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Moxonomy

Tombstone Stairwell

World Enchantment2 generic manaBlack manaBlack mana

A symmetry engine built on a graveyard the whole table is feeding. The Zombie production scales off creature cards in every player's graveyard, not just yours, which turns this from a personal army into a board-state referendum: whoever has buried the most bodies suddenly commands the largest horde, and the count refreshes every upkeep. The World designation matters as much as the text. Only one Tombstone Stairwell can be in play at once, so a second copy supplants the first rather than stacking, a use of the World rule to keep a permanent that would otherwise compound out of control to a single instance. Two restrictions keep the rate honest. Cumulative upkeep means the army gets more expensive every turn you keep it, so the engine has a built-in clock you pay in mana. And the end-step wipe (plus the destroy-all trigger when the enchantment leaves) means the Tombspawn are creatures of the upkeep only: they swing or block, then evaporate before they can be permanently leveraged. The haste exists precisely because the tokens never survive to a second turn, so they have to be useful the moment they appear. The design is a closed loop of give-and-take: free bodies, paid back with escalating mana and erased every end step, all of it gated behind a permanent that allows no duplicates. It reads like a token generator; it behaves like a turn-by-turn lease on an army you can never quite own.

Tombstone Stairwell (mir)
MIR · #149rare
Pricing
Normal: $64.31
Foil:
Oracle Text

Rules text

Cumulative upkeep 1 generic manaBlack mana (At the beginning of your upkeep, put an age counter on this permanent, then sacrifice it unless you pay its upkeep cost for each age counter on it.) At the beginning of each upkeep, if this enchantment is on the battlefield, each player creates a 2/2 black Zombie creature token with haste named Tombspawn for each creature card in their graveyard. At the beginning of each end step and when this enchantment leaves the battlefield, destroy all tokens created with this enchantment. They can't be regenerated.
Legalities

Format Status

Standard
N/A
Pioneer
N/A
Modern
N/A
Legacy
Legal
Vintage
Legal
Commander
Legal
Pauper
N/A
Brawl
N/A
Historic
N/A
Alchemy
N/A
Timeless
N/A
Standard Brawl
N/A
More formats
Old School
N/A
Premodern
Legal
PreDH
Legal
Pauper Commander
N/A
Oathbreaker
Legal
Gladiator
N/A
Penny Dreadful
N/A
Duel Commander
Legal
Future Standard
N/A
COMPETITIVEBRAWL
N/A
TLR
N/A
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