The 35 Best Mass Reanimation Spells in Magic Ranked

Last updated on February 19, 2024

Liliana, Death Wielder | Illustration by Clint Cearley

You mill. You sacrifice. You discard. You have some creature combat. You cast something the table immediately decides to Terminate.

You’ve got a lot of cool things in that ol’ graveyard in a lot of cases. And before someone drops a Bojuka Bog, you might want to get all those dead things back. There are less than 50 cards that can get all or at least a lot of that stuff back all at once, but many are expensive to cast and some have the downside of returning creature to your opponents.

Finding the right way to get your stuff back takes a bit of work. Which we’ve done! Check out this ranking of the best mass reanimation spells in MTG!

What Are Mass Reanimation Spells in MTG?

Rise of the Dark Realms | Illustration by Michael Komarck

Mass reanimation is returning all (or at least a lot) of the creatures from graveyard(s) to the battlefield. Reanimate does this for one, and there are a host of others, like Victimize and Ever After that grab two, but today we’re interested in ranking the spells that get a “mass” of them back.

Seems like a classic black thing to do, and sure most of these are in that color, but there may be a few surprises here.

Of note, there are a variety of cards that return a mass of other permanents to the battlefield. Sometimes those are creatures, but often they aren’t. But here’s a list of cards that bring back artifacts and enchantments. Might be useful:

• Brilliant Restoration
• Calix, Destiny's Hand
• Cleansing Meditation
• Dance of the Manse
• Estrid, the Masked
• Open the Vaults
• Replenish
• Resurgent Belief
• Roar of Reclamation
• Scrap Mastery
• Triumphant Reckoning
• Wake the Past

In some cases, you might want that stuff way more than creatures, but we’re assuming you’re here for the bodies, so let’s hop to it. Note that some of these cards are unplayable but are here for the completionists. The bottom of this list is also generally full of cards that are fine but only work in certain decks. All purpose bangers come near the top.

#35. Return of the Nightstalkers

Lol. There’s not a single nightstalker worth sleeving up, much less paying 7 mana to pull out of the graveyard with Return of the Nightstalkers while sacrificing all your swamps!

#34. Death or Glory

Someday, this card will rule. Forsooth! On that day, there’ll be cards such that either pile will win you the game with the right pieces around it. Lo!, in that glorious fulness of time, it will matter not whether thine enemy chooses pile A or pile B, for, Huzzah!, both piles shall lead to victory! Death or Glory will be at hand! Until then, hard pass.

#33. Liliana, Death Wielder

Has anyone in the history of this game every ultimated Liliana, Death Wielder? I can’t imagine it happening.

#32. Liliana’s Talent

Assuming you’re just rolling along ticking up monsters like Ugin, the Spirit Dragon, Liliana's Talent can come down and just do work. But what’s the deck composition that wants both of those things?

#31. Nethroi, Apex of Death

7 hard-to-cast mana which, like all mutate cards, is asking to get blown out, and Nethroi, Apex of Death doesn’t get you a whole lot for the risk. Unless your graveyard is all 0-power walls in your Doran, the Siege Tower deck, when this might be worth the risk.

#30. Rally the Ancestors

Inefficient and temporary, Rally the Ancestors is fine in the kind of deck with like 30 1-drops in the graveyard and a sacrifice theme or a mass of cheap infect creatures. Even then, I think I can do better.

#29. Storm of Souls

Storm of Souls is here for the ETBs and for synergy with Millicent, Restless Revenant. For 6 mana, I dunno, though.

#28. Knights’ Charge

The lifegain and drain alone makes Knights' Charge feel great in knight typal decks. That deck is likely led by Sidar Jabari of Zhalfir, which is fetching you knights from the graveyard already. So paying the 8 for the activated ability seems like a backup in that deck, and perhaps even as a sneaky way to let Sidar go to the graveyard once and get it back cheaper than the increasing commander tax.

#27. Primevals' Glorious Rebirth

Primevals' Glorious Rebirth gets everything legendary, so planeswalkers, that popped Bolas's Citadel., etc. But it’s expensive and, as a legendary sorcery, requires a legendary creatures or planeswalker on the battlefield to cast. This is narrow in like three ways. Maybe?

