Animate Dead is one of those cards players keep asking about. Here is, in plain words, what its official text says, the rulings published by Wizards of the Coast, and the combos players actually run.
Official card text
Enchant creature card in a graveyard When this Aura enters, if it's on the battlefield, it loses "enchant creature card in a graveyard" and gains "enchant creature put onto the battlefield with this Aura." Return enchanted creature card to the battlefield under your control and attach this Aura to it. When this Aura leaves the battlefield, that creature's controller sacrifices it. Enchanted creature gets -1/-0.
Complete guide
Animate Dead is one of the most iconic and complex reanimation spells in Magic: The Gathering history. This black enchantment allows you to pluck a fallen warrior from the graveyard and bring it back to your side of the battlefield, albeit with a slight penalty to its strength.
How the Card Functions
Animate Dead functions as an Aura with a unique two-step process. When you cast it, you target a creature card in a graveyard. Once it enters the battlefield, it triggers an ability that changes its own 'enchant' requirement. It then moves the targeted creature card from the graveyard to the battlefield under your control and re-attaches itself to that creature as a permanent. From that point on, the creature suffers -1/-0 to its power and is tied to the life of the enchantment.
Step-by-Step Resolution
First, you cast Animate Dead targeting a creature card in a graveyard. If it successfully enters the battlefield, its triggered ability goes on the stack. As that ability resolves, Animate Dead loses its ability to enchant cards in graveyards and gains a new ability to enchant the specific creature it is about to revive. The creature is then placed onto the battlefield, and Animate Dead attaches to it. If Animate Dead is destroyed or leaves the battlefield at any point after this, you must sacrifice the creature it brought back.
Common Mistakes and Rulings
One frequent point of confusion involves protection and shroud. Because shroud only functions on the battlefield, you can target a creature card with shroud in a graveyard with Animate Dead. However, if a creature has protection from black, Animate Dead will not be able to stay attached once the creature enters the battlefield. In that case, Animate Dead will go to the graveyard due to state-based actions, which will immediately trigger the requirement for you to sacrifice that creature.
Strategic Timing
Since Animate Dead costs only two mana, it is best played early to cheat high-cost threats into play. However, because it is an Aura that remains on the battlefield, it is vulnerable to enchantment removal like Disenchant. If your opponent destroys Animate Dead in response to its enter-the-battlefield trigger, the creature card stays in the graveyard and is not revived.
Interaction examples
You cast Animate Dead targeting a creature card in your graveyard. It enters the battlefield. The trigger resolves, putting the creature onto the battlefield under your control and attaching Animate Dead to it. The creature now has -1/-0. If Animate Dead is later destroyed, you sacrifice the creature.
You target a creature card that has 'Protection from Black' in your graveyard. Animate Dead enters and brings the creature to the battlefield. Because the creature has protection from black, Animate Dead cannot legally enchant it and is put into the graveyard. This triggers Animate Dead's second ability, forcing you to sacrifice the creature immediately.
You cast Animate Dead targeting a creature card. It enters the battlefield, and its trigger goes on the stack. If an opponent destroys Animate Dead before the trigger resolves, the ability checks if Animate Dead is still on the battlefield. Since it is not, the creature card remains in the graveyard and is not returned to the battlefield.
Guide written with AI from the official text and rulings. Official English text prevails.
How it works : Animate Dead
Original English text — Wizards of the Coast / Scryfall
- #1· Wizards of the Coast
If Animate Dead isn't on the battlefield as its triggered ability resolves, none of its effects happen. The creature card won't be returned to the battlefield.
No other card is named in this ruling.
- #2· Wizards of the Coast
Animate Dead is an Aura, albeit with an unusual enchant ability. You target a creature card in a graveyard when you cast it. It enters the battlefield attached to that card. Then it returns that card to the battlefield, and attaches itself to the card again (since the card is a new object on the battlefield). Animate Dead itself never moves into a graveyard during this process.
No other card is named in this ruling.
- #3· Wizards of the Coast
Once the creature is returned to the battlefield, Animate Dead can't be attached to anything other than it (unless Animate Dead somehow manages to put a different creature onto the battlefield). Attempting to move Animate Dead to another creature won't work.
No other card is named in this ruling.
- #4· Wizards of the Coast
Abilities such as shroud and protection function only on the battlefield unless otherwise specified. A creature card with shroud may be targeted by Animate Dead, and Animate Dead will become attached to the creature that enters the battlefield.
No other card is named in this ruling.
- #5· Wizards of the Coast
If the creature put onto the battlefield has protection from black—or if the creature can't legally be enchanted by Animate Dead for another reason—Animate Dead won't be able to attach to it. It will be put into the graveyard as a state-based action, causing its delayed triggered ability to trigger. When the trigger resolves, if the creature's still on the battlefield, its controller will sacrifice it.
No other card is named in this ruling.
Popular combos
Real combos played by the community, sorted by popularity.
Abdel Adrian, Gorion's Ward + Animate Dead
- 1Cast Animate Dead by paying
, returning Abdel Adrian from your graveyard to the battlefield, and attaching Animate Dead to it. - 2Abdel Adrian enters the battlefield, exiling Animate Dead until Abdel Adrian leaves the battlefield, and creating a 1/1 Soldier creature token.
- 3Animate Dead triggers, causing you to sacrifice Abdel Adrian.
- 4Animate Dead returns to the battlefield, returning Abdel Adrian from your graveyard to the battlefield, and attaching Animate Dead to it.
- 5Repeat from step 2.
