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Black creatures have been at the top of Magic: The Gathering’s metagame for as long as they’ve been around. Black decks are frequently the best in the formats they are a part of, with some of the most iconic cards in the game being that colour. There are a ton of creatures that make an impact as soon as they hit the battlefield, and black creatures are no exception. These are the 13 best black creatures in Magic: The Gathering and how to use them.
What are the best Black Creatures in MTG?
The best Black Creatures in MTG cover Griselbrand, Yawgmoth, Thran Physician, and Troll of Khazad-dum, among others.
13. Gravecrawler
Gravecrawler doesn’t look special at first, but the ability to cast it from the graveyard is what makes it so good. The card is usually not used as an attacker or even blocker, but as sacrifice fodder. So long as you control a Zombie, you can cast it as much as you want if you have black mana to spend.
Gravecrawler is used in sacrifice decks that create infinite combos and mana by repeatedly sacrificing it to generate mana to cast it, and in some cases, make excess mana to play whatever other spell you want. This also increases your Storm count to close out a game that way.
12. K’rrik, Son Of Yawgmoth
Although K’rrik, Son Of Yawgmoth has a high casting cost, if you pay life you can play it for just four mana. Once it hits the battlefield, all your black spells become trivial to cast, as you can pay life to pay for mana. In a format like Commander where you start with 40 life, this usually means you don’t ever have to worry about K’rrik being unable to use life for black mana. K’rrik has lifelink to help gain back lost life as an added bonus.
Decks playing K’rrik, Son Of Yawgmoth generally are going all in on K’rrik. Its ability encourages you to play cards with multiple pips of black mana in their casting costs which can lead to you not needing to pay mana at all, only life to hold your land up for something else.
11. Opposition Agent
Opposition Agent is fantastic as it punishes anyone searching their library, and lets you search for whatever card you want from there (assuming it meets the conditions of what caused them to search their library). This is obviously great against cards like Grim and Demonic Tutor, but also works against fetchlands to act as pseudo-land destruction while ramping you.
Opposition Agent is amazing in all the formats its legal in (Legacy, Vintage, and Commander) as all those formats have staple cards that search libraries. There is little reason to not play Opposition Agent if you’re playing a deck that can generate black mana as all the powerful cards it counters are too long to list.
10. Gray Merchant Of Asphodel
Sometimes lovingly referred to as Gary, Gray Merchant Of Asphodel is the main payoff for mono black decks. It turns all black pips on your battlefield into burn damage to your opponent and life gain for yourself to get back in the game if you’re low on life.
Gray Merchant Of Asphodel is played almost exclusively in mono black decks since it guarantees your devotion to black will be high. Since Gray Merchant isn’t a legendary creature, having multiple copies of it isn’t a downside, and chaining multiple copies of it can lead to large amounts of burn and life gain to close out games.
9. Troll Of Khazad-dûm
Troll Of Khazad-dûm is a creature that’s very strong, but not because of anything it does on the battlefield. While its effect is solid and it has great stats, the odds of you casting it are slim to none, especially when there are far better spells to be casting for six mana. The strength of Troll Of Khazad-dûmis its swampcycling ability.
Swampcycling can get any card with the Swamp typing, meaning it can’t fetch more than a basic land including shocklands, triomes, and utility lands like Witch’s Cottage. This also helps to get creatures into your graveyard for decks that care about that.
The Benefit Of Landcyclers:
Part of the reason landcyclers such as Troll Of Khazad-dûm are so good is because they act as another copy of a land in your deck since they can replace themselves in your hand with a land. This lets you play a lower number of lands which in turn makes your deck more consistent as you can lower the odds of drawing a dead card.Â
8. Viscera Seer
There are many sacrifice outlets in Magic: The Gathering, but the best one on a creature falls to Viscera Seer. For just one mana, you have the option to sacrifice creatures at any point to scry one. While the scrying ability isn’t too special, it’s good to control your top deck to make sure you don’t draw into a dead card. The important part is the ability to sacrifice a creature without ever spending mana.
The decks playing Viscera Seer are ones that want to sacrifice their own creatures to gain effects. There are many cards that trigger whenever a creature dies, and in some cases can lead to infinite combos under the right circumstances. Since Viscera Seer can be activated at instant speed, it’s hard to interrupt it once it gets going.
7. Blood Artist
Blood Artist is another card that benefits from your creatures dying, along with your opponents. All creature deaths turn into one burn damage and one life gained. Multiple copies of Blood Artist stack, so if there’s ever a board wipe you can deal a ton of damage while gaining so much life you’re likely to win the game from there.
Although Blood Artist cares about all creatures dying, its home is best in decks that can cause its own creatures to die. It’s much easier to trigger this with sacrifice outlets compared to removing your opponents’ creatures. In decks that can make an infinite number of creatures to sacrifice, Blood Artist is the combo piece that holds the glue together to give a win condition through sacrificing.
