The 38 Best Warlocks in Magic Ranked

Last updated on May 13, 2026

Sedgemoor Witch | Illustration by Igor Kieryluk

Magic is a game full of magical individuals slinging spells. No one color has a monopoly on spellcasting, but they do have specializations and draw their magic from different sources, which is indicated on their type line: Each color has a unique type for magical individuals.

Black gets warlocks, mages who obtain power via contracts with magical entities. While the warlock type isn’t exclusive to black, the vast majority of them are black because they often sell a part of themselves to obtain power—as the black saying goes: Power, at any cost. Let’s figure out which warlocks are best for your next brew!

What Are Warlocks in MTG?

The Hourglass Coven | Illustration by Konstantin Porubov

Warlocks are predominately black creatures with a wide range of abilities. Flavorfully, warlocks gained magical powers through contracts with nonhuman entities. Warlocks are to black what wizards are to blue: a broad creature type that implies the creature has magical power. Because the category is so broad, warlocks don’t have much of a defined mechanical identity beyond being black (though some warlocks aren’t). Warlocks are also outlaws for cards that care about it.

#38. Boggart Cursecrafter

When goblins verge into Rakdos () rather than mono-red, they often adapt a token-sacrifice strategy that uses the archetype’s many bodies to fuel sacrifice outlets. Boggart Cursecrafter shines in such decks and has decent stats to boot.

#37. Callous Bloodmage

Callous Bloodmage has a small but useful ability. Sacrifice decks are often happy with a cantripping creature to sacrifice or two bodies to add to the mill. The chance to exile a threatening graveyard rounds the card out as a nice utility piece.

#36. Oriq Loremage

A repeatable Entomb on a stick is fantastic. Don’t let the last line of text on Oriq Loremage trick you—it shouldn’t be locked to spellslinger decks only. Just ignore the counters and watch your reanimation targets flow from your library to your graveyard to the battlefield.

#35. Fireglass Mentor

A cheap card draw engine is exactly what aggressive decks want to push their aggression and close the game. Fireglass Mentor helps aggro decks to cross the finish line; it’s a fantastic Cube card.

#34. Conciliator’s Duelist

Conciliator's Duelist provides an incredible flicker engine. Repartee makes Cloudshift twice as effective or tacks extra value to Swords to Plowshares, as appropriate. Since it has a solid enters ability and targets itself, it becomes both enabler and payoff.

#33. Chittering Witch

Chittering Witch is fantastic for Commander sacrifice decks. The sacrifice outlet itself is mediocre, but one card that produces up to four bodies is well worth considering, especially with recursion to get the trigger over and over.

#32. Fain, the Broker

Fain, the Broker offers a variety of small synergies. For example, you can remove counters from saga creatures to keep them around longer or turn temporary tokens from a card like Voice of Victory into a permanent buff that improves your board. Though small, they add up to an interesting card.

#31. Deathbloom Ritualist

Deathbloom Ritualist has incredible potential. Self-mill decks fill their graveyard with ease, and green has plenty of ways to untap the Ritualist for even more mana. You need a plan to make this work—I wouldn’t run it in every Golgari deck—but Songs of the Damned on a stick sounds like a great way to win a game.

#30. Abyssal Harvester

Abyssal Harvester has a pretty unique reanimation-adjacent effect. It has a few restrictions since you can only have one nightmare and the copied creature must have entered the graveyard that turn, but that’s worthwhile for a repeatable reanimation engine that asks no additional mana.

#29. Agatha of the Vile Cauldron

Agatha of the Vile Cauldron sees play as a commander that takes advantage of activated abilities. Though cheap, it’s extremely impactful when you deploy it with cards like Magus of the Candelabra and Valakut Invoker. You can craft more than a few infinite combos around it, too.

#28. Auntie Ool, Cursewretch

Auntie Ool, Cursewretch is one of the best -1/-1 counter commanders around thanks to its potent rewards. Drawing cards or damaging your opponents makes it a win condition and card advantage engine rolled into one. Though powerful, its scope is narrow since it’s wholly dependent on those synergies.

#27. Eriette, the Beguiler

Eriette, the Beguiler might be the most unique theft commander in the game since it relies on auras to do its thieving. It’s rather narrow as you need to build around it so completely that it rarely makes the 99, but a unique commander goes a long way towards making a great card.

#26. Taster of Wares

Taster of Wares rarely becomes Thoughtseize on a stick, but even picking from two or three cards is leagues better than making your opponent discard a card of their choice. This goblin becomes a serious threat in the archetype because it hinders your opponents’ ability to stop you from overrunning them with goblins. Even if you don’t get to cast the spell you steal, it’s great value. And if you do steal a Lightning Bolt or something….

