The 43 Best Mono Black Commanders Ranked

Last updated on July 5, 2024

Vito, Thorn of the Dusk Rose | Illustration by Lie Setiawan

Mono-color commanders are usually hard to pull off and play, especially because of how color identity rules work in Commander. Plus, a mono-colored deck is usually very focused and aggro-oriented, something that’s hard to do well in EDH.

Black cards offer great tools to a deck, including good removal, sweepers, and tutors, while having clunky card draw and weaker board presence than most other colors. Let’s look at the best black legends in Magic and uncover more than 40 reasons to play a black commander. Get ready to pay a bunch of life and reanimate some dead creatures.

Why Go With a Black Commander?

Razaketh, the Foulblooded | Illustration by Chris Rallis

Why play a black Commander deck? Because they can be ridiculously fun. Partially because the dark thematic options will make the 12 year old heavy metal lord inside you rock out.

You can get some fast starts with mana rituals, you can get late-game mana power with Cabal Coffers, you have the best suite of tutors in the game, and you can get decent card draw if you’re willing to sacrifice life, creatures, or both.

But your win conditions with black commanders most often come through creatures. You can go wide or tall in simpler decks, or aim for combo lines in more complex decks with creature-centered wincons like Vito, Thorn of the Dusk Rose and Marionette Master.

While black has plenty of creature removal and board wipe options, it has an infamously weak suite of artifact and enchantment removal. This makes control and combo matchups pretty tough.

#43. Ghoulcaller Gisa

Ghoulcaller Gisa used to be the best, but I think the days of mono-black zombies are unlikely to rise again in our Dimir () world. This isn't even the second best Gisa on this list!

#42. Arvinox, the Mind Flail

Arvinox, the Mind Flail is a List rebrand of Mind Flayer, the Shadow from Secret Lair X Stranger Things, so people don’t have it. And Gonti, Lord of Luxury still seems like the card of choice to play to steal other players’ stuff.

I’d usually rather draw cards from my own deck, curated to synergize toward a goal. But this can be fun in the way red chaos decks can be fun.

#41. Gonti, Lord of Luxury

Okay, so you strap a bunch of Kaya's Ghostform things onto Gonti, Lord of Luxury. Or you’ve got a pile of Feign Death or Animate Dead effects in hand. You’ve become a super inefficient blink deck that folds like a cheap suit to Farewell and all those exile effects.

#40. Horobi, Death's Wail

Horobi, Death's Wail turns Retribution of the Ancients, Shadow Alley Denizen, Squee's Toy, and a bunch of otherwise unplayable cards into machine guns. The fun comes when someone tries to bounce their own Gadwick, the Wizened and you remind them that Horobi's static ability affects all targeting.

Good times.

#39. Taborax, Hope's Demise

Taborax, Hope's Demise seems like the most reliable commander option for the Shadowborn Apostle deck. Take just shy of 30 Apostles, drop in a Razaketh, the Foulblooded, a toolbox of demons like Lord of the Void, Archfiend of Depravity, and other cards that sound like Slayer albums from the 80s, and go to town. Razaketh lets you grab Liliana's Contract along the way, which has to be on your bucket list of ways to win a game of Magic.

Maybe this is a Razaketh, the Foulblooded deck, but Razaketh works best in the 99 with Taborax in the command zone.

#38. Phage the Untouchable

You can try to get Phage the Untouchable into your hand, but it’s simpler to stack effects that cancel ETB triggers like Torpor Orb. Or cards that prevent you from losing the game, either straight-up like Stunning Reversal or by ending the turn before Phage's trigger can resolve with Sundial of the Infinite.

This deck isn’t the worst. A bunch of Stifle effects and cards like Platinum Angel can make you pretty resilient. But this still feels like the deck a grizzled Magic boomer pulls out of the bottom of the backpack to impress the kids at their local game store.

#37. Razaketh, the Foulblooded

If you want to play a Shadowborn Apostle deck, you could do it old school and run Razaketh in the command zone. But an 8-drop doesn’t play as well as it did five years ago.

#36. Ashcoat of the Shadow Swarm

Ashcoat of the Shadow Swarm is a 3/4 rat warlock that pumps up all your other rats. Additionally, it allows you to mill yourself four cards at your end step, in turn letting you return up to two rats from the graveyard to your hand.

I think this card is great as far as rats go. It does what a rat warlock would: find strength in numbers, and revive dead rats!

