The 44 Best Discard Outlets in Magic Ranked

Last updated on September 7, 2026

Faithful Mending | Illustration by Caroline Gariba

As weird as it sounds, sometimes you’d rather have a card in your graveyard than in your hand. The main culprits are Golgari Grave-Troll for dredge 6, Griselbrand alongside Animate Dead, or Arclight Phoenix in spellslinger decks. So, how do we put these cards in the graveyard?

Enter discard outlets, or cards that allow us to effectively discard other cards, often reaping benefits or filtering through our deck. There are plenty of ways to discard cards if we want, so let’s see which ones are the most relevant and efficient for Constructed formats. 

What Are Discard Outlets in MTG?

Collective Brutality | Illustration by Johann Bodin

A discard outlet lets you pay a cost to discard cards. Some strategies revolve around getting key cards or a volume of cards in your graveyard, but you can’t just discard a card whenever you want, so there need to be discard outlets.

The main ways to discard in MTG is to discard to hand size during the cleanup step or to discard via your opponents’ abilities. Discard outlets allow you to control when you discard a card. Also, since discarding is a resource disadvantage, a discard outlet usually provides a little benefit at the same time.

The main payoffs for discarding are graveyard interactions, and many mechanics explore that space: dredge, unearth, threshold, delve, and flashback are just a few examples. There’s also the madness mechanic, and cards with madness are stronger when you discard them and cast them for the madness cost.

#44. Wild Mongrel + Noose Constrictor

Wild Mongrel is one of the original free discard outlets that saw Constructed play. You can even change the card’s color to dodge removal like Doom Blade. It’s a bad card by today’s standards, as is its newer cousin Noose Constrictor, so play these only if you desperately need to discard cards for madness or reanimator.

#43. Putrid Imp

Putrid Imp is the cheapest unmitigated discard outlet in the game outside of some lands. It's not played for its combat stats, but rather for its ability to set up quick reanimator lines in formats like Vintage Cube.

#42. Oona’s Prowler

Oona's Prowler is similar to Putrid Imp in that you play it because you plan to pitch cards to it, though this one actually has strong combat stats to start with. Your opponents can shrink it, but then you’re trading 2 damage for one of their cards. As a drawback, this black creature could enable your opponents’ discard synergies, but that rarely happen.

#41. Raffine’s Informant

Having a connive ability on a 2/1 means that Raffine's Informant is often a 3/2, as well as an easy way to dump a card from your hand into your graveyard. Decks built around Greasefang, Okiba Boss use this card to discard expensive vehicles while maintaining a board presence.

#40. Malcolm, Alluring Scoundrel

Malcolm, Alluring Scoundrel bridges the tempo and control archetypes, as you’re hitting with a 2/1 and getting to loot. Once you have enough counters, you can play the discarded card for free, but a 2/1 is at the same time very fragile, so it’s hard to reach the four-counter threshold.

#39. Pack Rat

Pack Rat allows you to discard extra cards at instant speed and turn them into copies of Pack Rat. Cashing in a card for a rat is often a good play, especially if you’re already playing something like a rat typal deck. Opponents have to kill the original almost immediately or it becomes untenable to keep up with the pack without a board wipe.

#38. Chainer, Nightmare Adept

Chainer, Nightmare Adept is a Rakdos commander that allows you to freely discard cards, and if you do, you get to cast a creature from your graveyard. You’re not even losing the creatures you discard; you’re just stashing them for a later turn.

#37. Demand Answers + Vision of Love

Demand Answers and Vision of Love are instant-speed upgrades to cards like Tormenting Voice. You can also cash in an artifact or artifact land for the effect. Vision of Love is technically the better of the two since it plays better into counterspells, not that cards like this are premium counterspell targets in the first place.

#36. Tortured Existence

Tortured Existence mainly sees play in Pauper and graveyard-based EDH decks. It lets you exchange two cards, one in your graveyard and one in your hand, and you can do it as many times as you have black mana. You can get a Spore Frog, sacrifice it to prevent combat damage, discard a dredge card like Golgari Brownscale, get your frog back, and start the loop over. And that’s one of many locks the deck can apply.

#35. Daretti, Scrap Savant

Daretti, Scrap Savant is the perfect discard outlet for reanimating expensive artifacts, since the -2 is basically Goblin Welder‘s activation as a loyalty ability. You’ll filter through your deck via the +2, and the -10 makes it very hard to overcome your wall of artifacts.

#34. Collective Brutality

Collective Brutality is a powerful black sorcery that allows you to trade your cards for theirs. The most common way of playing this excellent escalate card is to discard one card and get the first two modes, sniping a card and a small creature while hopefully setting up your own graveyard plays.

#33. Big Score

Being an instant definitely helps here. Big Score is very good with copy effects, as you’ll discard one card but get two cards and two Treasures back. This red instant gets better if you have Treasure synergies, but almost any red deck can make use of the mid-game acceleration.

#32. Misty Knight, Hero for Hire

Misty Knight, Hero for Hire has a killer activated ability that doubles as a discard payoff. It’s like a super-rummage that counts every card you’ve discarded for the turn. Say you attacked and discarded cards to Cool but Rude’s and Inti, Seneschal of the Sun’s attack triggers, then activate Misty. You’ll discard one card and draw three. Do that a few more times and you’ll bury your opponents in card advantage.

