The 35 Best Sultai Cards in Magic Ranked

Last updated on December 22, 2025

Leovold, Emissary of Trest | Illustration by Magali Villeneuve

Khans of Tarkir gave us the naming convention for color trios that have enemy colored combinations, and from that MTG set we got “Sultai” for the combination of the enemy colors black-green and blue-green, . This color combination was previously called “BUG” (black, blue, green), or “Ana” thanks to Apocalypse and cards like Ana Disciple and Ana Sanctuary.

KTK also gave Sultai a thematic reason to exist, and that’s to take advantage of your own graveyard with mechanics like delve and self-mill. Let’s look at the best cards in the Sultai colors, and which decks they shine in the most!

What Are Sultai Cards in MTG?

Sultai Charm | Illustration by Mathias Kollros

Sultai cards have the Sultai color identity, which means black, green, and blue (). This color combination has been called Sultai ever since Khans of Tarkir, a Magic set that defined the names for wedge colors, and one of the clans was the Sultai Brood.

We can have strictly gold cards, hybrid-mana cards that share these mana colors, or cards like Tasigur, the Golden Fang that are black but have a blue and green activated ability. Tricolor gold cards or cards with hybrid mana are pretty rare in MTG, and these days, they’re almost always legendary creatures for Commander. Expect to see many legends that are fit to be your Sultai commanders, but not only that, since there’s plenty of cards you can use in diverse formats or in the 99 of another Commander deck.

We also have a comprehensive breakdown of all Sultai lands in Magic, if you're working on your mana base.

#35. Flotsam / Jetsam

With Flotsam // Jetsam, you have to decide between paying 6 mana and casting a spell from everyone else’s graveyard or milling three cards and investigating.

Both modes are good in different stages of the game; Jetsam gets better in Commander pod games, but it’s still a good alternative for a 1v1 game. I think of this card as a self-mill option that can sometimes give me a good value in a later stage.

#34. Henry Wu, InGen Geneticist

Henry Wu, InGen Geneticist is a way to spice up your aristocrats decks, giving exploit to every human creature you control. Basically, when humans enter and exploit a non-human creature, you’ll at least draw a card. Henry offers a nice value engine to a deck built around it, but I think this card is on the weaker side of Sultai commanders.  

#33. Indominus Rex, Alpha

Indominus Rex, Alpha is a very strong threat, but it depends on which creatures you have in your hand when you cast it. It’s not as good as a late-game top deck. This big Sultai dinosaur wants creature cards that have many keyword abilities like Galewind Moose. In this case, the dino enters with four counters, and you draw four cards – not bad for a 5-drop.

#32. Tatsunari, Toad Rider

Tatsunari, Toad Rider is a good incentive to run enchantments and enchantress-type cards, seeing as you’ll drain opponents for 1 life. You can also give a temporary pseudo-flying effect to a frog and Tatsunari, so you can go the Voltron route and have a frog with many auras. Yargle and Multani is a cool frog card to give pseudo-flying to. 

#31. Damia, Sage of Stone

Damia, Sage of Stone is a Sultai commander that incentivizes you to dump cards onto the battlefield, be it lands, ramp spells, or discard effects. You can also play the draw-go control game and draw a bunch of cards at the beginning of your upkeep.

Damia’s also a good Sultai card to ramp into as part of your 99. The strategy gets a little more dicey since an opponent can have a removal spell and prevent you from drawing cards.

#30. Sultai Ascendancy

With Sultai Ascendancy online, you get to surveil 2 every turn for free, and that gives you great self-mill capabilities or even card selection. A card like Glarb, Calamity's Augur can give you the same benefits, though, so this enchantment is already showing its advanced age. If you want more mill, play this card.

#29. Sultai Charm

Like Sultai Ascendancy, Sultai Charm is a little bit old, but it’s still a flexible charm. It’s never dead because you can either kill a mono-colored creature, destroy an enchantment, remove an artifact, or loot a card away. This instant even contributes to the graveyard aspect of your deck if you’re reaching for threshold, delve, or the like.

#28. Urborg Lhurgoyf

Urborg Lhurgoyf is a Lhurgoyf that can mill six cards with the kicker abilities. It’s a nice piece of synergy, allowing you to enable self-mill strategies as well as benefiting from them. It’s a flexible Sultai creature that can go in many different decks, and it's not restricted to Commander play.