#35. Sidisi, Undead Vizier

Sidisi, Undead Vizier might be the best commander to try the Bolas's Citadel and Aetherflux Reservoir combo, though it's also just a generically strong creature with decents stats. Demonic Tutor in the command zone is scary, even if it's 5 mana and demands a sacrifice.

#34. Yahenni, Undying Partisan

Yahenni, Undying Partisan wants some sweepers, Reassembling Skeleton-type cards, and Massacre Girl’s win conditions. But it can also be its own wincon for that kind of control deck.

#33. Mikaeus, the Unhallowed

Persist and undying turn out to be pretty resilient to most everything except Farewell. But almost nothing is resilient to that card, to be fair. Throw in some zombie synergies while you wait to find your Triskelion or Walking Ballista to go infinite with.

#32. Maralen of the Moonsong

Maralen of the Mornsong may be jank, but it’s top level jank that wins if opponents don’t know what’s going on.

You put around 90 Swamps in the deck. Mull to your Dark Ritual or Jeweled Lotus if you can. Then you grab Ad Nauseam. Next turn you cast Ad Nauseam, draw most of your deck including Reliquary Tower, which you play to keep all the cards. Then you ritual your way up to a Skirge Familiar to play a massive Exsanguinate or Torment of Hailfire.

#31. Varragoth, Bloodsky Sire

You’ve got to get Varragoth, Bloodsky Sire onto the battlefield, attack, and protect it long enough to pick up more than one combo piece. Add in some backup tutors and you have a combo deck.

What do you grab? You can get Maralen of the Mornsong and any of its shenanigans or Razaketh, the Foulblooded and live that demon tutoring life. You can also drop in the classic Exquisite Blood and Sanguine Bond combo.

Let’s be real. If you’re playing this commander you’re probably squeezing all of these in there. And whatever other sick combos I’m not thinking of.

#30. Trazyn the Infinite

Trazyn the Infinite is a Necrotic Ooze for artifacts, and artifact creatures as well. This commander gets more powerful as your graveyard fills up with different artifacts, and you can make a very interesting “artifact matters” deck.

Unfortunately, Trazyn gets hit hard by graveyard hate. Still, with a mill engine or Entomb effects, you can emulate abilities from powerful artifacts in your graveyard like Palladium Myr, Gilded Lotus, Staff of Domination, and the like. Since you’re already entombing cards, you can take the next step with Reanimate or Living Death. 

#29. Massacre Girl

The Meathook Massacre as a commander?

Having a board wipe in the command zone with Massacre Girl creates an interesting political dynamic. If someone gets out to an early lead with, say, Selesnya () tokens, you could turn into everyone else’s temporary best friend. You still need something like Revel in Riches to actually win, but this can be fun. This also might be the best home for mono-black superfriends, but I still don’t think that’s a thing.

It’s not going to be a good night for you with Massacre Girl if no one brought creature decks. But I think this could be a safe choice in the age of creature-heavy precons.

#28. Nashi, Moon Sage’s Scion + Ink-Eyes, Servant of Oni

Rat ninjas are fun, especially the ones from the first Kamigawa block. Ink-Eyes, Servant of Oni reanimates things from other players’ graveyards while Nashi, Moon Sage's Scion steals their cards.

Their ninjitsu abilities don’t work from the command zone and they leave off the fun Dimir ninjas, both problems solved by the most popular ninja commander, Yuriko, the Tiger's Shadow. Still, Yuriko feels a bit too powerful sometimes, so mono-black is an option if you need a more mid-level ninja build.

#27. King Macar, the Gold-Cursed

You can either build this as a card draw plus a Gold tokens machine looking to win with Disciple of the Vault, Marionette Master, and Revel in Riches, or you can lean into the tapping and untapping thing using your artifact synergies.

You can give King Macar, the Gold-Cursed equipment that taps it without having to attack. Then you can make it into an artifact with cards like Liquimetal Torque because there are a lot more untap artifact effects, like every card that starts with “Voltaic.”

This deck is a little fragile and janky, but King Macar’s stock keeps going up as more and more cards get indestructible.

#26. Jerren, Corrupted Bishop / Ormendahl, the Corrupter

There are better ways to manage the “sacrifice creatures, lose life, gain cards, gain life, repeat” structure of black decks, but Jerren, Corrupted Bishop is one of the more flexible versions of that. Plus it looks super janky as a card, so it might be a nice way to camouflage the power of your deck’s engine a bit better than dropping something like Yawgmoth, Thran Physician into the command zone.