#25. Alela, Cunning Conqueror

Alela, Cunning Conqueror is less flexible than its predecessor, but it’s still a formidable commander. This is easily the strongest faerie commander, and it’s a load of fun since goad makes every game of Commander more interesting.

#24. Scheming Silvertongue

Black really won when it comes to prepared spells because so many of them have an easy prepare condition. Gaining 2 life for Scheming Silvertongue can be done with an upkeep trigger, or even just a buff to the 1/3 body. A steady stream of Sign in Bloods is well worth the effort.

#23. Gyome, Master Chef

Gyome, Master Chef is a fantastic food commander. Food decks need two things: Ways to use Food tokens and the means to create lots of Food all at once. Gyome fills both roles. Add in a touch of synergy from cards like Disciple of the Vault and Marionette Master, and you get a lovely dish.

#22. Honest Rutstein

Honest Rutstein is one of the strongest Gravedigger variants in the game. These creatures typically cost 4 mana, so 3 is a meaningful discount, plus you get cost reduction for other creatures. It’s a lot of value in one package.

#21. Eris, Roar of the Storm

Eris, Roar of the Storm gives spellslinger decks a unique win condition; while many spellslinger commanders care about you casting instants and sorceries, few care about diverse mana values. The tokens Eris creates provides a strong but not unstoppable win condition; it feels perfect for players who want a taste of storm but don’t want to crank the power too high.

#20. Sinister Gnarlbark

Sinister Gnarlbark is similar to Phyrexian Arena, but it has greater potential because those -1/-1 counters are synergy pieces. They reset creatures with undying, kill small creatures for death triggers, and provide consistent triggers for cards like Hapatra, Vizier of Poisons and Auntie Ool, Cursewretch. This doesn’t need to be in a -1/-1 counters deck to be a respectable card.

#19. Servant of the Stinger

Servant of the Stinger forces a tricky decision on your opponents: Do they trade a good creature with the deathtoucher or risk letting you tutor? Committing crimes in Magic takes next to no effort, especially in the color of efficient removal, so you often have it poised to find your best card, and maybe catch a death trigger on the way.

#18. Darkstar Augur

Darkstar Augur is one of many Dark Confidant variants, but it might be the most exciting since you get two of them thanks to offspring. It offers plenty of card advantage, plus multiple bodies for decks that care about it. What’s not to love?

#17. Obeka, Splitter of Seconds

Obeka, Splitter of Seconds gets all the points for originality. Like Eriette, the Beguiler, its extremely niche ability locks it into being a commander, but that’s not necessarily a knock. Plenty of cards have powerful upkeep triggers, like Court of Ambition and Extravagant Replication. Since you get those triggers after combat, you don’t even need to worry about Obeka surviving for a turn!

#16. Emeritus of Woe

Emeritus of Woe has a wonderful prepared spell and an extremely easy prepared condition. Since you don’t need to control both the creatures that died, you can lean on cards like Fleshbag Marauder and removal to re-prepare the Emeritus for additional Demonic Tutors.

#15. Breena, the Demagogue

Breena, the Demagogue excels at turning your opponents against each other in Commander. Aggressive decks often need to game their opponents to handle the high life totals, which makes Breena an excellent commander or part of the 99 for decks interested in ending games fast.

#14. Grim Servant

A creature that tutors when it enters is incredibly powerful because there are so many ways to make a creature enter the battlefield again and again. Don’t think that Grim Servant is restricted to mono-black decks to gain devotion, either; plenty of decks run amazing 1-mana spells to tutor for like Reanimate and Dark Ritual. More devotion is nice but not required.

#13. Vile Entomber

Vile Entomber literally entombs a card when it enters. That’s not a very flashy spell, but it’s a potent one, especially if you have zombie synergies or ways to retrigger the ability. A tutor’s a tutor.

#12. Osteomancer Adept

Underworld Breach but for creatures is a spicy pitch, and that’s what you get from Osteomancer Adept. It’s far from broken; attaching the effect to a creature that needs to survive a turn cycle and restricting the recursion to creatures makes the squirrel much less of a threat, but it’s still a formidable draw engine. It works especially well with gravebreak effects since you get two triggers.

#11. Grave Researcher

Grave Researcher has one of the strongest prepared spells and one of the easiest prepared conditions to meet. Black has no trouble getting creatures in the graveyard, and the surveil trigger even helps get you there! The main concern is keeping it alive. Luckily, this isn’t black’s only reanimation spell.

