The 40 Best Graveyard Commanders in Magic Ranked

Last updated on March 30, 2025

Muldrotha, the Gravetide | Illustration by Jason Rainville

What do dredge, Hogaak, Arisen Necropolis, and reanimator decks have in common? In addition to being incredibly powerful, each strategy relies on the graveyard, where many of Magic’s best strategies reside.

There are many, many ways you can exploit the graveyard, including casting spells from it to using it as a source of card advantage. However you want to leverage your graveyard, there’s a commander for you.

Let’s look at the best ones!

What Are Graveyard Commanders in MTG?

Winter, Cynical Opportunist | Illustration by Andrey Kuzinskiy

Graveyard commanders mechanically utilize the graveyard. They’re often black and care about creatures, but any color can utilize the graveyard and care about any type of card in it.

Graveyard commanders are a pretty broad topic: There are commanders that care about casting spells from graveyards, that let you cast spells from graveyards, reanimator commanders, discard commanders, self-mill commanders, and other ways to fill the graveyard… if your strategy touches the graveyard, there’s a commander for it!

#40. Syr Konrad, the Grim

Syr Konrad, the Grim primarily serves as the win condition for a deck leveraging cards like Mesmeric Orb to make everybody mill cards; it’s death by a thousand cuts, sped up considerably with support from cards like Living Death.

#39. Grist, Voracious Larva / Grist, the Plague Swarm

Grist, Voracious Larva encourages a very recursive game plan with cards like Bloodghast and Reanimate to facilitate its transformation into Grist, the Plague Swarm.

Applying that effort gives you a very reasonable planeswalker that fuels your self-mill game plan and provides a convincing finisher to reward you for all that work.

#38. Winter, Cynical Opportunist

Winter, Cynical Opportunist asks you to assemble delirium to enable a strong reanimation ability. The big draw to this card lies in its ability to reanimate any card type—as much as I love a discounted Archon of Cruelty, reanimating Bolas's Citadel and Virtue of Persistence is just as impactful.

#37. Chainer, Nightmare Adept

Chainer, Nightmare Adept plays out differently than your average reanimation commander since it doesn’t cheat on mana costs, but giving haste is a nice touch. This leans into more of a midrange gameplan than the combo-centric shenanigans of traditional reanimator deck, or you can play it as an additional piece that grants haste.

#36. Rielle, the Everwise

Rielle, the Everwise encourages you to discard cards to set up explosive turns with its card draw ability. And you shouldn’t overlook the power buff! This can become a Voltron commander surprisingly fast with cards like Temur Battle Rage and Chandra's Ignition.

#35. Coram, the Undertaker

Coram, the Undertaker turns mill into card advantage and even theft. It’s an excellent commander for players who want to grind and like having options—especially when those options include your opponents’ cards.

#34. Anrakyr the Traveller

Paying life instead of mana will never be a fair exchange, so Anrakyr the Traveller is innately busted. Magic has no shortage of awesome artifacts worth jamming for free—perhaps a Portal to Phyrexia, or an Aetherflux Reservoir for a combo finish?

#33. Gale, Waterdeep Prodigy

If you want to do some spellslinging from the graveyard, Gale, Waterdeep Prodigy should be on your radar. In addition to free spells to trigger Archmage Emeritus and whatnot, you can dip into graveyard synergies with cards like Neerdiv, Devious Diver and Secrets of the Dead.

As for your background, it’s common to pair Gale with Scion of Halaster to stock the graveyard, but I could see a burn-centric brew leveraging Dragon Cultist to great effect.

#32. Lier, Disciple of the Drowned

Lier, Disciple of the Drowned goes best with extra turn spells like Time Warp that don’t exile themselves upon resolution. Those extra turns set up powerful infinite combos that your opponents’ can’t interact with thanks to being uncounterable.

#31. Gisa and Geralf

One of the more popular zombie commanders, Gisa and Geralf combine their powers in a card that grants constant access to the shambling corpses left in our graveyard. You can set up excellent value engines with a sacrifice outlet and ETB zombies like Diregraf Colossus and Gray Merchant of Asphodel.

#30. Niv-Mizzet, Supreme

If you want to build around your graveyard and multicolored spells, you can’t do better than Niv-Mizzet, Supreme. Another spellslinger commander, this iteration of everybody’s favorite parun offers no shortage of options or synergies. You can set up some cool value chains where you discard something to jump-start later.

#29. Sevinne, the Chronoclasm

Sevinne, the Chronoclasm doesn’t fuel your graveyard but greatly rewards you for using it. It wants to play with flashback, jump-start, and similar mechanics.

Copying spells gets out of hand quite quickly, especially if you flashback a Fireball or Time Warp effect.

#28. Karador, Ghost Chieftain

Karador, Ghost Chieftain gives creature-centric decks lots of recursive power. I’m a huge fan of commanders that get around the commander tax because it makes them much more reliable elements of your gameplan.

Karador works best with cards like Shriekmaw, Bounty Agent, and Selfless Spirit that sacrifice themselves for some boon you can get over and over.