#31. Cathartic Reunion

Cathartic Reunion is card parity, but it does a lot to shape up your hand and fill the graveyard. Just make sure it doesn't eat a counterspell!

#30. Careful Study

Careful Study is half of a Faithless Looting, and in a more appropriate color for the effect. This has its uses in any deck that cares about drawing, discarding, or both.

#29. Jace, Vryn’s Prodigy / Jace, Telepath Unbound

As a 2-mana looter that needs a full graveyard to flip, Jace, Vryn's Prodigy thrives when discarding instants and sorceries to play at a later turn with the planeswalker version. Once it transforms into Jace, Telepath Unbound, you can defend via the +2, or get card advantage with the -3. In formats like Cube and Vintage, you're aiming to flash back your Ancestral Recalls and Time Walks.

#28. Faithful Mending

Faithful Mending isn't as good as the red card it's paying homage to, but it's still a fine card selection tool for UW decks, and the lifegain is a welcome bonus.

#27. Collector's Vault + Daily Bugle Newspaper

Collector's Vault can be an effective card in reanimator decks, discarding strong cards like One with the Multiverse or Portal to Phyrexia while generating Treasure that ramps you to your big reanimation spells. If you just can't get enough you could run Daily Bugle Newspaper as an identical second copy.

#26. Nico Minoru, Runaway

Nico Minoru, Runaway has a fairly expensive discard outlet, but the free spell is nice. Since you don’t shuffle your library before the pseudo-cascade, you can stack the deck with top-deck manipulation like Scroll Rack or even Worldly Tutor.

#25. Liliana the Faultless

Liliana the Faultless might be the most pushed Soul Sister since it’s still 1 mana and has great upside, but it might be better to focus on it as a discard outlet that protects key threats. Imagine fizzling a removal spell targeting your Greasefang, Okiba Boss or Hashaton, Scarab's Fist while enabling their graveyard synergies!

#24. Formidable Speaker

Formidable Speaker is in odd colors for a discard outlet, but you can overlook that when the effect is this good. A creature tutor slapped to an enters ability gives you plenty of ways to break it, like flicker or clone effects. The untap ability isn’t bad either; hit a Bloom Tender and watch your opponents crumble before your overwhelming advantages.

#23. Rona, Herald of Invasion / Rona, Tolarian Obliterator

Rona, Herald of Invasion sees play in some Constructed formats as a way to draw and discard consistently in legend-heavy decks. It's best known for its combo potential with Retraction Helix and Mox Amber, with Rona, Tolarion Obliterator rarely making an appearance.

#22. Agna Qel’a

Agna Qel'a’s loot is extremely costly at an effective 4 mana, but you'll be thankful you have it if you start flooding out. Most blue decks should at least consider this as a utility land that doesn't disrupt your mana base much.

#21. Winternight Stories

Winternight Stories doubles as a discard payoff since harmonize rewards you for discarding it. It’s often played in decks using large creatures that need discard outlets and/or instants and sorceries—think of lynchpins like Vivi Ornitier or Abhorrent Oculus. Though it’s niche, you can’t do much better when warranted.

#20. Fear of Missing Out

Fear of Missing Out often doubles as a discard payoff since rummaging away cards gets you to delirium, and lots of extra combats. This is a great aggressive little creature because you can drop it early and attack well, in the mid-game you get the extra combats, and then it’s not even terrible late since it cantrips on an empty hand.

#19. Raffine, Scheming Seer

Once the protagonist of an entire Standard era, Raffine, Scheming Seer‘s got nice stats to fight against aggro, it has ward , and lets you churn through your deck by discarding and drawing many cards. You know a match is going south when your opponents start attacking with three creatures, looting away three cards, and putting three +1/+1 counters on their creatures.

#18. Anje Falkenrath

Anje Falkenrath is a very interesting discard commander. It costs 3 mana and you can use it right away, and if you keep discarding cards with madness, you get to untap Anje and do it again. There are many vampires that work well with the madness mechanic, or you can fill a deck with madness cards of any flavor and just dump half your deck in the ‘yard.

#17. Shorikai, Genesis Engine

Shorikai, Genesis Engine is an exceptional Azorius card to use in a vehicle-heavy deck, though you can ignore the pilot/vehicle relationship entirely and focus on this card's powerful loot effect. It's a discard outlet that puts you up on cards and board presence, and eventually smashes as an 8/8.

#16. The Queen of Dale

The Queen of Dale has a significant weakness as a discard outlet in that it relies on your opponents taking game actions. But in Commander, you have three players doing things, so you should get at least a few recruit triggers. Even the greenest of Timmy pods in unlikely to see three players not cast noncreature spells.

#15. Pursue the Past

Flashback’s wonderful on cards in a discard deck because you can comfortably discard them to other effects. Pursue the Past is surprisingly similar to Faithless Looting. I’d consider this the best Tormenting Voice riff, though adding white to the color identity is tough for Commander players.

