With Halloween just around the corner, many Commander players are in the market or deep in their card collections to make something spooky. Magic: The Gathering has a lot of tricks and treats hidden away in its massive library. In this list, you won't just see bats or zombies so prepare to be spooked!

All Hallow's Eve

Let's start off with Halloween's namesake card, All Hallow's Eve. Forget the ancient Magic text as this came way back from Legends, this card will make every player on the table scream. Whether in terror or delight depends on how many creatures they have in the yard. This four-mana Black sorcery is a slow mass reanimation spell that bring everybody back to the graveyard! You just have to wait two upkeeps later to get the corpse party started!

Jack-o'-Lantern

Pumpkins are one of Halloween's most iconic symbols. Luckily, Innistrad: Midnight Hunt brought us Jack-o'-Lantern: a one mana artifact that exiles a card, draws you a card, and filters mana. Sure, it's not on any short list for powerful artifacts but imagine building a Halloween-themed deck without it? That would be horrifying!

Umbris, Fear Manifest

This Nightmare Horror lurks in every trick or treaters worst nightmares. Umbris is a 1/1 Dimir creature for five mana that exiles cards from your opponents libraries whenever a horror or nightmare enters the battlefield. A fearful ability indeed, no one likes their cards to be out of the game. Umbirs feeds of this fear and grows for each card your opponents own in exile. With its creepy art, Umbris is a perfect commander to terrorize the pod.

Uncle Istvan

In my early days of playing Magic in the 90s, I saw this summon card (raise yer hand if you know what that was!) that creeped out nine-year old me. Uncle Istvan is a four-mana 1/3 that reduces all damage dealt to it to zero. Back then, my main deck was a Green and Red monstrosity that had no ways to deal with Ol' Uncle. Fireball couldn't stop him. Neither could Lightning Bolt or a Grizzly Bear with a Giant Growth. Thankfully, I learned that there were ways to destroy him aside from damage which was a turning point in my Magic playing career. Uncle Istvan is a blast from the past and is a sick include in a Halloween deck.

Reaper King

Scarecrows don't just scare away the birds, they also scare away humans. And apparently in Magic, they also scare away planeswalkers. This five color kindred commander is a big 6/6 that buffs other Scarecrows by +1/+1. The scary part is his other ability, as Reaper King can destroy any target permanent whenever another Scarecrow enters on his side of the corn field.

Fleshtaker

Speaking of corn fields, look at Fleshtaker's art. This 2/2 human assassin is an Orzhov killer that can win scariest costume award for the night. It's an inefficient sacrifice outlet but its activated ability is not what makes it useable. Its triggered ability lets you scry 1 and gain a life which is an aristocrat's dream given flesh.

Jester's Cap

When making this list, I was perusing Duskmourn: House of Horror's card list in search of a clown card. I was almost going to use Razorkin Hordecaller or Vicious Clown. But then, I remembered opening a Jester's Cap from Fifth Edition. That artifact was a pain to deal with and to look at because of the menacing clown art. For four mana (and a two-mana activation cost), this artifact could exile three cards from an opponent's library. There's no clowning around when Jester's Cap removes combo pieces!

Olivia, Crimson Bride

Vampires are seen as sexy Halloween monsters and Olivia could have been designed to fit that bill - if she weren't basking in blood instead, that is. This six mana 3/4 has flying and haste ... and brings back a creature from the 'yard tapped and attacking. Olivia is a bride that needs no partner as she reanimates one for herself. Now let the wedding party begin!

Gravecrawler

We've talked about pumpkins, horrors, scarecrows, clowns, and vampires but zombies are top of my mind when I think Halloween. There's something about the millions of zombie movies set in modern times that makes a zombie apocalypse scenario all the more plausible to me. Out of all the zombies in Magic, Gravecrawler gets the nod as it is a simple 2/1 for 1 that can be cast ad infinitum from your graveyard - as long as you have another zombie in play that is. This allows for a couple of cool combos with sacrifice outlets like Carrion Feeder and Phyrexian Altar.

Trick or Treat?

For sure I've left so many cards off this list what with the long history of magic. If you want to see more, look no further than the latest set Duskmourn. Other sets to consider for some Halloween-themed cards are Shadowmoor, the Innistrad block, Shadows Over Innistrad and Eldritch Moon, oh and the other sets in the Innistrad saga (Midnight Hunt and Crimson Vow).

For a treat, ask your playgroup to all make Halloween the central theme of their decks for some spooktacular Commander games!