The 42 Best Black Mythics in Magic Ranked

Gix, Yawgmoth Praetor | Illustration by Anna Podedworna

Rarity is often an indication of power in Magic, and that’s never truer than with the mythic rare. Introduced for Shards of Alara, the unique rarity showcases the splashiest examples of a color’s slice of the pie.

Black’s mythics tend towards the grandiose. Immense creatures worthy of reanimation, spells so foul only the greediest of mages would reach for them, and everything in between. Let’s find the best black mythic for your next deck!

What Are Black Mythics in MTG?

Valgavoth, Terror Eater | Illustration by Antonio José Manzanedo

Black mythics are cards with a mono-black color identity and the mythic symbol. You can’t really pin them down to a single mechanic because they do everything black can, and they frequently adapt themselves to fit the themes of a given set.

These days, some cards get the mythic rarity due to extremely rare treatments; think Special Guests and showcase cards. Cards that only get the mythic symbol for a treatment don’t qualify for this list, only those with at least one base mythic printing.

#42. Acererak the Archlich

Acererak the Archlich has a defined path: Use it as a super cheap beater that rewards you for completing the Tomb of Annihilation dungeon. But that’s not how players use it, like, ever: Instead, it’s a win condition for generating infinite black mana by going through the Lost Mine of Phandelver and draining your opponents.

#41. Abyssal Persecutor

Abyssal Persecutor was one of the first mythics I remember, and it’s an odd one as a giant beater that prevents you from winning the game. The trick is to pair it with sacrifice outlets: Use the massive body to beat your opponent to a negative life total, then sacrifice the Persecutor so your opponent dies. It’s also a marvelous card to donate to players without an easy way to remove it.

#40. Junji, the Midnight Sky

Junji, the Midnight Sky has powerful death triggers that make it an annoying threat. Do you die to the 5/5 dragon or let your opponent reanimate a creature or draw cards? Those death triggers also make it a potent card to sacrifice, especially with ways to recur or reanimate it.

#39. Virtue of Persistence

Virtue of Persistence takes time to get going, but the adventure spell helps buy in as a removal spell with a small life buffer. It’s a great flexible card for grindy matchups that’s relevant early and late and gives a deck inevitability; your opponent can only trade with the extra creature you get every turn for so long.

#38. Rise of the Dark Realms

Commander is home to all manner of big, splashy spells in all colors; black’s contribution is often Rise of the Dark Realms, a convincing finisher that grants you control of all creatures that have died. It demands a board wipe, or you simply win.

#37. Moonshadow

While mythics are often expensive, they can be cheap—provided they pack enough power. Moonshadow is a riff on Death's Shadow, a 1-drop with incredibly high power but restrictions on it. It’s actually pretty easy to get permanents into your graveyard. Crack a fetch land, discard to Inti, Seneschal of the Sun, trade in combat or sacrifice a creature. It takes next to no effort to make this large.

#36. Withering Curse

The going rate for “destroy all creatures” board wipes is 4 mana, so Withering Curse is exceptional in lifegain decks for giving them access to it at 3. I also appreciate the flexibility: Assuming you can gain life on demand, you always have the choice between giving the board -2/-2, which potentially salvages your board while it removes key threats, or blowing up everything.

#35. Super Shredder

Vanilla creatures need to do a lot in modern Magic; there are so many super impactful spells that just playing a beater isn’t the play it used to be. But Super Shredder manages to be relevant because it’s an exceptional beater: 2 mana, and it grows when a permanent leaves the battlefield. That includes when anybody cracks a fetch land, any creature that dies, any that are bounced, and so many other circumstances.

#34. Aclazotz, Deepest Betrayal / Temple of the Dead

Aclazotz, Deepest Betrayal has midrange stapled all over it. You get a rather slow threat that generates card advantage over time, and it grinds extremely well since it transforms into Temple of the Dead, which becomes the bat god again later. It’s the perfect top-end of a deck that tries to squeeze every advantage.