#26. Angel of Glory’s Rise

The zombies text on Angel of Glory's Rise is usually just flavor, but getting back all your humans is perfect in exactly humans decks.

#25. Zombie Apocalypse

The humans text one Zombie Apocalypse is usually better than flavor, often nabbing at least a handful of things, but getting back all your zombies is perfect in exactly zombies decks.

#24. Twilight’s Call

For eight you can cast Twilight's Call at instant to let everyone vomit their graveyard onto the battlefield. Or six at sorcery speed. With all these symmetrical reanimations, this is situational and deck-dependent, not to be confused with the single reanimation from the black twilight spell from Phyrexia: All Will Be One.

#23. Liliana Vess

Sweet ultimate, but to get Liliana Vess to do its thing in a deck without proliferate, you need 5 mana and 4 turns, and Liliana doesn't produce blockers. That's asking for the moon and back in Commander.

#22. The War in Heaven

This only gets you back three, so it barely qualifies for the list, but The War in Heaven also does a lot of other good value stuff. I’m not sure it’s quite worth 6 mana, but maybe.

#21. Archangel Elspeth

Four mana and three turns? That’s easier, and making lifelinking blockers helps Archangel Elspeth to stay alive. This March of the Machine planeswalker gets you a lot less, with your graveyard only and smaller mana values, but white probably likes that just fine.

#20. Gerrard, Weatherlight Hero

Once this is on the field, Gerrard, Weatherlight Hero saves you from things like Day of Judgment. Too bad the Farewell style exile wipes are increasing.

#19. Revivify

If you’re losing 14 creatures to a destruction board wipe, Revivify gets them all back on the battlefield for you. If you’re a nontoken go-wide deck, this is reasonable in the substandard additional Teferi's Protection space, especially if you’ve got nice ETBs. But because it counts only the recently dead, this has its limits.

#18. Haunting Voyage

If you’re in black and a have a second to foretell Haunting Voyage, it’s likely worth it. There’s a bonus in that the only other likely card to be foretold in mono-black is Rise of the Dread Marn, and both make an opponent think twice about attacks. You can cast it for the regular cost in a pinch, as well.

#17. Rise of the Dark Realms

Rise of the Dark Realms is 9 mana. If you’re the kind of black deck that ramps up to that to cast your expensive commanders, like Sheoldred, Whispering One or Arvinox, the Mind Flail, why not? If not, you’ll either never get to this mana level or will wish you had another 9-drop that could actually win you the game faster.

#16. Immortal Servitude

In Orzhov, you really can do a lot with creatures of even 2 mana value or less. Immortal Servitude is 5 to return the lot of that to the battlefield. Increase the cost and you can likely do better.

#15. All Hallow’s Eve

This is actually kind of fun, but as a Reserve List card, it’s only here for proxy lovers. All Hallow's Eve gets everyone their stuff back out of the graveyard with suspend 2ish. For 4 mana, that’s all right!

#14. Magister of Worth

Magister of Worth is likely a 6-drop flier that gets back everyone’s graveyards. It’s a decent enough rate for that, and once you get to 1v1 it’s always a board wipe if you want it to be.

#13. Patriarch’s Bidding

This is just great for you if you’re the only creature player. That does happen sometimes. It’s great for you if you’re using the graveyard the most liberally. It’s great for you if you're in a creature typal deck but your opponents aren’t. But there are board states where Patriarch's Bidding will rot in your hand. Sleeve wisely.

#12. Sheoldred / The True Scriptures

These flip praetors from March of the Machine are like a Bond villain. If you get to jump through the hoops and flip them, you literally have to endure the “saga” of their monologue (“laser sharks!!”) before their obvious and slow-moving plan comes together. The creature body and edict on the front side might help make up for something slower than a suspended Living End. But sure. One time The True Scriptures will wreck the table, so sleeve it up!

#11. Wake the Dead

Temporary but devastating, Wake the Dead brings as many creatures as you can pay for back at a time when your opponent least expects. You get all your ETBs, a mass of surprise undead blockers, and they sacrifice at he next end step, putting them right back in the graveyard for another go.

