

Zahur, Glory's Past uses the speed mechanic to reward you for pushing damage. Once you max it out, dying non-token creatures spawn Zombie tokens, making it feel a lot like Teysa, Orzhov Scion in action. Sacrifice outlets such as Viscera Seer or Carrion Feeder synergize perfectly here, letting you surveil while setting up the death triggers. Zahur shines in aggressive sacrifice decks that snowball once the engines start running.

#40. Zul Ashur, Lich Lord

Ward is already annoying, but Zul Ashur, Lich Lord goes further by letting you recast zombies from your graveyard. Tap it, target a zombie, and suddenly your deck feels like it has an endless supply of threats. This works incredibly well with cards like Cryptbreaker or Relentless Dead, giving you options turn after turn. Zul Ashur turns your graveyard into a second hand, making it an engine piece for grindy zombie decks.

#39. Unstoppable Slasher

One of the most successful threats for black midrange decks in Standard, Unstoppable Slasher is brutal in combat. With deathtouch and the ability to make an opponent lose half their life on a hit, it’s a ticking time bomb. Cards that grant evasion make sure it connect, like Whispersilk Cloak or Rogue's Passage, while its built-in recursion ensures it comes back even after dying. This makes the Slasher both resilient and terrifying, the kind of card that opponents have to respect from the moment it lands.

#38. Nekusar, the Mindrazer

Nekusar, the Mindrazer’s one of those early-day commanders that still sees plenty of play. You’re not building a zombie deck here, but the typical wheel-and-deal decks get a huge boost with Nekusar at the helm.

#37. Wight of the Reliquary

Sac a creature, get a land is a nice ability on a 2-drop, especially one that’ll sometimes attack as a 10/10. Wight of the Reliquary is at its best in landfall decks with tons of recursion, but if you’re going the zombie route with green cards, it’s an effective way to get Field of the Dead online.

#36. Hordewing Skaab

Hordewing Skaab has zombievasion, but I don’t find it all that necessary. These zombie decks can often get glutted in the 5-drop slot, and you also have Eternal Skylord and Geralf, Visionary Stitcher for a similar effect. The Skaab fills up your graveyard and loots towards better draws, so there’s an advantage to running this one.

#35. Midnight Reaper + Friends

There are actually a ton of these little card advantage dudes, including Midnight Reaper, Liliana's Standard Bearer, Headless Rider, Archghoul of Thraben, and I could probably go on but I’ve got some dead ones nipping at my heels. Take your pick; they’re all kind of interchangeably good.

#34. God-Eternal Kefnet

Three of the four God-Eternals make an appearance here. God-Eternal Rhonas didn’t make the cut because I don’t respect it, and Ilharg, the Raze-Boar is a pig and only a God-Eternal in spirit anyway. 

God-Eternal Kefnet isn’t doing “zombie stuff”, but it’s huge for its cost and the ability’s great for a spellslinger deck. You can set up extra turn loops with the right tools or use cards like Brainstorm to manipulate your topdeck and just get extra value from Kefnet along the way.

#33. Undead Augur

Undead Augur’s in that same category as the 3-drop card advantage creatures, but it’s a 2-drop, and is actually relevant for a certain black devotion wincon.

#32. Kraum, Ludevic’s Opus

I know I’m supposed to put Kraum, Ludevic's Opus near the top, but I’m not here to appease cEDH players. For the everyday casual folk like me, this is just a boring commander. Good enough, sure, but playing a partner just for extra colors isn’t that common in casual Commander.

#31. Sludge Titan

Sludge Titan is an awesome card advantage tool, though it’s high on the mana curve. I can’t help but wonder why this was printed in Ravnica: Clue Edition when it would’ve been more accessible in just about any other product.

#30. Carrion Feeder

Carrion Feeder and Viscera Seer are usually mentioned as a pair, but one’s a zombie and one’s not. Zombies put free sacrifice outlets to great use, and Carrion Feeder is all the more desirable because it shares the relevant creature type. It’s an excellent aristocrat, and all the more so when paired with mass reanimation like Zombie Apocalypse since you can sac your entire board before bringing everything back.