#33. Massacre Girl, Known Killer

Massacre Girl, Known Killer is such a stellar card design: It’s fundamentally black as a card that makes it easier to kill opposing creatures and rewards you for it, yet it’s incredibly unique because not many cards care so much about how you kill creatures. It’s a staple of -1/-1 counter decks and, in my opinion, one of the best designed creatures in the past few years.

#32. Liliana, Dreadhorde General

Liliana, Dreadhorde General wreaks havoc whenever it hits play. It has one of the strongest planeswalker static abilities and fits perfectly into sacrifice decks because it’s simultaneously a source of sacrifice fodder, a sacrifice outlet, and a sacrifice payoff. The double edict is also a very potent interaction because you can work in cards like Mayhem Devil and Tergrid, God of Fright that reward edicts.

#31. Vein Ripper

Vein Ripper dares to ask what could happen if Blood Artist hit the gym, and it’s pretty intimidating. Not only do you get a massive death trigger, but it’s attached to a formidable body, and that ward cost means it almost always triggers once. This card was strong enough to make Sorin, Imperious Bloodlord go from forgotten planeswalker to ban-worthy in Pioneer, and it’s just as ugly in Commander.

#30. Bitterblossom

Bitterblossom isn’t the threat it once was, but it still deserves respect. Two mana to recruit an army of Faerie Rogues works pretty well in the right situation. In Commander, that’s often faerie-typal or sacrifice decks that want a steady stream of fodder.

#29. Bloodline Recollector

Bloodline Recollector gives the black players a taste of Ancestral Recall, a famously fair Magic card. The prepared condition is extremely simple to meet in Commander: One edict kills three creatures with ease.

#28. Bloodthirsty Conqueror

Another black creature that goes in for a combo, Bloodthirsty Conqueror can occupy the Exquisite Blood half of the classic Exquisite Blood/Sanguine Bond combo. Notably, Exquisite Blood has fewer redundant pieces, which makes this extremely valuable.

#27. Emeritus of Woe

Emeritus of Woe was one of the break-out cards from Secrets of Strixhaven thanks to having one of Magic’s best cards in its prepared slot. Do I find it overrated? Yes. But it’s still extremely powerful because it enters prepared. Rune-Scarred Demon is generally playable in casual Commander, and this card only costs 6 mana with a great ceiling.

#26. Bloodletter of Aclazotz

Bloodletter of Aclazotz often sees play as a combo card: Pair it with something like Unstoppable Slasher or Peer into the Abyss that makes an opponent lose half their life and they die on the spot. Even outside the combo, a life loss doubler is extremely useful for aggro decks.

#25. Living End

Suspend cards with no casting cost were designed with an interesting thought process: What if you replaced the cost of mana with time, spread over turns? Of course, Magic players broke them with cascade.

Living End is a prime example that waxes and wanes in Modern: Fill a deck with expensive creatures that cycle for 1 mana, then use Violent Outburst or Shardless Agent to get an on-demand Living End. The formula is simple yet effective.

#24. Phyrexian Obliterator

is an extremely daunting mana cost that sees Phyrexian Obliterator locked to mono-black decks, for which we should be grateful. A creature with this much power has no business being seen too often. The textbox is among the most punishing in Magic, forcing players to have a proper removal spell because they certainly can’t trade in combat unscathed.

#23. Grave Pact

Grave Pact is among the most frustrating sacrifice payoffs in Commander given how much control the sacrifice player receives. Turning every creature you sacrifice, even a measly Eldrazi Spawn, into an edict basically prevents your opponents from establishing a meaningful board and produces more paint than a Blood Artist can keep up with.

#22. Dark Confidant

Dark Confidant’s heyday is behind us, but it still packs a punch as a cheap card advantage engine that provides immense value over a longish game. It has some deckbuilding restrictions—this really isn’t the card advantage engine for a battlecruiser deck—but you could do worse for 2 mana.

#21. Maha, Its Feathers Night

One of the coolest and cruelest commanders from Bloomburrow, Maha, Its Feathers Night rejects the concept of owning creatures—for your opponents, at least. Reducing their toughness to 1 lets you deploy cards like Night of Soul's Betrayal and Kaervek, the Spiteful to deny your opponents any hope of controlling creatures.