#10. Ascend from Avernus

If you can swing the triple white and then some, you get quite a lot from Ascend from Avernus. This is a great card to run late game in a superfriends deck, but imagine what it can pull out of the ‘yard for only 5 mana in a deck like soldiers!

#9. Grimoire of the Dead

Colorless mass reanimation that gives you everyone’s graveyard contents is really good. They balance Grimoire of the Dead by slowing you down with counters, which makes this card unlikely to survive in EDH. But you have to remove them to go off, so in a proliferate space, this seems like a pretty nice option.

#8. Faith’s Reward

It gets more than creatures. It can even pull out lands, but only for that turn. Faith's Reward seems like a less good Teferi's Protection, but if you have some rockin’ ETBs, I can see this being more than that.

#7. Second Sunrise

You can’t beat the rate at only 3 mana. But Second Sunrise has its limits in fair play. Everyone gets the effect and it only works on things this turn. You’ve got to use it wisely. Or you just combo off with this and cards like Codex Shredder and Krark-Clan Ironworks.

#6. Finale of Eternity

Kill three things for a bit of mana. Okay. That wipes a small board. Spend 12 mana on that and return your graveyard to the battlefield. Sounds better. 12 is a lot of mana, but that amount should win you the game. You can also spend 3 early and blank a bunch of mana dorks, so Finale of Eternity is a fine, flexible card.

#5. Lich-Knights’ Conquest

5 is a bonkers mana value for asymmetric mass reanimation like this. In EDH, this only gets better as more and more token creatures and artifacts are printed. In a pinch, you can sac your precious mana rocks for Lich-Knights' Conquest to really go off.

#4. Bringer of the Last Gift

For 3 more mana than Living Death you also get a flying 6/6 demon. Good deal. Better is that Bringer of the Last Gift is perhaps a touch harder to counter, as Negate is in like 25 times as many EDH decks as Essence Scatter. Folks usually count on removal for creatures in Commander, which doesn’t help stop this ETB.

#3. Balthor the Defiled

Having this ability in your command zone is sweet. Balthor the Defiled has tempted many a MTG player into building around this card. But knowing that your opponent’s plan hinges on no one interacting with either their commander or graveyard is also kind of good for opponents. That’s why this isn’t scaling the ranks of popular commanders. I like this better as a body in another commander’s zombie deck, honestly. But in that deck it’s a great card to tutor for.

#2. Living Death

The card that inspired our #1, Living Death wipes the board and then brings back everything in the graveyard that was there before. Other players get this, too, so it helps to stack your graveyard and maybe slow play your removal. Not bad for 5 mana.

#1. Living End

Good enough to be a reasonable Modern deck, at least sometimes, Living End is perhaps a better Living Death? It's fine enough with suspend, although it gives folks ample time to empty graveyards. But it’s even better when you can cascade into it, say with Shardless Agent or Violent Outburst.

Best Mass Reanimation Spell Payoffs

There aren’t enough of these at efficient costs to be able to constitute a full deck strategy for Commander the way Living End is the name of the deck in Modern, but there are still decks that like these cards a lot. But many of the strategies that want these effects overlap. Self-mill, sacrifice, and discard are the key black spaces. It’s similar for white, but decks that go wide with actual cards, not tokens, are another synergy.

The decks that really play these cards the most tend to have commanders that recur creatures from the graveyard pretty easily, so these spells provide a kind of synergistic backup. Think of Iname, Death Aspect, Sauron, Lord of the Rings, Chainer, Nightmare Adept, Meren of Clan Nel Toth, and Karador, Ghost Chieftain as examples.

Wrap Up

Immortal Servitude | Illustration by Seb McKinnon

Graveyard hate continues to abound in EDH, so the effectiveness of these cards is muted. But if you can manage the strategy, these cards can well break the game in your favor.

I’d guess that we’ll begin to see these effects at lower and lower costs in the future, especially for more niche decks, because of that. So if there’s not something for your deck on this list yet, check back next year and we’ll have the juice!

What are your decks that want these kinds of spells, and how well do they work? Let us know in the comments or on Discord.

Happy reanimation!