The 34 Best Sacrifice Commanders in Magic Ranked

Last updated on January 15, 2024

Korvold, Fae-Cursed King | Illustration by Wisnu Tan

Some Magic archetypes are recent additions to the game, like the outpouring of “tap your opponents’ creatures” we’ve gotten in Wilds of Eldraine. But other archetypes have deep, deep roots in the game.

Sacrificing creatures is one such archetype with a long history. The strategy is commonly called aristocrats after the deck built and piloted by the esteemed Sam Black utilizing Cartel Aristocrat and Falkenrath Aristocrat as its primary sacrifice outlets. Sacrificing creatures is a powerful synergy with plenty of options in Commander.

Let’s get started!

What Are Sacrifice Commanders in MTG?

Baba Lysaga, Night Witch | Illustration by Slawomir Maniak

Sacrifice commanders are legendary creatures that aid various sacrifice themes in Magic, usually centered around sacrificing creatures. These commanders are predominately black, with red and green as other common colors to join in. While some commanders pay you off for sacrificing other permanents, like artifacts and sagas, this list focuses on sacrificing creatures.

When determining which commanders work for sacrifice decks, consider the elements of a sacrifice deck. They can broadly be broken into three categories: sacrifice fodder, sacrifice outlets, and sacrifice payoffs.

Sacrifice fodder are the creatures you want to sacrifice. These are often tokens or creatures that give you a boon for dying, like Perilous Myr. Sacrifice decks need plenty of fodder, but you don’t always want to sacrifice your commander, so you’ll look towards commanders that create sacrifice fodder for this element.

Sacrifice outlets are the effects that you sacrifice your fodder to. These can be repeatable effects, like Ashnod's Altar and Goblin Bombardment, but there are plenty of one-off sacrifice cards like Deadly Dispute and Bone Shards.

Finally, sacrifice payoffs are usually the effects holding the deck together. While many sacrifice outlets provide you with benefits for doing so, these cards stack additional value by triggering when your creatures die. Blood Artist, Mayhem Devil, and Midnight Reaper are excellent examples. A lot of sacrifice commanders fall into this category.

As long as a commander handles at least one of the above elements, they have potential as a sacrifice commander. A few other criteria we’ll look for are the utility of their abilities and efficiency; as always, commanders that give you the most impact for the least mana are among the strongest.

#34. Mikaeus, the Unhallowed

Mikaeus, the Unhallowed is a staple in many sacrifice decks as a value engine and a combo piece. Giving your creatures undying is a great way to get extra sacrifice fodder by recurring your dorks and enables lots of infinite loops when paired with a persist creature like Putrid Goblin. That said, Mikaeus may be better in the 99 where it can be reanimated to cheat on the high mana cost.

#33. Mazirek, Kraul Death Priest

Spreading +1/+1 counters about as you sacrifice permanents makes Mazirek, Kraul Death Priest an excellent option for a token-based sacrifice strategy. Spewing out tons of tokens and sacrificing a few of them to grow the rest can result in a fast, formidable board presence, especially since cracking fetch lands and Treasure tokens grows your team.

#32. Ayli, Eternal Pilgrim

Ayli, Eternal Pilgrim offers a powerful sacrifice commander in Orzhov colors. This 2-drop offers a cheap, repeatable sacrifice outlet that plays well with life-gain synergies. It’s easy for sacrifice decks to gain a bunch of life even without Ayli, thanks to the presence of Blood Artist and its variants, including Cruel Celebrant, Zulaport Cutthroat, and Bastion of Remembrance.

#31. Rayami, First of the Fallen

Rayami, First of the Fallen takes an interesting spin on a sacrifice deck by going for a Voltron-style build instead of the typical midrangey value piles the archetype encourages. Instead of sacrificing as many creatures as possible, Rayami wants you to sacrifice creatures with impactful keywords like Wilson, Refined Grizzly or Glissa Sunslayer so Rayami can inherit those abilities. It’s a much more focused kind of sacrifice deck.

#30. Elas il-Kor, Sadistic Pilgrim

Elas il-Kor, Sadistic Pilgrim is Blood Artist in the command zone. That’s pretty much it, but that’s also more than enough. Blood Artist effects are often at their strongest in sacrifice decks because they put a fast clock on the opponent. They’re also important effects for combo decks; many sacrifice loops enable infinite death triggers, so you need an additional effect to win the game.