#27. Rayami, First of the Fallen

Rayami, First of the Fallen, like Indominus Rex, Alpha, benefits from creatures with many keywords on them, except that in Rayami’s case, the creatures with keywords don’t need to be yours!

Still, you can beef your deck with cards filled with keywords. Gurmag Swiftwing is a good fit, as are Deep-Cavern Bat and Galewind Moose. With Rayami around, you get graveyard hate by exiling the creatures, and you can play a hefty amount of creature removal to boost it.

#26. Mythos of Brokkos

Mythos of Brokkos can draw you two cards, one of them being the card you’ve just tutored. In heavy mill decks, you won’t even have to pay the blue and black mana.

It only works on permanents, though, and it's a 4-mana sorcery. It’s still a value card that combines recursion, card advantage, and tutoring.

#25. Zaxara, the Exemplary

Zaxara, the Exemplary is your hydra commander, or a nightmare hydra you’ll want to have around +1/+1 counter builds.

By itself, it’s already a 2/3 deathtouch creature that generates 2 mana of one color, easily ramping you into 6- or 7-drops. When you start casting your big X spells, you’ll also get big X/X hydras, and Sultai colors already have excellent X spells that you want to cast at different points in the game.

#24. Brokkos, Apex of Forever

As long as you have a non-human creature on the battlefield, Brokkos, Apex of Forever can’t die (although it can be exiled sometimes). It’s already well-statted as a 6/6 trampler that can mutate onto others, and if you have a 1/1 lifelink bat to mutate onto or a 1/1 snake with deathtouch, it’s even better.

#23. Xavier Sal, Infested Captain

Xavier Sal, Infested Captain is a fun MTG card. You’ll want to have tokens and +1/+1 counters around, so that you remove counters to populate, and sacrifice creatures (ideally tokens) to proliferate. Xavier Sal works very well with planeswalkers since they benefit from the proliferate aspect, and many produce tokens to be sacrificed.

#22. Volrath, the Shapestealer

With Volrath, the Shapestealer, you’ll want to put -1/-1 counters on your opponent's flying creatures, or on those creatures with good combat mechanics like double strike or lifelink. It works wonders with cards that can proliferate or spread -1/-1 counters around.

#21. Sidisi, Brood Tyrant

Sidisi, Brood Tyrant, although a little power-crept these days, is still an interesting self-mill card. Whenever you mill a creature, you’ll get a 2/2 zombie, and this snake shaman can even start its own engine. From there, you can support a zombie typal or reanimator strategy pretty well. 

#20. Archelos, Lagoon Mystic

Archelos, Lagoon Mystic is an interesting Sultai creature if you want to get rid of the “enters tapped” downside on other cards, like tapped lands or ramp spells that put the land onto the battlefield tapped. Your personal Amulet of Vigor, if you will.

You can also slow things down for your opponents by tapping Archelos, so that only you get the upside during your turn, and you can do that by using cards like Cryptolith Rite, convoke spells, or some auras or equipment that requires you to tap a creature. 

#19. Kadena, Slinking Sorcerer

Kadena, Slinking Sorcerer is a Sultai morph commander, allowing you to morph or disguise a creature for free every turn, and you also draw a card when they enter. Cards that manifest or manifest dread will draw you extra cards, too.

Many Magic sets support face-down cards nowadays, usually in the combination, so you can mix manifest, morph, and disguise to create an interesting and unique deck.

#18. Nashi, Moon’s Legacy

Nashi, Moon's Legacy is a rare Sultai card that cares about attacking, but if you do, you’ll copy a card from… you’ve guessed it, your graveyard! You can play Nashi in rat decks or legends-matter decks, and it’s useful to cast value rats, those that enter the battlefield and make your opponents discard.

It helps that Bloomburrow added many blue and black rats that care about the graveyard and threshold, so you can go that route, too.

#17. Otrimi, the Ever-Playful

Otrimi, the Ever-Playful is a Sultai mutate commander, in the colors that allow you to play the best mutate-matters cards. Each time you hit with Otrimi, or with the creature that Otrimi is mutated onto, you get to retrieve a mutate card from your graveyard to your hand. From there, you can focus into a self-mill build to have more tools, or on a Voltron mutate build that combines the mutate effects, with cards like Dirge Bat and Sawtusk Demolisher.

