Drakestown Forgotten - A Magic the Gathering Conspiracy Rare Card Review

by  ElspethFTW, Old School Duelist

Drakestown Forgotten is a black Zombie creature card with a lot of Commander potential. When he enters the battlefield, he enters with X +1/+1 counters on him, where X is the number of creature cards in all graveyards. It’s essentially a Lhurgoyf, except that it only checks graveyards when it enters and its statistics don’t change based on the state of the graveyards afterwards. For a 5-drop that requires only a single Black (4B) that’s pretty decent. But it’s his second ability that truly makes him good. You may pay 2B and remove a +1/+1 counter from Drakestown Forgotten and give a target creature -1/-1 until end of turn.

In a multi-player draft format, this guy can hit the board with a fair number of counters put onto him. Also, while his removal ability is perhaps not the most efficient in the world, it is certainly usable. This was a fairly good card to draft, but this can slot in a good number of Commander decks, as well. Its ability scales particularly well in a multiplayer Commander environment.

Being a Zombie makes him a solid play in tribal decks such as  Grimgrin, Corpse Born.  Being able to play this  card potentially for zero mana with  Rooftop Storm  is pretty sweet. Also, because he is based around +1/+1 counters, any Golgari deck or  Ghave, Guru of Spores  deck that plays around with counters could find room for this guy. There are plenty of ways to make him very big and be a useful way to pick off little utility creatures on the board.

Unfortunately, Drakestown Forgotten is a card that has been forgotten by many players now that the Conspiracy set is no longer in print. However, it’s a solid card that can still find a home in some Zombie-centered and other Commander decks.

How would you use Drakestown Forgotten?

---