#29. The Marauders

This type of edict creature has been iterated on many times, with cards like Plaguecrafter and Demon's Disciple missing the list due to their typing. That leaves us with Fleshbag Marauder and Modern Horizons 3‘s Accursed Marauder, which tend to be some of the more annoying zombies when paired with reanimation effects.

#28. Custodi Lich

I like trying to sneak a few ways to get the monarch in my Commander decks. Just so happens Custodi Lich is a zombie that does that. I like the trade-off here; it’s not that hard to attack through a 4/2 and steal the monarch, but the Lich edicts someone if you ever manage to get it back.

#27. Stitcher’s Supplier

Self-milling six cards for 1 mana is obscene, and it’s exactly what graveyard decks want to be doing. Killing off Stitcher's Supplier for the second burst of cards isn’t hard to do; just feed it through a sac outlet or put it on blocking duty.

#26. Ravenous Rotbelly

Big fan of the bloated Fleshbag Marauder, which works more like a scaling board wipe than a traditional edict creature. Zombies tend to outnumber other non-typal decks, which makes Ravenous Rotbelly effective at narrowing the board in certain matchups.

#25. God-Eternal Bontu

God-Eternal Bontu cashes in on all your expendable bodies. Considering cards like Army of the Damned and Necrotic Hex just dump fodder on board like nothing, you’ll usually have plenty of cold bodies to feed to Bontu. You can sac lands and other permanents to increase your card draw, and Bontu’s a pretty scary onboard threat, too.

#24. Glissa Sunslayer

The third coming of Glissa is just an excellent card, synergies aside. Tons of flexible options on a body that’s hard to tussle with. Just to emphasize how annoying Glissa Sunslayer is in combat, you’d have to block this with Terastodon and all three Elephant tokens, and you’d still lose 15 total power and toughness in the exchange. We need to stop whoever at Wizards keeps putting deathtouch and first strike on the same cards.

#23. Rhet-Tomb Mystic

Rhet-Tomb Mystic is a small flier with a huge upside: It gives every creature card in your hand cycling. You can ditch clunky draws to keep digging for action, and enable graveyard payoffs like Lord of the Undead or Diregraf Colossus. Turning every dead card into fuel makes the Mystic a great early play, ensuring your hand stays live while filling the graveyard for later zombie synergies.

#22. Prophet of the Scarab

Nothing fuels your hand quite like Prophet of the Scarab. When it enters the battlefield, it draws cards equal to the number of zombies you control or in your graveyard, whichever is bigger. It scales perfectly with tokens from Endless Ranks of the Dead or a stocked graveyard off Buried Alive. Vigilance keeps it available for blocking, too, making the Prophet a steady value engine that rewards you for committing hard to the zombie plan.

#21. Kotis, Sibsig Champion

Kotis, Sibsig Champion thrives when your graveyard is full. It lets you cast creatures directly from the graveyard by exiling other cards, making it perfect with self-mill spells like Grisly Salvage or Satyr Wayfinder. Every time something enters from the graveyard, Kotis grows larger with +1/+1 counters, which means pairing it with recursive creatures like Gravecrawler quickly turns this Champion into a massive threat that can’t be ignored.

#20. Ratadrabik of Urborg

Ratadrabik of Urborg is an incredibly annoying legends-matter commander, or a member of the 99. Annoying because it’s hard to remove threats while this sits in play, but it is also annoying for the pilot, since it requires tracking a ton of different token copies of creatures with altered stats and colors.

#19. Master of Death

Someone realized they couldn’t make a zombified Squee, Goblin Nabob, since Squee’s immortal and all, so they made Master of Death instead. It’s the ideal card to sacrifice or discard, but the surveil effect means it’s also just fine to cast when you need to commit to the board.

#18. The Undying Zombies

I’m technically cheating on the 50-zombie count with these clusters, so bite me (unless you’re infected). Just like persist on Putrid Goblin, undying is easier to break than a porcelain vase in a Matrix movie. Geralf's Messenger and Hancock, Ghoulish Mayor have extra text beyond undying, but even Butcher Ghoul will do if undying loops are your primary gameplan.