#29. Abdel Adrian, Gorion’s Ward + Agent of the Iron Throne

Agent of the Iron Throne gives background commanders a crack at being Blood Artist, and Abdel Adrian, Gorion's Ward is the best at exploiting this. Abdel works well for this type of deck; it produces a ton of token fodder and can reset creatures with undying and persist. It’s also part of a powerful a + b combo with either Animate Dead or Necromancy that generates infinite death triggers all on its own.

#28. Greven, Predator Captain

While most sacrifice commanders encourage you to sacrifice lots of small creatures, Greven, Predator Captain wants to sacrifice some chonkers. Pitching cards like Rotting Regisaur or Phyrexian Soulgorger benefits this commander wildly, offering an interesting twist on Rakdos sacrifice.

#27. Mahadi, Emporium Master

Cheap commanders that generate a mana advantage are often deceptively powerful. Mahadi, Emporium Master can generate tons of Treasure, even infinite amounts. It plays incredibly well with edict creatures like Plaguecrafter and Chain Devil to kill tons of creatures a turn. The Treasures aren’t just mana accelerants but a win condition when paired with cards like Marionette Master and Reckless Fireweaver.

#26. Thalia and The Gitrog Monster

Thalia and The Gitrog Monster is a relatively new commander that’s quickly gained popularity. It’s a ton of value for 4 mana; you get a massive creature that can’t be interacted with via blockers, ramp, disruption for your opponents, and most importantly, a sacrifice outlet. Turning creatures into cards is a great deal. This commander is limited by only doing it once a turn, but it provides enough auxiliary value for other pieces to pick up their slack.

#25. Juri, Master of the Revue

Juri, Master of the Revue is a cheap commander that gets out of hand quickly. Cards that trigger when you sacrifice any permanent have tons of potential. You’ll want to sacrifice plenty of creatures in Rakdos, but throwing in value from fetch lands and Treasures kicks things up a notch. Juri pairs especially well with Fling effects since it’s cheap enough to replay a few times in a game.

#24. Teysa, Orzhov Scion

Teysa, Orzhov Scion wants to be played in a deck that sacrifices tokens. Three white creatures feel like a lot, but it’s a manaless way to remove a threat. White excels at token generation; cards like Battle Screech, Lingering Souls, and Secure the Wastes generate enough tokens for an activation and then some. Pair them with Darkest Hour to unleash an army of ghosts worthy of a Mike Flanagan show.

#23. Braids, Arisen Nightmare

It’s a distinct shame that Braids, Cabal Minion can’t make this list, but Braids, Arisen Nightmare gives you some value. A free sacrifice each turn that likely draws you cards offers decent card advantage. It’s especially strong alongside cards like Demonic Pact, with downsides Braids can mitigate by sacrificing the offending permanent.

#22. Lagomos, Hand of Hatred

Lagomos, Hand of Hatred loves Fleshbag Marauder effects. Sacrificing five creatures sounds like a lot for a tutor, but one Fleshbag often kills three or four creatures, and Lagomos provides free sac fodder on its own, even if you can’t make the tutor ability work.

#21. Kels, Fight Fixer

Kels, Fight Fixer handles two elements of sacrifice decks as a sacrifice outlet and payoff for other sacrifice effects. Keeping the cards flowing is important for any deck. Kels is especially useful if you want to sacrifice tokens, as many sacrifice draw engines like Midnight Reaper won’t work with token production.

#20. Anhelo, the Painter

Anhelo, the Painter gives your sacrifice decks a spellslinger spin with its casualty ability. It’s a bit restrictive on what you can sacrifice, but the payoff is well worth it. Anhelo pairs well with cards like Jadar, Ghoulcaller of Nephalia and Cryptbreaker that can generate Zombie tokens to sacrifice.

#19. Jan Janson, Chaos Crafter

Jan Jansen, Chaos Crafter only wants to sacrifice artifact creatures, but the mana advantage is well worth it. To maximize this commander, you’ll want plenty of ways to generate Thopters and Servos. Thopter Assembly and Sram's Expertise are great starting points. This deck gets to leverage cards like Thopter Shop and Master Trinketeer that other sacrifice decks aren’t interested in.

#18. Nemata, Primeval Warden

Saprolings are an archetype that’s all about sacrificing the tokens, and Nemata, Primeval Warden is the best commander for this. It generates sacrifice fodder, gives you a sacrifice outlet, and incidentally hates on your opponent’s graveyards. It’s easy to whip up plenty of Saproling tokens to sacrifice with cards like Saproling Cluster and the infamous Sprout Swarm.