#27. Sidisi, Brood Tyrant

Sidisi, Brood Tyrant provides a relatively tame payoff for self-mill that makes it perfect for casual tables. Zombies have tons of support and often interact with the graveyard, so the build path’s quite clear. Things get really spicy once you throw in cards like Gossip's Talent and Snarling Gorehound to try and chain Zombie tokens.

#26. Nashi, Moon’s Legacy

Nashi, Moon's Legacy lets you cast some spells from the graveyard, which provides a nice grindy element to help in long games. You commonly see it leading a Rat Colony deck, but there’s plenty of power in recurring legendary cards.

#25. Yuma, Proud Protector

Yuma, Proud Protector sows the graveyard with the seeds needed to grow an army of Plant Warrior tokens to dominate your pod. There are plenty of powerful synergies to build this with, including desert-specific ones and cards like Titania, Protector of Argoth and Splendid Reclamation that more broadly care about lands going to the graveyard.

#24. Nethroi, Apex of Death

Nethroi, Apex of Death looks like a reasonably fair reanimation commander… until you factor in creatures with negative power like Scourge of the Skyclaves, which allow this mutant to generate an entire board state.

#23. Araumi of the Dead Tide

Araumi of the Dead Tide focuses on enters abilities to generate value with encore, which produces three copies of heavy-hitters like Peregrine Drake, Noxious Gearhulk, and Massacre Wurm to drown your opponents in value.

#22. Zask, Skittering Swarmlord

Zask, Skittering Swarmlord leans hard onto insect creatures to fuel its graveyard strategy. It’s just a great card advantage engine with a unique flavor that encourages some typal support cards. If you prefer typal strategies, this might be the ideal graveyard commander to experiment with.

#21. The Master, Transcendent

Reanimation strategies can be tricky to pull as they’re effectively three-card combos: You need a reanimation spell, a creature worth reanimating, and a way to get that creature into the graveyard.

The Master, Transcendent simplifies this into a two-card combo: your commander and a source of mill, like Mesmeric Orb or Court of Cunning. You only get 3/3s, but that doesn’t matter so long as you run creatures with game-warping abilities like Consecrated Sphinx and Archon of Cruelty.

#20. Tayam, Luminous Enigma

Tayam, Luminous Enigma lets you get up to some pretty cool tricks. You can establish some wacky infinite loops or simply extract the most value possible from creatures with undying and persist and similar effects.

#19. Kroxa and Kunoros

A repeatable source of manaless reanimation makes Kroxa and Kunoros quite the potent Mardu commander (). You need a lot of self-mill to fuel this, and want to make sure you have a bunch of fetch lands and other ways to fuel the pseudo-escape cost, but this amount of power is worth building around.

#18. The Mycotyrant

Dumping permanents into the graveyard is nice and all, but you really need a strong payoff. Like The Mycotyrant, and the infestation of Fungus tokens it releases.

It takes very little for this Golgari commander () to create a giant board state that goes wide and tall at once while opening the door to various fungus synergies like Utopia Mycon and Sporecrown Thallid.

#17. Sharuum the Hegemon

Sharuum the Hegemon is a classic artifact commander that focuses on reanimation. Blink effects like Teleportation Circle and Conjurer's Closet set up a chain of value your opponents will struggle to overcome, especially with a sacrifice outlet to recur artifacts like Portal to Phyrexia and The Mightstone and Weakstone over and over.

#16. Feldon of the Third Path

Cheating creatures into play from the graveyard is one of the most common and strongest ways to utilize this game zone. Feldon of the Third Path does this rather like Sneak Attack, giving you an impactful creature for a single, glorious turn. You want creatures with explosive abilities like Etali, Primal Storm and Triplicate Titan to properly leverage this.

#15. Grolnok, the Omnivore

Grolnok, the Omnivore is a potent frog commander that loved the support Bloomburrow offered. Even if you don’t go all-in on frogs, Grolnok offers a powerful source of card advantage directly from the command zone, effectively making each permanent you mill into a card drawn.

#14. Anikthea, Hand of Erebos

Anikthea, Hand of Erebos gives us one of the few enchantment-graveyard commanders, and it’s a pretty sick one. An Abzan commander () is in the perfect color identity to exploit enchantments, graveyard strategies, and tokens.

We even have a wealth of zombie support from cards like On Wings of Gold and Liliana's Mastery.

#13. Oskar, Rubbish Reclaimer

Oskar, Rubbish Reclaimer uses the graveyard as a temporary stopping ground for cards between discarding them to effects like Jace, Vryn's Prodigy and Likeness Looter and simply casting them to generate some honest card advantage.

#12. The Mimeoplasm

The Mimeoplasm lets you assemble some crazy creature combos. Imagine, if you will, the text box of Skithiryx, the Blight Dragon with the body of a Titanoth Rex, or the mass of Lord of Extinction paired with the keyword soup of Tyrranax Rex.

Wait, what do you mean I can’t come back next week?

#11. Hashaton, Scarab’s Fist

Hashaton, Scarab's Fist has burst onto the scene as a promising reanimation commander. The ability doesn’t remove the creature from the graveyard when you make your 4/4 copy, so your Archon of Cruelty or whatever sticks around the graveyard to hit with a Reanimate later. A card that essentially amounts to a reanimation spell in the command zone gives the deck incredible consistency.