#20. Tevesh Szat, Doom of Fools

Tevesh Szat, Doom of Fools is one of the most formidable sacrifice commanders. You often see it partnered with Thrasios, Triton Hero in cEDH or Rograkh, Son of Rohgahh for more casual gamers (though that pairing is also cEDH viable).

Any time a card can serve two of the three functions of a sacrifice deck (fodder, outlet, payoff), it’s a great card. Tevesh Szat does that, with the bonuses of giving a deck access to black and plenty of token production for other means.

#19. Valgavoth, Terror Eater

Valgavoth, Terror Eater is a delightful little reanimation target that turns your opponents’ best attempts at victory against them. I find it’s a very cool take on card advantage that doesn’t just, you know, draw cards. The staggering ward cost is also very appropriate.

#18. Gix, Yawgmoth Praetor

Black decks aren’t afraid to get their hands dirty, as demonstrated by Gix, Yawgmoth Praetor, a fantastic reward for packing your deck with cheap, evasive creatures. It has interesting implications in Commander since all your opponents can benefit from the Coastal Piracy effect, provided they don’t attack you.

#17. Nethergoyf

Nethergoyf is another small but mighty creature that often punches well above its mana cost. It’s a marvelous example of power creep: At one point, a 2-mana Tarmogoyf was king and lorded over formats as an efficient threat. These days it needs to cost 1 mana and have a recursion ability.

#16. Sheoldred, the Apocalypse

Sheoldred, the Apocalypse was a marquee threat that defined its Standard format. The body always dominated in combat: Deathtouch ensured it always traded well, either into a more expensive, larger creature or multiple small ones, while the drain ability provided a consistent clock and form of stabilization. These days, it’s most commonly played in Cube and Commander alongside wheels for a nasty combo.

#15. Archon of Cruelty

Archon of Cruelty is a perfectly fair card if you pay 8 mana for it. But this is black, so you normally spend 1 or 2 mana to reanimate it, which is so far from fair it’s not funny. Since it generates a surge of card advantage when it enters, it’s hard to remove profitably, and you almost never survive it reaching combat.

#14. Cabal Coffers

Cabal Coffers generates an obscene amount of mana in mono-black decks, which pairs perfectly with X-spells like Torment of Hailfire or simply big cards like Phyrexian Obliterator. In Commander, it’s not uncommon to see it paired with Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth to get that value in a multicolor deck.

#13. Liliana of the Veil

Liliana of the Veil is one of the most iconic planeswalkers in the game, and one of the most powerful. It’s the queen of black midrange decks, stripping your opponents of resources very early while building towards a deadly ultimate. Yet all that power isn’t just free. Letting your opponent fill the graveyard is a real cost—I wouldn’t consider that a bug but a feature of a well-balanced card.

#12. Sephiroth, Fabled SOLDIER / Sephiroth, One-Winged Angel

Sephiroth, Fabled SOLDIER is a devastating threat for any sacrifice deck because it’s a sacrifice outlet and payoff in one card. It also scales beautifully; no other Blood Artist ascends to the heights of Sephiroth, One-Winged Angel. It’s one of black’s most potent sacrifice commanders.

#11. Damnation

Black has plenty of board wipes but Damnation stands out as its cheapest “destroy all creatures” variant; all the other 4-mana options have various restrictions, like only destroying small creatures or giving -4/-4 to all creatures. That makes it an efficient choice for the average deck looking to set everybody behind.

#10. Agadeem’s Awakening / Agadeem, the Undercypt

Agadeem's Awakening is a fantastic card in Commander. The flexibility and value of a modal double-faced land has been spoken of plenty. It’s a great way to make your mana base work for you: Sometimes you play a black land, and sometimes you rebuild from a board wipe by reanimating a few creatures.

