The Undying: Deadlier the second time around

The Undying: Deadlier the second time around

By:

Virgilio F. De leon Jr.

Since Innistrad is a plane that has featured a lot of Graveyard shenanigans we expected more of the same in the next expansion and Wizards of the coast has not failed to deliver in that department. Enter the Undying Mechanic, Simply put the mechanic allows a creature to come back to the battlefield after it dies, provided that it doesn’t have a +1/+1 counter on it. If it does come back then it gets +1+1. This means that death really has a weak hold on the creatures of Innistrad. The biggest threat so far in the previews is the mythical rare insect called Vorapede. At the cost of 3 Green mana and 2 Colorless it isn’t that hard to cast especially in a dedicated mono green ramp deck. The stats clock in at 5/6; it has vigilance and trample plus the all dangerous Undying Mechanic. Players must be wary that this monstrosity only gets bigger after you kill it. It comes to defend or beat you down a second time and you might not survive from it. It is good with other Innistrad mechanics like Morbid and with other undying creatures. I would really love to have Sheoldred on the Battle field returning this insect again and again for the major pain it can cause to opposing players. Life points aren’t all that high when it come rampaging around on turn 4 or 5. You can be rest assured that people will be packing in lots of removal to make sure this thing doesn’t come back. But if you do the math there are basically only 2 instant killers that will do the trick in standard. One is go for the Throat and Doom blade. If you pack in 8 of these it won’t be too bad but consider that there are other creatures that have the undying mechanic coming in for the 2^nd expansion like Strangle root geist and Mikaeus the unhallowed and whatever else lies there yet unrevealed. The Undying mechanic will cause a lot of headaches in tournaments for years to come. It’s basically the meaner cousin of persist and it has a lot of potential in sealed formats.