Unusual Tribes: Skeletons

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 6^th 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.