#14. Cool but Rude

We live in an era of self-sustaining engines that enable whatever they pay your off for; in this case, Cool but Rude is a strong discard payoff that lets you rummage each time you attack. It takes time to get the class humming, but this is one of the best payoffs for the archetype.

#13. Traumatic Critique

I appreciate Traumatic Critique for its flexibility. You can cast it for X=0 and have a perfectly acceptable card filtration spell or pump in a bunch of mana to kill a creature, planeswalker, or even a player. A card that sets you up turn 2 and doesn’t lose relevance over the course of a game is pretty sweet.

#12. Lightning Axe

Lightning Axe’s main mode is 1 mana to kill a creature and bin an important card. This red instant combines efficient, instant speed removal with a discard outlet, often letting you cast a madness card. If you're not actively trying to pitch a Fiery Temper or an Arclight Phoenix, best to find an alternative removal spell.

#11. Dack Fayden

Dack Fayden is an Izzet planeswalker () who mostly sees play in Legacy, Cube, and Vintage, which are formats with wildly different power levels between cards. Stealing an artifact is always a good option if they have a good one, and the “draw two, discard two” mode rips through your deck and finds what you need. Targeting someone else with the loot is backbreaking if you control a draw hoser like Narset, Parter of Veils.

#10. Liliana of the Veil

Liliana of the Veil is a black planeswalker that provides discard on demand. Each turn you can uptick to have each player discard a card. It works very well with expendable flashback spells, or cards like Tarmogoyf that grow as both players fill the graveyard.

#9. Kefka, Court Mage / Kefka, Ruler of Ruin

Kefka, Court Mage is handily the best self-discard commander. It’s in the perfect colors (red and black have the payoffs, blue the best loot effects), it acts as a discard outlet, and it offers overwhelming card advantage as you draw cards and your opponents lose them. Nearly all the power is on the front side, but it’s worth noting that Kefka, Ruler of Ruin goes infinite with Curiosity.

#8. Tersa Lightshatter

Tersa Lightshatter is one of my favorite Cube cards from the past few years. It’s an aggressive body that sees lots of cards and enables red’s ever-growing host of discard payoffs. The curve of Fear of Missing Out into Tersa has won many a game, and it can only get better as more cards like Nico Minoru or Cool but Rude are printed.

#7. Ledger Shredder

One of the best birds in Magic, Ledger Shredder is a powerhouse in many Magic formats. The combination of a good-sized flier for just 2 mana and the free connive triggers quickly take it out of range of direct damage removal and speeds up the clock. You get to connive on your own spells too, which incentivizes playing a deck with a low curve and a bunch of cantrips.

#6. Inti, Seneschal of the Sun

Inti, Seneschal of the Sun is one of the better 2-drop red creatures, allowing you to discard a card each attack step for free and turning it into a +1/+1 counter, trample, and a fresh card. You don’t even need to attack with Inti itself.

#5. Artist’s Talent

Artist's Talent has cemented itself as a competitive staple in formats like Pioneer, where it supports various flavors of Izzet (). Adding a rummage to each noncreature spell you cast—typically cantrips—fills the graveyard and shows you so many more cards per turn. The cost reduction makes it easy to virtually storm off as cards like Accumulate Wisdom and Free the Fae become unfairly cheap.

#4. Fable of the Mirror-Breaker / Reflection of Kiki-Jiki

Fable of the Mirror-Breaker is a very powerful value engine, giving you a 2/2 token that makes Treasures, a double-rummage effect, and a mini Kiki-Jiki of sorts. This saga was so strong in Standard that it had to be banned.

#3. Psychic Frog

Psychic Frog looked like an innocent callback to Psychatog but commited the Modern Horizons 3 sin of being way too strong for its mana cost. This is a discard outlet that also draws cards and casually kills your opponent. It demands a clean removal spell before it gets too much value, and it's hard to take down with damage-based removal. All this while also being a draw engine and synergy piece for pretty much any deck with blue and black mana.

#2. Faithless Looting

Faithless Looting is one of the best graveyard enablers. For 1 mana, you can draw two cards and discard two, acting as a good filter for your cards. Looting is also a good tool for midrange decks to draw into action and get rid of bad cards like excess lands or dead removal.

#1. Bazaar of Baghdad

Bazaar of Baghdad is a land that only sees play in Vintage, as it’s banned in most formats and, as a Reserved List staple, is an extremely expensive card. If you have it in your opening hand, you can start dumping your cards into the graveyard, three per turn. If you discard dredge cards, you can draw two or them and mill a huge chunk of your library. Yes, it’s card disadvantage, but in this case you care more about cards in the graveyard than in your hand.

Wrap Up

Psychic Frog | Illustration by Pete Venters

And there we have it folks, the best discard outlets in MTG!

These are the most efficient ways to skip the stack and send cards directly to the graveyard. Red has a strong discard outlet machine in its many looting effects, while black mages usually can dump their hand for free if they need.

What do you think about my list? Do you play discard outlets that aren’t here? Let me know in the comments section below, or let’s discuss it over in the Draftsim Discord. Check out The Daily Upkeep newsletter to stay up to date on all the latest MTG news.

Thanks for reading, and have a nice day!