#17. God-Eternal Oketra

My jaw dropped the first time I saw God-Eternal Oketra, and I’m still trying to pick it up. On top of making ridiculously large zombie tokens for just casting creature spells, undead Oketra’s also just a house on its own. Making this a giant double-striker in addition to its other abilities was not okay.

#16. Fallen Shinobi

The damage is usually done if Fallen Shinobi connects once in combat. You’re rolling the dice a bit as you would with any other random theft effect, but sneaking the first hit in is usually easy thanks to ninjutsu. If this excellent ninja ever connects beyond that, you’re likely in an overwhelming winning position.

#15. Poxwalkers

Poxwalkers is easier to recur than memories of that time you did that really embarrassing thing you thought you’d forgotten about. You know the one.

A semi-cheap deathtoucher that randomly comes back into play is awesome, and it charges you nothing extra for this added utility.

#14. Warren Soultrader

A free sacrifice outlet with three relevant creature types? Warren Soultrader must have been designed with some sort of infinite combo in mind, right? You could just use this as a sac outlet that nets Treasures, but my mind goes immediately to Gravecrawler and any third combo piece you can think of.

#13. Neheb, the Eternal

Neheb, the Eternal is a kill-on-sight red commander. It goes from 0 to 40 out of nowhere, generating absurd amounts of mana when paired with the right burn spells or attackers. It received a bit of an unintentional nerf recently. Post-combat main phase was changed to “second main phase” on a lot of cards, which means Neheb no longer makes extra mana after additional combats. Pour one out for this still busted commander.

#12. Mikaeus, the Unhallowed

Mikaeus, the Unhallowed gets its own slot separate from the other lords and undying creatures. It’s not that effective of a lord since it’s a 6-drop, but it’s a combo engine, a stax piece, and a recursion effect all in one, so it’s hard not to get your mana’s worth with Mikaeus.

#11. The Typal Lords

Zombies have an asinine number of lords, and this isn’t counting non-creatures like Liliana's Mastery. There’s definitely a hierarchy to these lords, but the utility effects are all secondary to the standard +1/+X boost you’re playing these for. These are zombie staples, and some of them happen to be stapled zombies.

#10. Undead Warchief

Ah, I snuck another lord in there, didn’t I? Well, +2/+1 is bigger than +1/+1, and by more than it seems. Undead Warchief is a little clunky, but the cost reduction’s enough to warrant its own special shout-out.

#9. Noxious Ghoul

More like ob-noxious, right fellas?

Seriously, Noxious Ghoul is like a persistent board wipe for anything that’s not a zombie. It turns cards like From Under the Floorboards into Plague Wind, which isn’t an exaggeration. Anyone not playing zombies needs to deal with Noxious Ghoul stat if they have any hopes of keeping a creature in play.

#8. Rot Hulk

Rot Hulk is both obscure and expensive (over $30 before its Mystery Booster 2 reprint!). It came as a throwaway in the relatively unknown Game Night product, but wow is this card amazing. It’s 7 mana for a 5/5 menace and the three best zombies from your graveyard. Casting it is great, but it also turns a single-target Reanimate effect into mass reanimation.

#7. Sidisi, Undead Vizier

I don’t typically jam a bunch of tutors in my decks, but I love a good thematic tutor. Sidisi, Undead Vizier is one such example that turns reanimation effects into Demonic Tutors. The goal is to exploit something smaller and keep the 4/6 deathtoucher intact, but sacrificing Sidisi to itself and grabbing a mass reanimation effect is always a solid gameplan, too.

#6. Kotis, the Fangkeeper

Few cards are as dangerous on contact as Kotis, the Fangkeeper. With indestructible baked in, it’s already hard to remove, but the real payoff comes when it hits a player. Exiling the top of an opponent’s library and letting you cast spells for free feels like a mini-Mind's Dilation every turn. Kotis pairs beautifully with cards that boost power like Death Baron, since the more damage it deals, the more cards you get to steal. That said, most players opt to run Kotis as a Voltron commander, suiting it up with cards like Rancor and Aqueous Form to guarantee steady damage and card advantage.