#17. Elenda, the Dusk Rose

Elenda, the Dusk Rose is a commander you don’t mind sacrificing once in a while to unleash an army of tokens. Commanders that grow the more you sacrifice permanents always have the potential to be dangerous but can fall apart if killed. Elenda’s death trigger negates that weakness, especially since it’s easy to sacrifice it in response to exile effects.

#16. Thraximundar

Thraximundar is great for Grixis players who want to play like a Gruul deck. Thraximundar offers incredible pressure from the command zone if you can make your opponents sacrifice creatures. Edicts come in clutch here, but you can play with some zombie typal synergies for extra sacrifice effects on your own.

#15. Ayara, First of Locthwain

Ayara, First of Locthwain works best in a combo-oriented build. This isn’t to say you can’t play it fairly; it’s just a fantastic candidate to go with infinite sacrifice loops since its triggered ability works to kill your opponents and its sacrifice ability helps dig toward your combo pieces. At the end of the day, turning a creature into a card while generating a life buffer does a lot for 3 mana.

#14. Yahenni, Undying Partisan

A cheap commander with a free sacrifice ability that’s not restricted to getting activated once a turn? Yahenni, Undying Partisan ticks most boxes you want and is hard to remove. Cheap commanders that can become formidable threats on the battlefield, as Yahenni does thanks to its counters, can provide pressure throughout the game – especially since Yahenni acts as a combo enabler and payoff in one.

#13. Myrkul, Lord of Bones

Myrkul, Lord of Bones offers a commander interested in doing much more than just sacrificing creatures. Bringing them back as non-creature enchantments lets you leverage lots of powerful abilities. For example, it goes infinite with Devoted Druid, which is a totally unique feature. It also works well with creatures that have static effects like Platinum Angel and Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite that are incredibly impactful but more vulnerable on a creature than an enchantment. Throw in some token synergies like Second Harvest and Anointed Procession, and you’ve got a brew.

#12. Grist, the Hunger Tide

Yes, Grist, the Hunger Tide can be your commander, because it’s a 1/1 insect while in the command zone. This is just an incredibly busted card. Sacrificing a measly 1/1 to kill any creature or planeswalker is fantastic removal. Should it die, you can Reanimate Grist with most reanimation effects. If you lean into the insect typal theme, Grist can make a ton of sacrifice fodder each turn and acts as a win condition with cards like Hermit Druid.

#11. Yawgmoth, Thran Physician

Before he was the Father of Machines, Yawgmoth was a simple man. Yawgmoth, Thran Physician is a sacrifice outlet with board control and card draw. Proliferate effects make it easy to exploit its counters, and it functions as a discard out. If you can stack a few Blood Artist effects to gain life as you sacrifice creatures, you can use it as a combo piece.

#10. Ghave, Guru of Spores

Ghave, Guru of Spores can function as a Saproling commander but isn’t restricted to those typal synergies. Its saprolings can be fodder for anything you like. It’s great for players looking to establish infinite loops and is also a fair commander if you just want to play around with death triggers and +1/+1 counters. Versatility is Ghave’s greatest strength.

#9. Ayara, Widow of the Realm

Ayara, Widow of the Realm is new to the scene, but quite intriguing. It’s much more interested in sacrificing expensive creatures, making it a sacrifice commander who works quite well with Sneak Attack style decks. Transforming it into Ayara, Furnace Queen turns your commander from a sacrifice outlet to a sacrifice fodder engine that can end the game.

#8. Judith, the Scourge Diva

Judith, the Scourge Diva does everything you want for an aggressive sacrifice deck. Pinging anything you like gives you a finisher in the late game and board control early. +1/+0 is a significant buff for decks interested in attacking. Its triggered ability doesn’t work with tokens, but the buff balances this, so cards like Chandra, Acolyte of Flame and Lagomos, Hand of Hatred are still useful for this commander.

#7. Baba Lysaga, Night Witch

Baba Lysaga, Night Witch doesn’t just want you to sacrifice creatures; it wants you to sacrifice everything you can for a powerful draw engine. Cards like Tyvar, Jubilant Brawler and Thousand-Year Elixir are vital to get multiple activations a turn. Cards with multiple card types like Courser of Kruphix are also important. The artifact lands from Mirrodin come in clutch here.

#6. Vaevictis Asmadi, the Dire

Vaevictis Asmadi, the Dire is a fantastic card. You can make your opponents sacrifice their best permanents while you throw away tokens and excess lands. Since it’s an expensive commander, a few ways to give it haste like Lightning Greaves are useful. Top deck manipulation also comes in clutch; Vampiric Tutor and Worldly Tutor do a lot of heavy lifting for this commander to ensure you get a great spell.