#10. Alela, Artful Provocateur

One of the better Esper commanders (), Alela, Artful Provocateur strikes a balance between artifacts and enchantments that lends it great flexibility: You can build around either archetype or take a good-stuff path right down the middle. However you build it, the fleet of faerie tokens ensures you have a win condition.

#9. Sedgemoor Witch

Sedgemoor Witch has one of the best magecraft triggers. Sacrifice decks love it since it makes so many bodies, and it goes infinite with Chain of Smog and a variety of two-card combos that result in infinite copies of instants and sorceries.

#8. Vengeful Bloodwitch

Vengeful Bloodwitch is just another Blood Artist variant. It’s less useful in Commander than a Zulaport Cutthroat that damages all opponents, but, realistically, aristocrat decks want as many of these as they can get their hands on.

#7. Eriette of the Charmed Apple

Eriette of the Charmed Apple leads your opponents astray as a group-hug adjacent card. Enchanting your opponents’ creatures stops them from attacking you, but they’re free to attack your opponents. Throw in tantalizing rewards like Gix, Yawgmoth Praetor and watch your opponents undo each other!

#6. Priest of Fell Rites

Priest of Fell Rites provides two reanimation effects, one at an incredibly low cost. It’s simple to game this into giving you more triggers by recurring it with Malakir Rebirth or Raise Dead effects. Though the unearth mode means you lose the Priest, it also makes it a fine card to discard or mill during the game. The entire package ends up being very worthwhile.

#5. Hopeful Initiate

Training makes Hopeful Initiate a nasty threat that punches above its mana cost, then you can cash in the counters to remove dangerous permanents. The value varies based on the metagame; it becomes much less impactful when decks lack artifacts or enchantments worth removing, but you don’t need too much to make it good.

#4. Headliner Scarlet

Headliner Scarlett is the perfect aggressive top-end card. Preventing creatures from blocking gives it potential to finish a game the turn it enters; even if you can’t, the card draw that comes after offers plenty of resources to sneak through the last points of damage.

#3. Y’shtola, Night’s Blessed

Y'shtola, Night's Blessed is an incredible control commander. The trick to make it work best is to play it with free spells that have a mana value for 4+ like Snuff Out and Misdirection to maximize your triggers without stressing your mana with too many expensive cards.

#2. Prosper, Tome-Bound

Most of Prosper, Tome-Bound’s immense power comes from Treasure and impulse draws being printed on one card; card advantage and mana production are the game’s most important resources, so both coming from one source practically breaks the game. You can build it as a midrange commander, or a cast-from-exile commander, or a storm commander, and every path is excellent.

#1. Witch Enchanter / Witch-Blessed Meadow

Witch Enchanter unconditionally makes it into every Commander or Brawl deck I build. A Reclamation Sage that’s also a land makes your deck more consistent and resilient. Because it’s a land and a spell, you’re less likely to flood or screw.

Best Warlock Payoffs

Few cards care about warlocks specifically; just Mentor's Guidance and Robe of the Archmagi, neither of which are particularly strong and both of which are very awkward since they’re blue, not black.

More promising are the handful of outlaw cards printed in Outlaws of Thunder Junction, as warlocks are one of the five outlaw creature types. Charred Graverobber and Back in Town offer recursion, Discreet Retreat and Laughing Jasper Flint sneak in card advantage, and Double Down is another unfortunately blue payoff that’s much more powerful than the other options.

If you want to build a warlock commander deck, I’d recommend Olivia, Opulent Outlaw. Mardu gives access to the best warlocks and the outlaw payoffs are quite powerful.

Wizard vs. Warlock

The difference between wizards and warlocks in Magic is the source of their power. Wizards gain magic via knowledge and the study of ancient tomes; it’s more intellectual, hence why it’s associated with blue. But warlocks barter for magic with powerful entities, often at a cost.

A great example in Magic is Jace versus Liliana. Though Jace was born with telepathic magical abilities, he came into his own by studying under Alhammarret, a powerful sphinx on Vryn. While Liliana isn’t typically called a warlock or cast as such, she did achieve youth and power by making contracts with four demons; an entirely different process than Jace’s studying.

Wrap Up

Headliner Scarlett | Illustration by Heonhwa Choe

Warlocks lack a defined mechanical identity, but that mostly comes from the more flavorful role they play in Magic: to highlight one perilous path black mages might take to claim power. The scope of the creature type doesn’t detract from the game; rather, it adds to it.

What’s your favorite warlock? Do you play any in your decks? Would you want to see more typal support? Let me know in the comments below or in our Discord! For more Draftsim, check out our YouTube channel, The Daily Upkeep.

Stay safe, and thanks for reading!