#25. Tevesh Szat, Doom of Fools + Sengir, the Dark Baron

There are other partners for these commanders, but this seems like the most fun pairing. Tevesh Szat, Doom of Fools takes your opponents’ commanders and Sengir, the Dark Baron takes their life.

But replacing Yawgmoth with these cards in the command zone instantly lowers the power and amps up the goofiness of your black sac deck, so they might be nice to have on hand in case you walk into the LGS and everyone is actually shuffling up precons.

I guess this pairing is better than Jeren if that’s what you’re doing? Maybe?

#24. The Vampire Legends

Respect for playing mono-black vampires when there are way more powerful vampire builds in Rakdos () or Mardu (). You gain the ability to more easily play cards with lots of black pips like Necropolis Regent and Vampire Nocturnus, or even Cordial Vampire and Captivating Vampire. And a Drana, Liberator of Malakir deck can be built for go-wide speed.

You may not win, but you’ll get respect from me for playing on hard mode and leaving every version of Edgar Markov behind.

#23. Imotekh the Stormlord

Imotekh the Stormlord asks that you build around artifacts, much like the rest of the Warhammer 40k necron commanders. Do so and you unlock a potent token generator, one that also contributes to combat each turn. If you can surgically extract artifacts from your graveyard one at a time, perhaps with unearth or a single-target exile effect, you can flood the board with artifact creatures in no time.

#22. Erebos, God of the Dead

All those mono-black devotion cards from your Gray Merchant of Asphodel decks had to go somewhere, right? It turns out there’s a decent set of options here using heavily-pipped cards like Massacre Wurm and Painful Quandary for various lifedrain shenanigans. Erebos, God of the Dead is basically a card draw engine in this deck, using your lifegain to pay for cards that can close the game.

Look, you’ll probably lose if you can��t get the game out to like turn 15. But if you can get there, you are, like Thanos, inevitable.

#21. Geth, Lord of the Vault + Chainer, Dementia Master

Reanimating creatures from your opponents’ graveyards is cool, but Geth, Lord of the Vault and Chainer, Dementia Master have such high casting and activated ability costs. And you’re asking a lot of your enemies’ graveyards to put you over the top without an on-card wincon.

#20. Mari, the Killing Quill

This New Capenna Commander got a huge boost with Assassin's Creed and Outlaws of Thunder Junction, with their emphasis on assassins/outlaws. There are so many cheap rogues and assassins in black, and a lot of them tap to destroy other creatures or have deathtouch even before Mari, the Killing Quill hits the table. And your opponents will be forced to decide whether to block an army of deathtouchers or let you draw cards and make Treasures when this card is down.

Someone wipes the board? You’re running low to the ground and just drew four cards. The awesome thing is that you don’t even have to protect Mari all that much. Its exile ability still goes off in a board wipe situation. Your critters can start the chain when you drop it again.

But the real kicker is that this card's passive ability kind of shuts down graveyard reanimation strategies, which is pretty wicked. Even if someone’s thwarting your plan A.

Wincons outside of typical black combo pieces, especially the Revel in Riches and Marionette Master pieces to take advantage of those Treasures, are a bit lacking in Mari's supported creature types. But this deck might honestly be the fastest way to pump out some of the other powerful commanders in this tier if you stick a few in this card's 99.

#19. Gisa, Glorious Resurrector

With Gisa, Glorious Resurrector, you’re aiming to kill your opponents' creatures and automatically resurrect them on a later turn. You’d better keep Gisa around, so protection is key here. Still not the best Gisa, though.

#18. Toshiro Umezawa

Toshiro Umezawa is the best jank deck in black. It seems like it shouldn’t work, but it often does. New cards like You Are Already Dead and Lethal Scheme really pop here, and just a few hits of cards like Necrologia can really get the engine going.

It’s kind of skill testing and rewards precision, just like the ninja at the head of the deck, so it’s fun to play. The trouble is that it loves a midrange game where everyone has, like, five creatures out. I don’t see those kinds of games as much as I did five years ago, so it’s possible the game has gotten too fast for Umezawa.

#17. Liliana, Heretical Healer / Liliana, Defiant Necromancer

Fine as a solo card, you can just play Liliana, Heretical Healer as a Liliana planeswalker themed commander with a nice zombie subtheme. 

Is that good? 