Worldgorger Dragon + Animate Dead
- 1Cast Animate Dead by paying .
- 2Animate Dead enters the battlefield, returning Worldgorger Dragon from your graveyard to the battlefield attached with Animate Dead.
- 3Worldgorger Dragon enters the battlefield, exiling all other permanents you control.
- 4Animate Dead triggers, sacrificing Worldgorger Dragon.
- 5Worldgorger Dragon leaves the battlefield, returning all permanents exiled by it to the battlefield.
- 6Animate Dead enters the battlefield, returning Worldgorger Dragon from your graveyard to the battlefield attached with Animate Dead.
- 7Holding priority, activate all lands you control by tapping those, adding manas of any colors those lands can produce.
- 8Repeat.
Leonin Relic-Warder + Animate Dead
- 1Cast Animate Dead by paying , returning Leonin Relic-Warder from your graveyard to the battlefield, and attaching Animate Dead to it.
- 2Leonin Relic-Warder enters the battlefield, exiling Animate Dead.
- 3Animate Dead leaves the battlefield, causing you to sacrifice Leonin Relic-Warder.
- 4Leonin Relic-Warder leaves the battlefield, returning Animate Dead from exile to the battlefield.
- 5Animate Dead enters the battlefield, returning Leonin Relic-Warder from your graveyard to the battlefield, and attaching Animate Dead to it.
- 6Repeat from step 3.
Sun Titan + Karmic Guide + Animate Dead + Altar of Dementia
- 1Cast Sun Titan.
- 2Sun Titan enters the battlefield, returning Animate Dead from your graveyard to the battlefield.
- 3With the Animate Dead trigger on the stack, Activate Altar of Dementia, sacrificing Sun Titan to mill target player six.
- 4Resolve the Animate Dead trigger, causing it to become an Aura with "enchant creature put onto the battlefield with Animate Dead" and returning Karmic Guide from your graveyard to the battlefield.
- 5Animate Dead is put into your graveyard due to state based actions, as it cannot attach to a creature with protection from black.
- 6Animate Dead triggers, causing you to sacrifice Karmic Guide.
- 7Karmic Guide's enter the battlefield triggers.
- 8Resolve Karmic Guide's enter the battlefield trigger returning Sun Titan from your graveyard to the battlefield.
Sun Titan + Karmic Guide + Animate Dead + Ashnod's Altar
- 1Cast Sun Titan.
- 2Sun Titan enters the battlefield, returning Animate Dead from your graveyard to the battlefield.
- 3With the Animate Dead trigger on the stack, Activate Ashnod's Altar, sacrificing Sun Titan to add
. - 4Resolve the Animate Dead trigger, causing it to become an Aura with "enchant creature put onto the battlefield with Animate Dead" and returning Karmic Guide from your graveyard to the battlefield.
- 5Animate Dead is put into your graveyard due to state based actions, as it cannot attach to a creature with protection from black.
- 6Animate Dead triggers, causing you to sacrifice Karmic Guide.
- 7Karmic Guide's enter the battlefield triggers.
- 8Resolve Karmic Guide's enter the battlefield trigger returning Sun Titan from your graveyard to the battlefield.
K'rrik, Son of Yawgmoth + Buried Alive + Animate Dead + Chainer, Dementia Master
- 1Cast Buried Alive by paying
and two life, searching for Chainer, Viscera Seer, and Gray Merchant of Asphodel. - 2Cast Animate Dead by paying and two life.
- 3Animate Dead enters the battlefield, returning Chainer onto the battlefield attached with Animate Dead.
- 4Activate Chainer by paying nine life, returning Viscera Seer from your graveyard to the battlefield as a Nightmare in addition to its other creature types.
- 5Activate Chainer by paying nine life, returning Gray Merchant of Asphodel from your graveyard to the battlefield as a Nightmare in addition to its other creature types.
- 6Gray Merchant of Asphodel enters the battlefield, causing each opponent to lose life equal to your devotion to black and causing you to gain life equal to the amount of life lost this way.
- 7Activate Viscera Seer by sacrificing Gray Merchant of Asphodel, scrying 1.
- 8Repeat from step 5.
Kederekt Leviathan + Animate Dead
- 1Cast Animate Dead by paying .
- 2Animate Dead enters the battlefield, returning Kederekt Leviathan from your graveyard to the battlefield attached with Animate Dead.
- 3Kederekt Leviathan triggers, returning all nonland permanents to their owner's hands.
- 4Animate Dead triggers, causing you to sacrifice Kederekt Leviathan.
- 5Repeat each turn.
Sun Titan + Karmic Guide + Animate Dead + Phyrexian Altar
- 1Cast Sun Titan.
- 2Sun Titan enters the battlefield, returning Animate Dead from your graveyard to the battlefield.
- 3With the Animate Dead trigger on the stack, Activate Phyrexian Altar, sacrificing Sun Titan to add a mana of any color.
- 4Resolve the Animate Dead trigger, causing it to become an Aura with "enchant creature put onto the battlefield with Animate Dead" and returning Karmic Guide from your graveyard to the battlefield.
- 5Animate Dead is put into your graveyard due to state based actions, as it cannot attach to a creature with protection from black.
- 6Animate Dead triggers, causing you to sacrifice Karmic Guide.
- 7Karmic Guide's enter the battlefield triggers.
- 8Resolve Karmic Guide's enter the battlefield trigger returning Sun Titan from your graveyard to the battlefield.
Legal formats
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Meta decks with Animate Dead
No archived Top 8 deck with this card yet.