Throughout its history Magic
the Gathering has featured a wide variety of different sorts of monsters for
players to summon from their decks. As of the release of Throne of Eldraine,
at least according to the wiki, there are 275 different creature types in the
game. Some of these creature types such as goblins, zombies, elves, and merfolk have received plentiful support and have
defined tribal decks. Other tribes have received more scattered representation
and do not have as clearly established identities. This column is dedicated to
creatures of the latter sort.
Skeletons
Living eternally within the shadow of zombies, their fellow undead, who are significantly more populous and better
supported, there are currently 51 skeletons in Magic. Skeletons have been
a part of the game from the very beginning. Drudge Skeletons was printed back in Alpha, albeit with the creature
type Skeletons rather than Skeleton. The
S would later be errated away when the card was reprinted in 6th Edition
in April 1999. Most skeletons are printed in black, although there are two
exceptions. The green Golgari Grave-Troll and the red Viashino Skeleton.
Even these two exceptions are fringe cases. Viashino Skeleton requires black mana for its
activated ability, and Golgari Grave-troll is
flavourfully part of the black/green Golgari Swarm. There are skeletons in
blue/black, red/black, green/black and a single white/black skeleton, namely Sentry of the Underworld from Theros.
Mechanically, as is unsurprising for creatures based upon
the reanimated bones of the deceased, skeletons are focused on returning from death
to the battlefield. For much of Magic’s history this was represented by giving
skeletons the Regenerate mechanic. 32 of the games
51 skeletons (just over 60%) have Regenerate, prior to the keyword action being
discontinued after Oath of the Gatewatch. Despite this Drudge Sentinel from Dominaria has an ability which is
identical to regenerate, albeit not bearing the name. This
proves that the Regenerate mechanic, like the creatures it’s printed on, is
able to return from the dead
In the aftermath of Regenerate's retirement, and on a handful of cards prior to this, other means were found
of reflecting skeleton's ability to return from the grave. Sanitarium Skeleton printed in Shadow’s Over Innistrad, the
set immediately following Regenerate’s retirement,
returns from the graveyard to the players hand for a small cost. Reassembling Skeleton, first printed in the 2011 Core Set, takes this a step further and returns directly to play. Born of the Gods Champion of Stray Souls places itself on top of
the deck. One of the more creative interpretations of the ability of
skeleton’s to return from the grave comes from M19’s Bone Dragon. Bone Dragon returns from the
graveyard to the battlefield by exiling seven other cards from the graveyard. Reflecting how the undead dragon is stitched together from the bones of several
other deceased creatures.
Skeletons have received a lord, albeit one that is not
actually a skeleton. Death Baron, printed in M19, is a zombie which grants +1/+1 to all of its controller's skeletons and zombies. Paragon of Open Graves is a skeleton who grants +1/+1 to all of its controllers black
creatures controlled by the player, thus buffing every skeleton apart from the Viashino
and Grave-troll mentioned above. Beyond these two lords,
however, though skeletons share the mechanical theme of regenerating and
returning from the dead, skeleton decks are, at least with the current level of
support, doomed to be jank-tier for all eternity. The overabundance of
regenerating skeletons ensures that the player’s graveyard will be left
relatively empty as the game progresses. This works against cards such as Golgari Grave-troll and
Bone Dragon, who rely upon the graveyard filling up to reach their maximum potential.
Arbitrary Grades
Flavour: B
Wizards of the Coast captures well the flavour of skeletons
being a repeatedly reanimating horde of individually weak mooks. Regenerate reflects both how Skeletons are
the resurrected remains of the deceased, and how they are capable of
reassembling themselves once they are slain anew. Cards which return from the graveyard, such as Reassembling Skeleton and Gutterbones,
also effectively capture the persistent nature of these undying annoyances.
Viability: D
As mentioned above, skeleton decks are somewhat
non-synergistic. Some skeletons rely on cards in the graveyard, whilst others regenerate and thus remain on the battlefield. Death Baron and Paragon of Open Graves provide support which prevents the archetype from being completely terrible. In M19 Limited, Skeleton Archer’s ability to ping creatures for 1 damage,
coupled with Death Baron granting it Deathtouch, was an effective combo. This little synergy is not so viable as to
be playable in Constructed however.
Best and Worst Cards: Curiously the best and worst skeletons are the two
aforementioned non-black ones. Viashino Skeleton is an overcosted 4 mana 2/1,
whose regenerate ability comes with the downside of needing to discard a card. Golgari Grave-troll, meanwhile, as the centerpiece
of the busted Dredge archetype is so viable as to be banned in Modern and restricted in Vintage.