Hard to say. Milling a bunch of planeswalkers kind of sucks, so you’d rather play this as a grindy control deck that can also reanimate a few juicy things as needed while opponents are distracted with your Liliana, Dreadhorde General. 

#16. Sauron, the Necromancer

Sauron, the Necromancer is an incredibly menacing card in both the mechanics and the card's name itself. In short, it's a 4/4 that creates attacking token copies of creatures in the graveyard when it attacks. If it's also the ring-bearer, then you get to keep those tokens.

#15. Recursion Commanders

These mill/dredge commanders can be fun, and they have some strong tools in Angel of Suffering and Cemetery Tampering. These decks win with reanimation since your graveyard’s always got so much stuff. Single cards like Dread Return are good, but of course Rise of the Dark Realms is even better. 

How do you choose a commander?

• Syr Konrad, the Grim is its own slow wincon if you mill enough. 
• Balthor the Defiled can do the impression of Living Death you need to get the victory.
• Sheoldred, Whispering One is more powerful than both, but as a really scary-looking card that’s gonna make you a bit of a target. 

#14. Marrow-Gnawer

Rat Colony and some friends. You can get cute with Marrow-Gnawer and play a more straightforward rat typal deck. But you can also just hammer down, add an Echoing Return, and bash face.

#13. Aclazotz, Deepest Betrayal

#12. Shirei, Shizo's Caretaker

Virus Beetle. Dusk Legion Zealot. Abyssal Gatekeeper. Clattering Augur. Sling-Gang Lieutenant. Blood Artist. You get the drift.

Shirei, Shizo's Caretaker is the best budget commander on the list. Cheap cards with fun ETBs can all stack together to generate value. And being able to grab a bunch of nonsense from storage boxes to make a deck that can win is pretty fun.

#11. Gisa, the Hellraiser

Hailing from Outlaws of Thunder Junction, Gisa, the Hellraiser is a lord for zombies and skeletons right out of the command zone, which is a good incentive to play this type of card.

If you can commit enough crimes on your opponents' turns, whether having targeting activated abilities or cheap removal spells, you’ll have a giant army of zombie creatures in no time. Look out for Death Baron, another zombie and skeleton supporter.

An interesting option is to play Zombie Trailblazer, a zombie that commits crimes easily with the help of your other creatures.

#10. Skithiryx, the Blight Dragon

Sorry, folks. Infect is good! Skithiryx, the Blight Dragon easily threatens to kill any player with one or two hits, provided that you have your poison/proliferate engine going, or a well-timed Hatred.

#9. Ayara, First of Locthwain

Drain the table while drawing cards. That works, yes?

Tenacious Underdog is a staple favorite at the Ayara, First of Locthwain castle, along with Endrek Sahr, Master Breeder and Army of the Damned. A Morbid Opportunist here, a Blood Artist there, and you’ve got a deck.

#8. Massacre Girl, Known Killer

Massacre Girl, Known Killer, from Murders at Karlov Manor, is a very interesting mono-black commander. Every time an opponent's creature dies with 0 or less toughness, you’ll draw a card. That makes cards like Toxic Deluge and Infest very good, wiping the board of small creatures and giving you many cards in return. As are cards like Massacre Wurm.

Plus, your creatures have the wither ability, so they’re extra hard to block profitably, and you can build your own -1/-1 counters engine with cards like Archfiend of Ifnir. Other good “massacre” cards are the original Massacre Girl and The Meathook Massacre, and maybe there’s a “massacre typal” deck in here somewhere.

#7. Tinybones, Trinket Thief

Sorry, folks, discard is good. I mean, usually not in Commander, but Tinybones, Trinket Thief can get the job done when you can stack on card draw and get some late game inevitability. Especially when paired with some drain and gain combo cards.

#6. Tergrid, God of Fright / Tergrid's Lantern

Discard remains good with Tergrid, God of Fright. When you can just start taking stuff your opponents discard, and add edicts to take stuff they sacrifice, even a simple card like Smallpox can end games. Tergrid even nabs enemy sagas after their last chapter!

The most likely commander on this list to be banned, Tergrid isn’t fun to play against. But it'll win a lot of games for you.

#5. Sheoldred, the Apocalypse

Sheoldred, the Apocalypse is too cheap at 4 mana for what it does. A relevant body that dodges most direct-damage removal and a static drain ability that happens naturally over the course of the game. Just casting Sheoldred means you’ll gain 2 life and your opponents will lose 2 life every turn. Not to mention that this card punishes opponents’ card draw while bolstering your own “pay life to draw card” engines. Even having a Howling Mine in play means that the end is very close. You can trigger all sorts of draw-card synergies and drain synergies just by having this commander in play.

