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Moxonomy

Undead Butler

Creature — Zombie1 generic manaBlack mana

Two engines packed into a body that costs almost nothing to run. The enter trigger fills the graveyard by three; the death trigger reaches back into that same graveyard, exiles the Butler to return a creature card, and hands you back something worth having. What makes the loop coherent is that both halves feed the same resource: the self-mill stocks the yard the recursion draws from, so the card is its own setup. The exile clause on the death trigger is the discipline: this is not an infinitely recurring value machine, because the Butler removes itself to pay for the return, and returning a creature card excludes it from bringing itself back. It gives once, and gives on your schedule, since a dead Butler is more useful than a living one. Design like this leans on graveyard-as-toolbox thinking rather than raw stats, the same axis that carries aristocrats and reanimator shells: a cheap creature that trades combat presence for the promise of two triggers and a card advantage swing across its lifecycle. The single restriction that keeps it fair is that the recursion targets creatures only, so it cannot reload your best noncreature bomb; it exists to keep a threat coming back, not to grind everything back.

Undead Butler (dbl)
DBL · #400uncommon
Pricing
Normal: $0.87
Foil: $3.84
Oracle Text

Rules text

When this creature enters, mill three cards. (Put the top three cards of your library into your graveyard.) When this creature dies, you may exile it. When you do, return target creature card from your graveyard to your hand.
Legalities

Format Status

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

Other printings

3 sets
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