#10. Alesha, Who Smiles at Death

Alesha, Who Smiles at Death puts a spicy spin on reanimation decks by putting small, impactful creatures like Master of Cruelties and Unstoppable Slasher into play.

This commander has seen a recent surge of support with cards like Assemble the Players, Delney, Streetwise Lookout, and Arabella, Abandoned Doll all improving the strategy.

#9. The Necrobloom

The Necrobloom primarily enables graveyard shenanigans with its dredge ability. The Field of the Dead text works nicely with cards like Aftermath Analyst and Lumra, Bellow of the Woods, but this commander’s a blank enough slate to do anything you like.

#8. Narset, Enlightened Exile

Narset, Enlightened Exile is an excellent spellslinger commander as it casts spells and rewards you for spellcasting with a slew of prowess triggers. It’s notably pretty broad since you can get any noncreature spell, not just instants and sorceries, though that’s often what Jeskai commanders () default to. You can do some pretty cool stuff with cards like Lion's Eye Diamond, and stealing cards from your opponents always adds additional value.

#7. The Gitrog Monster

Card advantage is critical to any Magic format, and Commander more than most given how long games tend to run. The Gitrog Monster produces an incredible amount of card draw and even facilitates various infinite combos. Even something as simple as Crucible of Worlds and a fetch land puts you up a ludicrous number of cards.

#6. Disa the Restless

I like Disa the Restless because it generates a ton of power as a reward for your self-mill. You can construct a powerful card advantage engine when you stack that token production with cards like Elemental Bond and Ohran Frostfang to enhance Disa’s best qualities.

#5. Emry, Lurker of the Loch

Artifacts are Magic’s strongest card type, so combining them with Magic’s best zone sounds like a recipe for success. Emry, Lurker of the Loch is one of blue’s stronger mono-colored commanders, especially if you enjoy storm and cheerios strategies.

#4. Kess, Dissident Mage

Kess, Dissident Mage has a simple text box, but it’s an impactful, powerful one. Kess is an incredibly flexible card that can helm a deck appropriate for casual strategies all the way up to cEDH brews that focus on powerful combo lines.

#3. Sefris of the Hidden Ways

One of the strongest reanimation commanders and easily the best dungeon commander, Sefris of the Hidden Ways takes a moment to set things up, but it powers out reanimated threats without much effort.

It’s especially potent if you drop something that gives you the initiative; once you enter the Undercity, venturing into the dungeon through any effect pushes you forward.

#2. Meren of Clan Nel Toth

Meren of Clan Nel Toth has been one of the most popular Golgari commanders for some time, and its power warrants the popularity. Meren enables lots of cool stuff, from self-mill to reanimation to counter proliferation to a classic aristocrats shell that generates basic value from sacrificing and reanimating creatures.

#1. Muldrotha, the Gravetide

It’s hard to beat the sheer value of Muldrotha, the Gravetide. The simplicity of the text box makes it into a canvas for whatever strategy you want to paint. Do you want to focus on amassing a graveyard full of permanents for delirium and similar effects? Build a combo deck that establishes infinite loops with Entomb as a tutor? Focus on assembling some form of artifact value chain with Muldrotha serving as a key piece?

You can do whatever you want! Simple, effective card advantage is one of the best things you can get from the command zone, and you should also respect Muldrotha as a large creature that attacks and blocks well.

Best Graveyard Commander Payoffs and Enablers

Many of the cards on this list work as payoffs in their own right, but there are more. Once you have a stocked graveyard, there are a few different ways you can interact with it.

Reanimation spells are key to the reanimation decks, but cards like Reanimate and Animate Dead are worth running in most decks that fill the graveyard.

Recursion is often a key payoff. Cards like Eternal Witness, Tamiyo, Collector of Tales, and Gloomshrieker are super helpful.

There are also various cards that become better when you fill the graveyard. Creatures like Lord of Extinction, Bonehoard (which is basically a creature) and Necrogoyf are just a few ways to turn a stocked graveyard into a threat.

Of course, those cards do nothing without enablers to fill the graveyard. Green decks have it easy with about a dozen variants on Cache Grab that mill a bunch of cards and return one to your hand. A few other notable variants include Malevolent Rumble, Winding Way, and Grisly Salvage.

Cards that passively fill the graveyard are also super critical, including Court of Cunning, Mesmeric Orb, and Ripples of Undeath.

Self-mill enablers tend to work best when you can tack them onto an additional effect. For example, Ripples of Undeath is card advantage and self-mill, and Incarnation Technique provides a reanimation spell and puts 10 cards in your graveyard, assuming you demonstrate it.

Commanding Conclusion

Emry, Lurker of the Loch | Illustration by Livia Prima

Graveyard commanders cover a range of strategies and effects from spellslinger to creatures and everything in between. However you leverage the graveyard, you’ve got the foundations of a powerful strategy!

What’s your favorite graveyard commander? Which enablers are your favorite? Let me know in the comments below or on the Draftsim Discord!

Stay safe, and thanks for reading!