#4. Vito, Thorn of the Dusk Rose

The ultimate drain and gain commander. Vito, Thorn of the Dusk Rose combos with Exquisite Blood all on its own. You know how this deck works. The more tools like Veinwitch Coven they print, the better it gets. 

#3. Vilis, Broker of Blood

Vilis, Broker of Blood is super powerful. Stack the deck with spells that lose life and add in spells that gain life to stay alive and survive the inevitable Bolas's Citadel you’ll find while powering through your deck. The typical win conditions are Exsanguinate and other big drain effects.

All you need to get there is a ton of mana fast enough to drop your commander. And black can be pretty good at that, I hear. Vilis can often win the game the turn it comes down, so the trick is to live that long. That’s where cards like Toxic Deluge and Snuff Out thrive.

#2. Yawgmoth, Thran Physician

Yawgmoth, Thran Physician does everything your aristocrats commanders do, but better. It combos off on its own with a Blood Artist, Butcher Ghoul, and a card that makes a token when a creature dies, including Nest of Scarabs, Pawn of Ulamog, and Sifter of Skulls.

As with Vilis, fast mana is the name of the game. Yawgmoth doesn’t draw cards quite as efficiently as Vilis does, but it's easier to get onto the battlefield and can start doing crazy things pretty quickly. So it’s a better choice from a cEDH perspective.

#1. K'rrik, Son of Yawgmoth

The most popular black commander on EDHREC is also the most powerful. Even faster than Yawgmoth, K’rrik, Son of Yawgmoth is also more flexible if you can find the combo pieces since it can gain and lose life basically at will. It lacks Yawgmoth’s draw ability, but why draw when you can play all the tutors and cast most of them for 1-2 mana and a few points of life?

cEDH decks optimized around the tutor plan with enough things like Lion's Eye Diamond can win on turn 1.

Decklist: Vito, Thorn of the Dusk Rose in EDH

Exquisite Blood | Illustration by Cynthia Sheppard

Vito, Thorn of the Dusk Rose is a staple card in lifegain decks, but this EDH deck is built around it for a change.

This commander has a very powerful built-in ability, so each time you gain life, another opponent loses that much life. You can also give your creatures lifelink for a very powerful swing. Even if the attack is blocked, someone loses life if you have your commander in play and you can end the game in a fell swoop. And if your creatures die, you can also profit from their deaths by having other vampires like Blood Artist and Falkenrath Noble in play.

Vito is also a vampire, and many of your good lifelink creatures are vampires, so the deck ends up having a minor typal vampire theme with cards like Cordial Vampire and Sanctum Seeker.

There are some cards that combo with your commander. Exquisite Blood makes you gain life whenever an opponent loses life, so it’s an infinite combo with Vito and with Sanguine Bond. Blood Tribute is also a combo piece, and you can tap Vito for the kicker.

There are many cards in this deck that require life payment to work, mainly to draw cards, so that you cash in the excess life for cards. Between Greed, Phyrexian Arena, and Black Market Connections, you always have something to do with your excess life.

Aetherflux Reservoir is also a card that allows you to dump excess life into damage. Sorin Markov can be a player killer, making their life 10, and one attack with a bunch of lifelink creatures should gain you 10 life and snipe that player through Vito’s ability. While having Vito in play, you can end the game quickly with cards like Exsanguinate, Gray Merchant of Asphodel, and Corrupt.

Commanding Conclusion

Yawgmoth, Thran Physician | Illustration by Mark Winters

That was a lot! I kind of feel like I’ve just survived a death metal concert. Ears ringing. Sore neck. A few mosh bruises.

Mono-color legends are where Wizards often mainlines the key attributes of a color in the color pie, and this is absolutely true of black. Sacrifice creatures and life for cards, destruction, and life loss. Sometimes that’s the kind of deck you need to play at the end of a tough week. And we’ve all had a lot of tough weeks lately, haven’t we?

What's your favorite black commander? Did I miss your favorite, or overvalue something you think is total trash? Let me know in the comments below or discuss over in the Draftsim Discord.

At their best, these mono-black decks let us take the edge off. And I think we all should have at least one sleeved up when headbanging is on the menu. Stay safe out there!