#16. Tasigur, the Golden Fang

Like many cards from the KTK era, Tasigur, the Golden Fang has been power-crept. That said, it’s a 4/5 that can get you card advantage every turn and that can be cast for as low as . Tasigur’s ability gets a little better in EDH as you can choose who’ll give you the card and thus get something better than you would in 1v1.

#15. Felix Five-Boots

Felix Five-Boots is one of the best saboteur commanders, and there’s plenty of that in Sultai () colors. This is the rogue commander you wants you to have Bident of Thassa effects around your rogues, assassins, and the like. It’s also a 5/4 with menace that can get in and deal combat damage, so you can slap a sword on Felix and get into the red zone.

#14. Kotis, the Fangkeeper

Speaking of wielding great equipment, Kotis, the Fangkeeper with built-in indestructibility is an excellent host for all your buffs, auras and combat tricks. The mini-Villainous Wealth is a ridiculous payoff for connecting damage, and very much worth the investment.

#13. Death Begets Life

Few cards in Magic have as little downside as Death Begets Life. Especially in colors that want permanents in the graveyard. Those pesky enchantresses probably thought their shroud and hexproof would protect them, but not with this monster of a spell. Remember that high-cost spells got pulled off the Game Changer list, so Wizards really wants you to play this sort of card.

#12. Glarb, Calamity’s Augur

Glarb, Calamity's Augur has all the requirements for being a good ramp commander, allowing you to play lands from the top of your library and incentivizing you to play spells with mana value 4 or greater. It comes down early so you can start hitting your land drops, and surveil 2 becomes extra good when you know what you’re dumping into your graveyard.

With Glarb, cards that allow you to play more than one land a turn are very good, as are flashback spells or reanimation.

#11. Gonti, Canny Acquisitor

Gonti, Canny Acquisitor is a mix of a saboteur commander and theft commander. You have an incentive to deal combat damage to players, and when you do, you can cast a spell from the top card of their library by paying 1 less mana. Naturally, you’ll steal many cards from them over the course of the game, and then cards like Agent of Treachery get better.

You get a discount when you cast cards in exile with Thief of Sanity or Siphon Insight. Cards like Slither Blade can be a huge source of card advantage just by attacking every turn.

#10. The Master, Transcendent

Fallout‘s The Master, Transcendent is a Sultai mutant that adds a lot to self-mill decks, allowing you to reanimate a creature that was just milled, yours or theirs. It gives a player two rad counters too, so they’ll naturally mill cards, and you can accumulate these counters yourself to fill your graveyard. 

#9. Zimone and Dina

Zimone and Dina cares about you drawing two cards a turn, and that’s fairly easy to do in blue with cantrips and looting. They also have a sacrifice component where you make some fodder creatures to sacrifice later on, and that’s usually on the Golgari () side of things.

Being a card that's so flexible, it’s easy to slot Zimone and Dina in Sultai builds, and you can easily build a Commander deck around it. Since you’re playing many lands and you benefit from having 8 or more, landfall cards can be your friends, and you even have ways to trigger landfall on your opponents’ turns.

#8. Teval, the Balanced Scale

Believe it or not, Teval, the Balanced Scale has the same mana value as Tormod, the Desecrator. Teval is leaps above the zombie partner commander with the power to mill and return lands from your graveyard on top of your regular one land per turn. Dare I say, it's a balanced dragon spirit.

#7. The Mimeoplasm

The Mimeoplasm is the classic Sultai mill commander. As it enters, you can make it a copy of an exiled creature from a graveyard and have it enter with +1/+1 counters equal to the power of another exiled creature from a graveyard. These exiled creatures can be yours or your opponents’. You can cycle big creatures to have quality fodder, or you can have The Mimeoplasm be a copy of */* creatures that get bigger with more cards in graveyards.

#6. The Wise Mothman

The Wise Mothman is a very popular Sultai commander with tens of thousands of lists posted online, and it’s a staple in mill decks. The Wise Mothman makes everyone mill cards, triggering many synergies from cards like Syr Konrad, the Grim, while distributing +1/+1 counters around your creatures. Not only that, but mutants from the Fallout Commander precons thrive on rad counters and +1/+1 counters, so it’s the ideal leader for them. Proliferate does exactly what this deck wants, drowning them in rad counters while bolstering your units.

