Image courtesy of Scryfall.com
Decaying Soil: Planeswalker Connections You Might Have Missed
Black mana has always flirted with the graveyard as a home base, and Decaying Soil embodies that old-school obsession with what lies beneath. This Odyssey-era enchantment (a rare gem in a set famous for its threshold and graveyard themes) invites you to play the long game: exile from the graveyard each upkeep, and if the graveyard becomes seven-plus, a backdoor recursion trick appears whenever a non-token creature lands in the graveyard. It’s not just a card—it's a vibe. 🧙♂️🔥 In the broader tapestry of Magic lore, that vibe threads the necromancer motifs you associate with planeswalkers who flirt with the afterlife, from Liliana’s gravity-driven schemes to the elder powers that threaten to pull a whole empire into a shadowy reassembly. This is how a two-mana black enchantment grows from a quirky construct into a narrative doorway for planeswalker drama. 💎
In terms of gameplay, Decaying Soil is a window into how thresholds used to shape deckbuilding before the modern era’s more streamlined self-mamagers. The requirement of seven cards in the graveyard sets a soft clock on the game’s pace, encouraging you to feed the yard with a steady procession of bodies, then flip the switch on a late-game recursion line. The ability to pay {1} to rediscover a creature that has just fallen to the graveyard—provided you’ve kept the graveyard stacked—creates a mini-Delta between “value now” and “value later.” It’s a classic black play pattern: trade tempo for inevitability. And yes, the flavor text—an unspoken oath between necromancers and the dark soil—lands with a satisfying thud as you watch a favored creature claw its way back to your hand. 🪦⚔️
Planeswalker connections and cameos you might have missed
While Decaying Soil predates the modern explosion of planeswalkers in every color, its theme of graveyard control resonates with the long arc of mage-lords who stride between planes and influence mortals and phantoms alike. Think of Liliana as the iconic black planeswalker whose necromantic instincts align with this enchantment’s core idea: manipulate the dead to shape the battlefield. In the broader multiverse, other planeswalkers who lean into graveyard leverage—Nicol Bolas’s scheming, for instance, or the Gatewatch-era manipulations—echo the same bitter satisfaction you get when a revenant returns at the moment you needed it most. Decaying Soil doesn’t summon a planeswalker on the battlefield, but it invites you to stage a quiet cameo party: a graveyard that’s getting too crowded, a single mana paid to twist a moment, and the return of a crucial creature to pressure an opponent who thought they’d stabilized. 🧙♂️💎
From a lore perspective, the card’s Odyssean roots anchor a tradition: the dead are not inert leftovers but resources to be repurposed in service of a grander, darker plan. Odyssey’s world—where necromancy and threshold collide—provides a delicious backdrop for any planeswalker arc that bends fate, memory, and the battlefield in black’s favor. If you imagine a future set where a planeswalker uses the same graveyard mechanics to fetch back a legendary creature, you’re only tapping into the same wellspring of thematic synergy that Decaying Soil taps today. 🎨🪄
Practical play notes for Vintage vibes and Legacy edge
Decaying Soil shines in formats that tolerate longer games and graveyard interaction. In Legacy, where attrition battles and recursion are common, this enchantment can act as a strategic accelerant—exiling from the yard each upkeep to sculpt seven or more cards, then unlocking a nostalgic pay-one to retrieve a critical threat or answer. The card’s color identity is black, and its mana cost of {1}{B}{B} keeps it affordable if you’re building around resilient tutors, reanimation threats, or a line that leverages the graveyard as a second hand. The thresholds aren’t just a number; they’re a signal that your deck intends to outlast opponents by turning graveyard density into incremental advantage. And because the card is rare, you’ll find that its fantasy appeal matches its collector appeal; foil versions invite nostalgia for the era when Magic cards wore darker borders and heavier certainties about how the graveyard would behave. 🧠🧪
When integrating Decaying Soil into a deck, consider pairing it with creatures and spells that enjoy or require the graveyard to do work. Cards that fill the yard en masse, or that can leverage a returned creature for immediate impact, create a synergy loop that can outgrind adversaries before they can pivot away from your plan. The threshold line makes this more than a one-note engine: it rewards deliberate, patient play, and the payoff—returning a key creature to hand—can swing races late in the game. And if you’re a collector who loves the Odyssey aesthetic, this card is a timeless reminder of how early 2000s design balanced flavor, mechanics, and a pinch of grim humor. 🧙♂️⚡
Beyond the table, Decaying Soil is a conversation piece for fans who cherish the cross-pollination of planeswalker lore and graveyard strategy. It’s easy to imagine a future feature where a planeswalker uses a similar grease-stained trick to reanimate a fallen ally from the yard, binding the two concepts in a single memorable moment. Until that moment arrives, Decaying Soil remains a tactile reminder of how the old discipline of threshold could coexist with the newer, flashier planeswalker era—each echoing the other in a chorus of dark enchantments and graveyard grit. 🎲💎
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Decaying Soil
At the beginning of your upkeep, exile a card from your graveyard.
Threshold — As long as seven or more cards are in your graveyard, this enchantment has "Whenever a nontoken creature is put into your graveyard from the battlefield, you may pay {1}. If you do, return that card to your hand."
ID: f2bea0ec-52e0-4f45-a445-8805dc6ed596
Oracle ID: 3a58d68c-7683-4543-a929-8ef12641a564
Multiverse IDs: 29955
TCGPlayer ID: 9402
Cardmarket ID: 2539
Colors: B
Color Identity: B
Keywords: Threshold
Rarity: Rare
Released: 2001-10-01
Artist: Don Hazeltine
Frame: 1997
Border: black
EDHRec Rank: 23002
Penny Rank: 15741
Set: Odyssey (ody)
Collector #: 127
Legalities
- Standard — not_legal
- Future — not_legal
- Historic — not_legal
- Timeless — not_legal
- Gladiator — not_legal
- Pioneer — not_legal
- Modern — not_legal
- Legacy — legal
- Pauper — not_legal
- Vintage — legal
- Penny — legal
- Commander — legal
- Oathbreaker — legal
- Standardbrawl — not_legal
- Brawl — not_legal
- Alchemy — not_legal
- Paupercommander — not_legal
- Duel — legal
- Oldschool — not_legal
- Premodern — legal
- Predh — legal
Prices
- USD: 0.51
- USD_FOIL: 5.73
- EUR: 0.41
- EUR_FOIL: 5.41
- TIX: 0.02
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