#5. Ziatora, the Incinerator

Ziatora, the Incinerator wants to fling high-powered creatures around for maximum damage. It’s a fantastic option for Ball Lightning cards, but you have plenty of other options like Rotting Regisaur and Gadrak, the Crown-Scourge for large, cheap creatures with “downsides” that don’t matter when you plan to sacrifice them anyway.

#4. Meren of Clan Nel Toth

Meren of Clan Nel Toth is the commander for exploiting Fleshbag Marauder and other edict creatures. Any creature that can sacrifice themselves works for this commander. Sakura-Tribe Elder and Spore Frog are common to find alongside this classic commander, but more modern releases like Cankerbloom and Haywire Mite can happily join their ranks.

#3. Teysa Karlov

Teysa Karlov is Panharmonicon for death triggers. Doubling your triggers is an easy way to squeeze the most value out of your cards. You get two cards off Midnight Reaper, double the damage output of Blood Artist, and so on. It even gives your tokens a few keywords. This commander offers easy value with relatively little effort.

#2. Rograkh, Son of Rohgahh + Tevesh Szat, Doom of Fools

The partner pairing of Rograkh, Son of Rohgahh and Tevesh Szat, Doom of Fools is powerful enough to pop up at cEDH tables from time to time. Szat is the star here, offering tons of sacrifice fodder and card draw as a sacrifice outlet. Rograkh pairs with it as a great way to draw three cards, but having a 0-mana creature leads to explosive starts with Culling the Weak.

#1. Korvold, Fae-Cursed King

Korvold, Fae-Cursed King has everything you could want in a sacrifice commander. It applies a ton of pressure, offers tons of card draw, pays off other sacrifice outlets, and works with Treasures and fetch lands. It’s even great with more niche cards like Crop Rotation and Sylvan Safekeeper. Korvold’s also quite flexible in how you build it; you can go full cEDH midrange combo or keep things casual with your big beater of a commander. Either way, you’ll rack up plenty of counters and cards.

Best Sacrifice Commander Payoffs

Let’s fall back to the three primary elements: sacrifice fodder, sacrifice outlets, and sacrifice payoffs.

For sacrifice fodder, creatures that recur themselves or effects that continually produce tokens are best. Recursive creatures like Reassembling Skeleton, Gravecrawler, and Bloodghast are fantastic ways to sacrifice the same creature over and over. Cards like Chandra, Acolyte of Flame, Jadar, Ghoulcaller of Nephalia, and Bitterblossom instead produce one or two creatures to sacrifice each turn. Creatures with persist or undying like Putrid Goblin and Geralf's Messenger can also be useful as combo pieces.

For sacrifice outlets, free and repeatable is often the best. Cards like Goblin Bombardment, Carrion Feeder, and Viscera Seer are great examples. You don’t want your sacrifice outlets to have restrictions like once a turn or at sorcery speed unless they’re quite powerful, like Priest of Forgotten Gods or Sidisi, Undead Vizier. A few instants and sorceries, especially ones like Plumb the Forbidden or Burnt Offering that convert fodder into cards or mana also help give sacrifice decks some heft.

As for sacrifice payoffs, the amount of these you’ll need can vary. Blood Artist effects and cards like Midnight Reaper are among the strongest varieties. They can be a touch awkward because they don’t help you sacrifice creatures as fodder or outlets in most cases, so figuring out the right balance is ideal. It’s important to remember that many sacrifice loops require one of these pieces, as many of them generate infinite death triggers. You also need to consider what you want to use as sacrifice fodder. Some of these payoffs like the Reaper and Judith, the Scourge Diva are restricted to non-token creatures. It can work against you to have a bunch of those payoffs and only tokens as sacrifice fodder.

Commanding Conclusion

Teysa Karlov | Illustration by Magali Villeneuve

Magic has long rewarded players for sacrificing their creatures. It’s a primarily black effect, which makes sense with the color’s motto so elegantly described as “greatness, at any cost.” What’s a few zombies or humans when there’s power and glory on the horizon?

Despite being entrenched in black, other colors get in on the sacrifice themes, often offering powerful supplementary effects. Built on an easily understood foundation of three elements, a sacrifice deck can be a great way for a burgeoning deckbuilder to learn how to build synergistic decks.

What’s your favorite sacrifice commander? Do you ever include a sacrifice subtheme in your decks? Let me know in the comments or on the Draftsim Discord!

Stay safe, and keep sacrificing those Bloodghasts!