#5. Hashaton, Scarab's Fist

Discard decks love Hashaton, Scarab's Fist. Whenever you pitch a creature, this card lets you pay extra to create a 4/4 zombie copy of it, turning what would normally be a cost into free value. Cards like Putrid Imp or Careful Study flood the board with massive tokens. Hashaton transforms discard strategies into engines that overwhelm opponents with creatures too big to ignore.

#4. Gravecrawler

Gravecrawler is the quintessential recursion creature. You can put together loops with just the cards on this list, and if nothing else this is just an aggressively-statted body you can replay with ease if you need something to attack with.

#3. Cryptbreaker

Cryptbreaker would be such a sweet monster truck name.

This is zombie EDH 101. Put Cryptbreaker in your deck, profit. It’s a discard outlet, a draw engine, and a token generator all wrapped up in a 1-drop. I’d take this over Champion of the Perished any day.

#2. Wilhelt, the Rotcleaver

Wilhelt, the Rotcleaver peaked as the 11th most popular commander ever, though it's now slipped between #20-30. Let that be a lesson on just how popular typal commanders are. And for good reason! Wilhelt’s just a rock-solid value engine with its own competent Commander precon.

#1. Gray Merchant of Asphodel

Which mono-black card has ended the most games of Commander? Torment of Hailfire? Blood Artist? It’s hard to quantify an answer to that question, but I’d guess that Gray Merchant of Asphodel is in the top five black game-enders ever.

The devotion ability just isn’t reasonable in multiplayer environments, making this Theros all-star not just the best zombie in Magic, but one of the best black cards ever printed.

Best Zombie Payoffs

There are tons of zombie support cards, but I’ll focus on cards that aren’t actually zombie creatures.

Liliana's Devotee, Liliana's Mastery, Cursecloth Wrappings, Gisa, the Hellraiser, and Death-Priest of Myrkul are additional lord effects that aren’t zombie creatures themselves.

Amass is a mechanic that was originally linked to zombie creature tokens. Lord of the Rings updated the mechanic to make unique armies, but all the amass cards from War of the Spark generate zombie armies.

Innistrad: Midnight Hunt introduced the decayed mechanic, which appeared on tons of zombie tokens from that set. They’re not necessarily great creatures, but decayed zombies were attached to some great token generators like Poppet Stitcher and Jadar, Ghoulcaller of Nephalia. 

Embalm and eternalize are also zombie-centric mechanics. These exist on non-zombie creatures but allow you to bring those creatures back from the graveyard as zombie tokens.

Zombie Apocalypse, Liliana, Death's Majesty, and Necrotic Hex are zombie-centric board wipes.

The Scarab God, Gisa and Geralf, and Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet are alternative zombie commanders that aren’t zombies themselves.

Rooftop Storm is an incredible support piece that makes casting zombies completely free. Can you imagine if they made this effect for something like dragons? Oh, they did? Well, same goes for Necroduality.

Cards like Hashaton, Scarab's Fist weaponize discarding cards while reanimation engines like Zul Ashur, Lich Lord paired with other cards like Reanimate and Buried Alive keep the undead coming back for more.

Sacrifice outlets such as Carrion Feeder help turn deaths into real momentum, and token makers like Endless Ranks of the Dead or Army of the Damned show why going wide with zombies is one of the scariest strategies around.

Is Lord of the Undead a Zombie?

Yes, Lord of the Undead is a zombie, which has been clarified on most recent printings. It was originally printed with the obsolete “lord” creature type, which has since been errata’d. The rules text was also updated to only affect other zombies, so it doesn’t pump itself.

Wrap Up

Carrion Feeder | Illustration by Svetlin Velinov

Zombies are popular, powerful, and plentiful. They’re one of black’s “characteristic” creature types, which means they show up in just about every new MTG set. There have even been entire sets with zombies as a central theme, like most Innistrad sets or Amonkhet and Hour of Devastation. Zombie players are eating good in Magic. Brains, presumably.

I undoubtedly left off some of your favorites. I considered every zombie worth playing while researching, but I had to narrow the list down somehow, so I ended up trimming a lot of dead weight. If you feel like I left off a must-play zombie, or valued something too high, let me know in the comments below or over in the Draftsim Discord.

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