From the very beginning of Magic, sacrificing creatures has been an integral part of Black's color identity. It's only appropriate that the color of ambition would pursue victory at any cost, its creatures included. Many decks are built around utilizing creatures in this way. This strategy (often referred to as "aristocrats") centers around sacrificing disposable creatures to cast spells, activate abilities, and trigger effects that happen when those creatures die. Typically, these disposable creatures are either tokens, creatures that create tokens, or the subject of this column - creatures that can recur themselves.

The ability for a creature to return itself from the graveyard to the battlefield is inherently quite powerful. Because of this, many such creatures can at first glance appear underwhelming. Unimpressive statlines, the inability to block, and returning to the battlefield tapped are all common traits, but none of these drawbacks interfere with the primary purpose of these cards.

These creatures aren't engines, they're fuel for your sacrifice outlets.

Cards like Skullclamp, Ashnod's Altar, and Viscera Seer can convert bodies into card draw, mana, or card selection, and countless cards have triggered abilities that will be activated each time a creature dies. Self-recurring creatures are difficult for your opponents to get rid of, and you can use them to generate enormous amounts of value over the relatively longer duration of a Commander game.

Today, I'll be going over my top ten self-recurring creatures for sacrifice decks in Commander.

The Top 10 Self-Recurring Creatures

It's not really feasible to definitively rank these cards, so the numbering is going to be somewhat arbitrary, and mostly based on my personal opinion. The strength of any of them will depend on the context of your deck and your meta.

10. Haunt of the Dead Marshes

Starting off with an often overlooked common from The Lord of the Rings: Tales of Middle-Earth, Haunt of the Dead Marshes is a one-mana 1/1 elf that lets you scry when it enters the battlefield. This card provides repeatable card filtering on a body with a decently relevant creature type, considering that elf typal strategies are among the most popular and powerful creature type strategies. It does come with a drawback that keeps it from being any higher on this list, however- it costs three mana to recur it, in addition to the ability being conditional.

The condition of controlling a legendary creature is a pretty easy one to fulfill in Commander, but the mana cost is really what keeps this card down. Three mana is more than you'd usually want to pay for this sort of ability. Still, thanks to the scry, you are getting something for that extra mana. Even a modest repeatable scry effect can do a surprising amount of work across the span of a game.

9. Haunted Dead

Much like Haunt of the Dead Marshes, Haunted Dead suffers from a hefty cost on its recusion ability. Two mana is the usual Standard for these sorts of abilities, but the additional cost of discarding two cards can be problematic. This card does something very unique in exchange for those two cards, however. When it enters the battlefield, it comes with a 1/1 flying spirit token. Not only does this mean you have two creatures to sacrifice, the spirit also comes into play untapped and able to block, unlike almost every other card on this list. This makes Haunted Dead an extremely consistent source of flying blockers, and at instant speed, no less. This card only gets better in a deck that can benefit from discarding cards, typically by either casting them with Madness or reanimating them.

8. Poxwalkers

Poxwalkers is something of a different beast compared to the previous two cards. Its recursion ability isn't an activated ability. It's a triggered ability, and it's free. So long as Poxwalkers is in your graveyard, whenever you cast a spell from anywhere that isn't your hand, it returns to the battlefield tapped. There are countless mechanics this ability synergizes with. Casting spells off impulse draw effects, discover and cascade, flashback, rebound, suspend... even just casting your commander from the command zone will get back this 3/1 with deathtouch. Deathtouch creatures can be excellent for deterring attacks, so a recurring one can be deceptively powerful, even if you aren't using it as sacrifice fodder.

7. Bloodsoaked Champion

Starting with Bloodsoaked Champion, I'll be highlighting several cards with a certain similarity. Each one recurs themselves with an activated ability that costs two mana. Bloodsoaked Champion has a solid offensive statline as a one-mana 2/1, but it pays for this with a couple of downsides. It can't block, which isn't unusual for this sort of creature, but its recursion ability is limited by the raid mechanic. You can only reanimate Bloodsoaked Champion if you've attacked this turn. Attacking isn't particularly difficult, but this also limits the ability's use to your turn, which is a more significant drawback.