#5. Emergent Ultimatum

Although it has the mono-color restriction, Emergent Ultimatum has seen plenty of play in many Magic formats, allowing you to get two of the three cards you’ve tutored and cast them for free. Whether you’re getting a big planeswalker like Liliana, Dreadhorde General or a big threat like Apex Devastator, it’s up to you, and you can even choose an opponent that’ll give you what you want in some scenarios.

#4. Villainous Wealth

One of MTG’s funniest finishers, not only do you get to play X cards straight from your opponent's library, you also get to cast them for free (if they cost X or less). Suffice to say, if you exile 6-7 cards with Villainous Wealth, you’ll probably get to cast all of them.

#3. Yarok, the Desecrated

One of the best horror commanders, Yarok, the Desecrated is Panharmonicon on legs, and the Sultai colors are already known for having good cards with ETB effects. In EDH, Yarok gives you a reason to play good stuff that have good enter triggers, and each new MTG set gives Yarok more toys to play with, seeing as everything has enter triggers these days.

#2. Muldrotha, the Gravetide

Muldrotha, the Gravetide is one of the most popular Sultai commanders out there. It’s very easy to exploit its abilities by playing a permanent spell of each type in your graveyard. You’ll want self-mill and permanents that have spell-like effects, like Sakura-Tribe Elder to ramp or Seal of Primordium to Naturalize. You’ll also want Entomb effects to have more options at your disposal. For wrath effects, maybe you’ll want cards like Pernicious Deed or Ratchet Bomb, and cards with evoke are also super good since they go to your graveyard and you can replay them with this awesome commander.

#1. Leovold, Emissary of Trest

Leovold, Emissary of Trest sees play in formats like Legacy and Vintage, and it was so powerful that it was banned in Commander. It’s very easy to lock people out of the game with Leovold, making sure that they don’t draw many cards. And if they kill it, you get to draw an extra card. It’s very good with wheel effects since they lose their hands and can’t draw seven… but you can.

Best Sultai Payoffs

Many Sultai cards and legends are focused on the graveyard and milling, either getting stronger when you mill yourself, mill your opponents, or get to use the graveyard as a resource. Sultai usually benefits more from permanents hitting the graveyard, unlike Izzet () which cares most about instants and sorceries, so you’ll definitely want some quality permanents (mainly artifacts, enchantments, and creatures).

Cards like Seal of Doom, Seal of Primordium, Spore Frog, and Omen of the Sea are cheap ways to get spell-like effects from permanents, and many Sultai decks benefit from these kind of cards. Blood Fountain and Broodheart Engine are literal engines for your graveyard, and represent a large card advantage when you recur them.

Mechanics like delirium, delve, and threshold are very good in Sultai decks, so be on the lookout for those.

Finally, there’s landfall. Sultai is a ramp color, so many lands hit the battlefield, including the lands you play from your graveyard.

What Is Sultai Good at in MTG?

Considering that white and red are often aggro colors, Sultai is quite the opposite, the embodiment of grind. It combines UG ramp with BG graveyard recursion and UB control. Sultai can play the long game by having the best removal, card draw, recursion, counterspells, and late game threats. As such, many Sultai decks thrive in the late game since they can grind.

Looking at the legendary creatures, we have The Mimeoplasm, Muldrotha, the Gravetide, and The Wise Mothman as commanders that thrive on filled graveyards. On that theme, Sheoldred, Whispering One, Dread Return, and Ancient Greenwarden are also fantastic with the graveyard as a resource and dominate late game plays.

Other common themes in Sultai are big toughness, entering triggers, or big X-spells (big mana). We have cards like Outrageous Robbery, Villainous Wealth, or Torment of Hailfire to dump extra mana later on.

Proliferate is also in Sultai colors, so cards that care about +1/+1 counters, infect, poison, and planeswalkers are at home in Sultai decks.

Wrap Up

Sultai Ascendancy | Illustration by Karl Kopinski

That’s about it for Sultai cards, folks! I love the grindy and control aspect these three colors provide together. If you’re a fan of the long game, ramp, X spells, or just getting value over and over, give these Sultai cards a chance if you’re not already into them.

What are your favorite Sultai cards? Your favorite Ana cards? Let me know in the comments below, or over on Draftsim Discord.

Thanks for reading, and keep scanning what cards are in your graveyard.