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Altar of the Brood

Artifact

Whenever another permanent you control enters, each opponent mills a card.

CMC
1
Mana cost
{1}
Color identity
C
Rarity
rare
Set
Secret Lair Countdown
Price
—
EDHREC rank
#1420
Buy on TCGplayer
Altar of the Brood card art
Altar of the Brood mills every opponent for one whenever a permanent enters the battlefield under your control — at one mana, that cost is effectively free. In a deck built around flicker loops or mass token production, the damage accumulates fast; Soundwave, Sonic Spy and Felidar Guardian are exactly the kind of engines that turn this from a trickle into a kill.

Best Commanders

Commanders with the highest synergy

01

Soundwave, Sonic Spy

35.1% of decks · synergy 0.34

Soundwave, Sonic Spy generates a stream of artifact tokens as you cast spells, and each one hitting the battlefield fires Altar of the Brood — making the mill trigger a near-automatic rider on your normal game plan.

02
Captain N'ghathrod

Captain N'ghathrod

37.3% of decks · synergy 0.32

Captain N'ghathrod is already trying to mill opponents and reanimate their creatures, so Altar of the Brood layers passive mill onto every permanent entering your side of the board without asking for anything extra.

03
The Wise Mothman

The Wise Mothman

33.7% of decks · synergy 0.29

The Wise Mothman proliferates radiation counters that punish opponents for drawing, and Altar of the Brood accelerates that pressure by milling cards before they even reach the draw step — the two effects compound into a fast clock.

04
Bruvac the Grandiloquent

Bruvac the Grandiloquent

32.7% of decks · synergy 0.29

Bruvac the Grandiloquent doubles every mill trigger, so each permanent entering under your control mills two cards from each opponent instead of one, which means Altar of the Brood scales immediately into a serious threat.

05
Aminatou, the Fateshifter

Aminatou, the Fateshifter

30.5% of decks · synergy 0.29

Aminatou, the Fateshifter blinks her own permanents and those of opponents repeatedly, and Altar of the Brood converts every flicker trigger into a free mill — a clean fit for a deck already built around entering-the-battlefield value.

Format Analysis

Where it lives, where it can’t

FormatVerdict
commander legal
legacy legal
modern legal
pioneer legal
standard not legal
vintage legal
pauper not legal
oathbreaker legal

In Commander, Altar of the Brood is a one-mana combo piece first and a value engine second — it's not doing much in a fair deck, but in any shell that generates repeated enters-the-battlefield triggers it becomes a passive win condition. Modern and Legacy players have largely ignored it; dedicated mill strategies in those formats lean on more efficient payoffs, and one mill per trigger is too slow without a loop to back it up. Pioneer has a similar ceiling: viable in fringe combo builds, irrelevant outside them. Oathbreaker is where it shows up alongside its Commander cousins, particularly in blink-heavy or token-flood shells where one mana for a permanent mill engine is genuinely powerful.

Key Combos

Combo lines featuring this card

Price Context

Current price

unknown tier

Pricing data isn't available for Altar of the Brood right now, so check Scryfall or your preferred marketplace for a current figure. Historically it's been an affordable pickup given its narrow application, but copies can spike when a new Commander deck or combo writeup brings it back into the conversation.

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Sources

Mentioned

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Updated . Data from Scryfall, EDHREC, and Commander Spellbook.