Grave Researcher // Reanimate

MTG singles

Grave Researcher // Reanimate

Creature — Troll Warlock // Sorcery · 3/3

Grave Researcher: At the beginning of your upkeep, surveil 1. Then if there are three or more creature cards in your graveyard, this creature becomes prepared. (While it's prepared, you may cast a copy of its spell. Doing so unprepares it.)

Reanimate: Put target creature card from a graveyard onto the battlefield under your control. You lose life equal to that card's mana value.

  • CommanderLegal
  • StandardLegal
  • PioneerLegal
  • ModernLegal
  • LegacyLegal
  • VintageLegal
  • PauperNot legal

Selling Grave Researcher // Reanimate?

We pay 50% of a card's market value in cash, or 70% in store credit, for cards worth more than $1. For the cheapest printing of Grave Researcher // Reanimate, that's about $0.98 cash or $1.37 in credit.

How selling to us works

All 3 printings and prices

Set#ReleasedNonfoilFoil
Secrets of Strixhaven SOS 325 Apr 2026 $3.57$3.77
Secrets of Strixhaven SOS 85 Apr 2026 $2.05$1.95
Secrets of Strixhaven Promos PSOS 85p Apr 2026 $1.99$6.64

TCGplayer market, near mint, Oct 16, 2026.

Rulings

  • If any abilities trigger on the creature entering the battlefield, those abilities resolve after you lose life. If losing life results in you losing the game, those abilities won't resolve.

  • In a multiplayer game, if a player leaves the game, all cards that player owns leave as well. If you leave the game, the creature you control from Reanimate is exiled.

  • If a prepared creature loses all abilities, it won't stop being prepared, and nothing will happen to its alternative characteristics or to the copy of its prepare spell in exile.

  • A preparation card is a creature card in every zone. For example, while it's in your graveyard, Emeritus of Ideation is a blue creature whose mana value is 5. It can't be the target of Zealous Lorecaster's triggered ability ("When this creature enters, return target instant or sorcery card from your graveyard to your hand.").

  • As an effect causes a creature with a prepare spell to become prepared (including effects that state that a creature "enters prepared"), that creature's controller creates a copy of that creature's prepare spell in exile. That copy remains in exile for as long as that permanent is on the battlefield and is prepared. That creature's controller may cast that copy as long as it remains in exile. As they cast it, that creature stops being prepared.

  • If a prepared creature stops being a creature, it will still be prepared, and the copy of its prepare spell will remain in exile. That permanent's controller will still be able to cast it. The same is true if a prepared creature becomes a copy of something else, even if it's then a permanent without a prepare spell.

  • A creature with a prepare spell can't become prepared more than once at the same time. For example, Emeritus of Ideation is on the battlefield and is prepared. When it attacks, its last ability triggers. When that ability resolves, its controller may still exile eight cards from their graveyard, but doing so won't cause Emeritus of Ideation to become prepared a second time or create a second copy of Ancestral Recall in exile.

  • Preparation cards can only be cast with their base characteristics.

  • The amount of life you lose as Reanimate resolves is determined by the mana value of the card in your graveyard, not the creature once it's on the battlefield.

  • A creature without a prepare spell can't become prepared.

  • Only the current controller of a prepared creature can cast the copy of its prepare spell in exile. It doesn't matter who owns that creature or who controlled it when it became prepared.

  • Being prepared isn't a copiable value. If a permanent becomes a copy of a prepared creature, it won't be prepared. That permanent will have the alternative characteristics, though, and some other effect could cause it to become prepared later.

  • You lose life after the creature is already on the battlefield. Any abilities it has that interact with loss of life, such as that of Platinum Emperion, apply to that loss of life.

  • Casting a copy of a prepare spell from exile isn't casting it for an alternative cost. Effects that allow you to cast a spell for an alternative cost or without paying its mana cost may allow you to apply those to a copy of a prepare spell cast from exile.

  • While copies of spells in zones other than the stack cease to exist when state-based actions are checked, this does not apply to copies of prepare spells in exile that were created as a creature became prepared.

Card text, images and rulings from Scryfall. Magic: The Gathering and its card names, text and art are property of Wizards of the Coast.