6. Yawgmoth, Thran Physician
The namesake of one of Modern’s best decks, Yawgmoth, Thran Physician does so much with little effort. The protection from Humans is neat, but rarely comes up. The main attraction is paying one life to put a -1/-1 counter on a creature and draw a card. You do need to sacrifice a creature to do so, which is something decks playing Yawgmoth can do with ease.
Yawgmoth, Thran Physician works best when your deck is built around it. The Modern deck uses it with Hapatra, Vizier Of Poisons to create an infinite number of 1/1 Snakes which give you sacrifice fodder and a target to put a counter on. It also pairs well with Young Wolf as after it dies it has undying so it returns to the battlefield with a +1/+1 counter. If a -1/-1 counter is put on it after undying, the counters counteract, and it can use undying yet again for infinite sacrifice fodder.
5. Dauthi Voidwalker
Dauthi Voidwalker is a very versatile card for just two mana. It acts as one-sided graveyard hate, as all cards are exiled instead of going to your opponent’s graveyard. At any point, you can sacrifice Dauthi Voidwalker to play any card exiled through Dauthi Voidwalker’s effect. The counters of Voidwalker stay even after it leaves the battlefield, so if you play another copy of it you can still sacrifice it to play a card exiled before.
Most black decks will benefit from playing Dauthi Voidwalker as it won’t harm your at all, only your opponent. It has shadow, which makes it unblockable by most creatures, as very few creatures with shadow see play outside of Dauthi Voidwalker itself.
4. Orcish Bowmasters
The ultimate punish to drawing extra cards, Orcish Bowmasters is the best answer to one of the strongest cards in Legacy and Vintage Brainstorm. If there is ever black mana untapped, the threat of Orcish Bowmasters never leaves, so your opponent has to be careful and play around it. Flashing it into the battlefield during combat gets you two power on the battlefield to potentially trade with a powerful creature.
Orcish Bowmasters is very strong, though only as strong as the cards that draw extra cards in formats Bowmasters is legal in. In Modern, The One Ring can be punished hard by Bowmasters and in Legacy and Vintage, there are plenty more powerful cards making it one of the best counters to powerful cards.
3. Grief
Cards that can be played without spending mana are always going to be strong to some level, and Grief is no exception. It lets you force your opponent to discard any nonland card from their hand, which on turn one can be backbreaking, especially if they had to mulligan. Even without the evoke cost, four mana is not hard to reach to cast.
The best way to use Grief is in Scam decks, which play evoke cards like Grief and a spell to bring them back to the battlefield after they die such as Not Dead After All which causes it to have two enter the battlefield triggers instead of just one. This puts your opponent down two cards while having to deal with a 3/2 with menace to boot.
2. Sheoldred, The Apocolypse
It is very rare for a creature to make an impact across every single format it’s legal in, but Sheoldred, The Apocalypse is just that. Its effect is very simple, turning your card draw into life gain and your opponent’s card draw into burn. This rapidly stacks up as it triggers off of the card drawn in the draw step, along with any other card draw that may come up. It has great stats as well to make it hard to remove, especially in colours like red that have close to no solid answers for it. The deathtouch makes it scary to attack into as well, as it can trade with any creatures that don’t have first strike and five power.
Sheoldred, The Apocalypse is best in midrange decks that play a grind game. This lets you gain back the life lost early on, and helps close out games with its burn damage late-game when your opponent’s resources have been expended. Though Sheoldred, The Apocalypse is best in midrange decks, there are almost no black decks that get worse by adding it in.
1. Griselbrand
Before the release of Atraxa, Grand Unifer, Griselbrand was THE reanimation target. Even after Atraxa, Griselbrand and Atraxa are played together because Griselbrand is that good. Hard-casting Griselbrand for its actual casting cost seldom happens, and you’re often putting it into the graveyard directly from your hand or library to revive with a reanimation spell that puts it onto the battlefield. While paying seven life is a lot to draw seven cards when your starting life is 20, you can gain it back in just one attack since Griselbrand has lifelink. Besides, drawing seven cards means you draw into any card you’d need to ensure victory.
Griselbrand doesn’t fit in every deck like many of the best black creatures, and instead slots into decks that can cheat it onto the battlefield. It’s one of the best targets to cheat out, as very few cards can match the power of its effect. You always need cards in your hand to play, and refreshing your hand at any point is amazing.
Those were the best black creatures in Magic: The Gathering and how to use them. Many of the best black creatures are built around sacrificing creatures or using your life as a resource. It is one of the best colours for midrange strategies that win by out-resourcing your opponent and denying their creatures from staying on the battlefield. If this kind of playstyle sounds appealing to you, playing decks with black is worth looking into as this is the main strength of the colour.