#9. Overlord of the Balemurk

Overlord of the Balemurk is the best of Duskmourn’s Overlords and one of the strongest draw engines for any graveyard-based deck. The trick lies in its impending cost: 2 mana to mill four cards and return a creature to your hand is a perfectly playable card. The fact that it turns into a big beater or can just be a big beater, and it provides two card types when that’s relevant, pushes this into the obscene.

#8. Yawgmoth, Thran Physician

Yawgmoth, Thran Physician might be black’s best sacrifice outlet in non-combo decks. If you want a persist combo, you can’t beat Viscera Seer or Carrion Feeder at their cost. But under any other circumstances, the combination of card draw and -1/-1 counter distribution provides the black player with such an overwhelming advantage that the game might be over, even without other sacrifice cards.

#7. Phyrexian Tower

Black lands love to produce extra mana, and Phyrexian Tower is one of the strongest, provided you have the fodder to back it up. The sol land is pretty sick, but it’s also just an amazing sacrifice outlet: It costs no mana to activate, and your opponents can rarely interact with it.

#6. Grief

Grief was once one of the scariest threats in Modern due to its position as a scam card: Players would evoke Grief, then target it with Malakir Rebirth so it came back into play. For 1 mana, you’d get a 3/2 menace creature and a double Thoughtseize. Even after the Modern banning, it’s still a force to be reckoned with in Cube and essential hand disruption in Vintage Dredge, so it’s far from irrelevant.

#5. Doomsday

Doomsday requires meticulous deckbuilding. This is always the centerpiece of a deck designed to craft the perfect pile of five cards that leads to a win; these days, that generally means card draw, mana, and a Thassa's Oracle.

#4. Imperial Seal + Vampiric Tutor

Tutors don’t get much more efficient than Imperial Seal and Vampiric Tutor. Vamp is certainly stronger as an instant, but more often than not, a deck that wants one plays the other.

One mana to find anything is as cheap as it gets. These tend to work best in high-powered combo decks because they’re card disadvantage, but does going down a card really matter when you set up a Demonic Consultation / Thassa's Oracle win next turn?

#3. Griselbrand

Mono-black reanimation targets don’t get better than Griselbrand—and its only real competitor in the rest of the color pie is Atraxa, Grand Unifier.

Paying life to do anything is almost never fair, let alone drawing seven cards. Give this demon haste and you even offset the life loss—or, more commonly, get the fuel to draw 14. Since drawing that many cards puts you above the hand size limit, you can often reanimate Griselbrand, draw towards another threat and reanimation spell, then discard it for free.

#2. Demonic Tutor

Demonic Tutor sees play at the highest levels of Magic because it’s the best tutor. You get whichever card you need at a relatively low cost, right away. No waiting to draw the top card or restrictions by type or mana cost or anything. Whether you need an answer or a combo kill, it’s at your fingertips.

#1. Necropotence

Necropotence belongs in the Magic Hall of Fame as one of the most broken cards ever printed. Skipping your draw step barely matters when you can pour your life points into this enchantment and sculpt the perfect hand in your end step. It has seen play in many, many formats (when it escapes the banhammer, at least) and is among the most potent can draw engines ever printed.

What Are the Most Expensive Black Mythics?

These are the five most expensive black mythics. A little sidenote: I’ll include all cards with the mythic symbol for this, so get ready to see some splashy treatments!

• The Soul Stone (SPM 0243) – $1,180
• Sothera, the Supervoid (Edge of Eternities Showcase) – $1,100
• Vampiric Tutor (Secrets of Strixhaven Mystical Archive #165) – $846
• Sheoldred, Whispering One (March of the Machine Serialized) – $736
• Skithiryx, the Blight Dragon (March of the Machine Serialized) – $652

Wrap Up

Virtue of Persistence | Illustration by Piotr Dura

Black’s mythics do everything: They work with sacrifice synergies, they kill creatures, and they offer threats large enough to reanimate and efficient enough to be truly terrifying. Whatever strategy you’re playing, you probably have a mythic that makes it better.

What black mythics do you play? Do you own any chase cards? Let me know in the comments below! If you want more Draftsim, check out our newsletter and YouTube channel, both called The Daily Upkeep!

Stay safe, and thanks for reading!