Graveyard Overdrive Upgrade Guide - Modern Horizons 3

June 13, 2024 by Andy Zupke

Hey friends! It’s time for our final precon guide for Modern Horizons 3. This time we’re digging around to see if we can give Graveyard Overdrive a bit more power and consistency. In case you missed it, go check out my review for the deck, where we looked at what’s in it and how to play it.

I gave this deck an average review. It has some fun tools in it, but lacks focus and card draw. Let's fix it.

What’s in the Original Deck?

Graveyard Overdrive is black, red, and green, and led by Disa the Restless, a 5/6 Human Scout that gives us a Tarmogoyf token when we hit opponents with combat damage. And whenever a Lhurgoyf card goes to the grave from anywhere other than the battlefield, we can put it onto the field instead.

The backup commander is Coram, the Undertaker, a 0/5 Human Warrior that gets +X/+0, where X is the greatest power among creatures in graveyards. When he attacks, each player mills a card, and you can play up to one land and up to one spell per turn among cards milled that turn.

Here’s the original deck list:

Commander (1)

1 Disa the Restless

Creatures (31)

Sorceries (7)

Artifacts (9)

Instants (7)

Enchantments (3)

Planeswalkers (3)

Lands (39)

Buy this decklist from Card Kingdom
Buy this decklist from TCGplayer
View this decklist on Archidekt

What Budget Cards Can We Add to Graveyard Overdrive?

As always, we’ll break our upgrades up into two parts, one for budget cards ($5 or less per card) and one for non-budget.

First, let’s get more Lhurgoyfs in this Lhurgoyf deck, yeah? We’ll add Terravore, whose p/t is equal to the number of lands in graveyards, and a couple of changelings, Taurean Mauler and Changeling Outcast. The Outcast is especially good with Disa’s combat damage trigger.

Let’s get some more card draw. Lord Windgrace is right at home here to get us drawing and discarding and bringing back lands as a ramp source. Ohran Frostfang draws us cards when our creatures connect, which is also what Disa wants. Grenzo, Havoc Raiser gets us card advantage when we hit opponents by letting us play stuff from the top of their libraries. Ripples of Undeath, from the main MH3 set, mills us for three every turn, then we can pay a mana and three life to get one of those cards to hand. And Fauna Shaman lets us discard a creature (preferably a Lhurgoyf) to go fetch another creature from our library.

Ripples of Undeath isn’t the only extra mill we’re adding. I’m also throwing in Skull Prophet and Old Rutstein. But if milling Lhurgoyfs is too slow, how about we just fetch three of them with one card? Buried Alive accomplishes that task. With Disa out, Buried Alive reads “search your library for three Lhurgoyf creatures and put them onto the battlefield.”

But what if we want all of our creatures to jump back to life when they hit the battlefield? For that we have Ashes of the Fallen and Conspiracy. Both of these cards will make sure that any creature entering our graveyard will count as a Lhurgoyf, so if they go there from our hand or library, Disa will snatch them into play.

But what if we want to dump all of our creatures onto the battlefield from the library? Well, this is where things get a little risky. With either Ashes of the Fallen or Conspiracy on the board (and Lhurgoyf as the named creature type), you cast Morality Shift. That will switch your library and graveyard, and all those creatures that just entered your graveyard will now enter the battlefield.

And last, with everything leaving the graveyard, let’s throw in Tormod, the Desecrator for some extra token value.

Here are the cards we’re burying for good: Bituminous Blast, Bloodbraid Challenger, Bloodbraid Elf, Chandra’s Ignition, Exterminator Magmarch, Garruk, Apex Predator, Grapple with the Past, Infested Thrinax, Kolaghan’s Command, Raging Ravine, Sawhorn Nemesis, Siege-Gang Lieutenant, Talisman of Impulse, Tempt with Mayhem, Yavimaya Elder

Here’s our budget upgraded list:

Commander (1)

1 Disa the Restless

Creatures (33)

Artifacts (9)

Enchantments (5)

Sorceries (8)

Instants (3)

Planeswalkers (3)

Lands (38)

Buy this decklist from Card Kingdom
Buy this decklist from TCGplayer
View this decklist on Archidekt

And a few more cheap cards to consider: Bladewing, Deathless Tyrant, Chainer, Nightmare Adept, Splinterfright, Titanoth Rex, Troll of Khazad-dum, Valakut Exploration

What Are Some Good Expensive Cards We Can Add to Graveyard Overdrive?

I mean, obviously we gotta add Tarmogoyf, right? And with Brawn and Anger in the deck, I thought Filth deserved an inclusion. After all, giving all of our creatures swampwalk will certainly help us hit some opponents more easily.

Speaking of hitting opponents, let’s throw in Gix, Yawgmoth Praetor, who lets us turn combat hits into card draw. His activated ability could potentially come in handy too. And why not add Professional Face-Breaker for some Treasure tokens and impulse draw?

For even more card draw, we have Greater Good. This is a great use for our Tarmogoyf tokens, and another way for us to sneak Lhurgoyfs into the grave.

I’m really digging Six from the main MH3 set, and I think it works really well here. It gives us both mill and recursion effects. And something to do with extra lands in hand.

The deck likes to have lands in the yard, so let’s throw in a couple cards that can be useful as they’re heading there. Boseiju, Who Endures and Takenuma, Abandoned Mire both have great effects, but Takenuma is especially on theme for us.

Last we’ve got Parallel Lives to double all our tokens, and Terror of the Peaks to make all our creatures deal some damage when they enter.

We’ll give these cards a rest: Forgotten Cave, Tranquil Thicket, Talisman of Indulgence, Grist, the Hunger Tide, Maelstrom Pulse, Riveteers Charm, Terravore, Maskwood Nexus, Syphon Mind, Izoni, Thousand-Eyed

Here’s the non-budget upgraded list:

Commander (1)

1 Disa the Restless

Sorceries (6)

Creatures (37)

Instants (2)

1 Grisly Salvage
1 Terminate

Enchantments (7)

Artifacts (7)

Planeswalkers (2)

Lands (38)

Buy this decklist from Card Kingdom
Buy this decklist from TCGplayer
View this decklist on Archidekt

And a few more cards to consider: Invasion of Ikoria, Doubling Season, Incarnation Technique

Modern Commander Horizons Legends

That’s it for our final precon guide for Modern Horizons 3. With this upgrade, we’ve added more power to the deck, better ways to cheat out Lhurgoyfs, and stronger ways to win.

But what do you think? Did I make this deck better? Any good cards I missed? What’s the best precon of this set? Sound off in the comments below. And make sure to keep your eyes peeled for more precon content, here on EDHREC.

Andy Zupke

Andy's been playing Magic on and off since Fallen Empires. He loves to travel, drink, eat, and spend time with family and friends.

EDHREC Code of Conduct

Your opinions are welcome. We love hearing what you think about Magic! We ask that you are always respectful when commenting. Please keep in mind how your comments could be interpreted by others. Personal attacks on our writers or other commenters will not be tolerated. Your comments may be removed if your language could be interpreted as aggressive or disrespectful. You may also be banned from writing further comments.