6. Cult Conscript

Another aggressively statted 1-drop, Cult Conscript beats out Bloodsoaked Champion for a couple of reasons. Entering the battlefield tapped is generally better than not being able to block at all, and the limitation on Cult Conscript's ability is a bit less problematic. While requiring one of your non-skeleton creatures to die isn't trivial, it's also fairly simple to enable in the kinds of decks that best utilize these cards. Being able to activate the ability when it isn't your turn is the biggest advantage Cult Conscript has.

5. Razorlash Transmogrant

Despite how it might appear at first glance, Razorlash Transmogrant continues the trend of two-mana recursion abilities. While its ability technically costs six mana, the cost is reduced by four as long as an opponent controls four or more nonbasic lands. I cannot emphasize enough how trivial this requirement is in Commander. In the vast majority of games, you'll have access to the cost reduction by turn six. But that isn't impressive in and of itself. As I've said before, two mana is about what you can expect to pay for this sort of ability. The real appeal of Razorlash Transmogrant comes with its statline. At base, it's a 3/1, which is already impressive, but when you use its recursion ability, it also comes back with a +1/+1 counter. Paying two mana for four power from the graveyard at instant speed is kind of insane, even if you can't block with it.

4. Nether Traitor

Nether Traitor is another creature with a triggered recursion ability, though unlike Poxwalkers, this one isn't free. It costs a single Black mana, but the ability triggers whenever one of your creatures dies. This makes Nether Traitor extremely easy to recur, especially in the sort of deck that would want to run it. On top of that, Nether Traitor can pull some weight on the battlefield as well. As a 1/1 with shadow and haste, Nether Traitor is a fast and evasive creature that's difficult to get rid of, giving it a valuable niche in decks that care about your creatures damaging players, or that are capable of buffing it into a more meaningful threat. It's also theoretically capable of blocking other creatures with shadow, though in practice, Dauthi Voidwalker is the only one to see any sort of regular play.

3. Bloodghast

Something of a favorite of mine, Bloodghast is the epitome of a free recursive creature. All you need to do to bring it back is have a land enter the battlefield under your control, simple as that, and you'll get a free 2/1. It can't block, and its ability to gain haste if an opponent has ten or less life is mostly irrelevant, but compared to the utility of a free body with every land drop, that doesn't mean much. Bloodghast synergizes incredibly well with anything that can sacrifice creatures to get lands. One of my newer decks, headed by Zimone and Dina, is partially built around this synergy. In that deck, Bloodghast can enable absurd amounts of card draw and ramp if it's combined with my commander and a way to untap her like Thornbite Staff.

2. Gravecrawler

If Nether Traitor subverted the two-mana standard for these recursion abilities, Gravecrawler breaks that standard over its knee. Well, figuratively at least. It doesn't have knees. Gravecrawler is an incredibly simple card. It's a 2/1 for one mana that can't block, and you can cast it from your graveyard if you control a zombie. Normally, I wouldn't include a card that depends on a specific creature type in this sort of list, but Gravecrawler is powerful enough to force my hand, and zombies are common enough that it's not an enormous limitation. Gravecrawler's greatest claim to fame in my eyes is its ability to produce an infinite number of death triggers and an infinite storm count, when combined with Phyrexian Altar. Phyrexian Altar is an incredible card, and it's probably something you'd already want to consider if you're playing any of the creatures on this list. Even without the potential to end the game out of nowhere, Gravecrawler is an unbelievably efficient source of sacrifice fodder.

1. Reassembling Skeleton

The card I'd put at the top of this list was never a question for me. Reassembling Skeleton defines this entire archetype of card, and its simplicity is where its strength lies. It's a 1/1, and you can pay two mana to return it from your graveyard to the battlefield tapped. That's it. No restrictions, no limitations, no downsides. You can block with it just fine, and you can always bring it back, as long as you have two mana. If you hold up two mana, you can block with it and return it to play before your next turn starts, letting it singlehandedly chump block a creature forever. There isn't that much I can say about a card this simple. Paying two mana for a body is strong enough that the ability to do it without any drawbacks getting in the way can make this unassuming little uncommon worth playing.

That'll be all for now. With any luck, I've been able to shine a light on some of these cards. These creatures rarely get much credit, compared to the powerful cards they're usually enabling, and I think that's a shame.