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Apprentice Necromancer

Creature — Zombie Wizard

{B}, {T}, Sacrifice this creature: Return target creature card from your graveyard to the battlefield. That creature gains haste. At the beginning of the next end step, sacrifice it.

CMC
2
Mana cost
{1}{B}
Color identity
B
Rarity
rare
Set
Commander 2017
Price
$0.85
EDHREC rank
#4581
Buy on TCGplayer
Apprentice Necromancer card art
Apprentice Necromancer drops a creature from your graveyard into play with haste for one turn — the catch is the sacrifice trigger at end of turn, but in graveyard-centric builds that's a feature, not a bug. Commanders like Chainer, Nightmare Adept that care about creatures entering from the graveyard get repeated value, and Ashnod the Uncaring turns the sacrifice into a second trigger before the body ever hits the bin.

Best Commanders

Commanders with the highest synergy

01
Chainer, Nightmare Adept

Chainer, Nightmare Adept

46.8% of decks · synergy 0.46

Chainer, Nightmare Adept is the natural home — Apprentice Necromancer's reanimate effect fuels Chainer's own discard-and-reanimate engine, and the forced sacrifice at end of turn just cycles targets back into the graveyard for future loops.

02
Obeka, Brute Chronologist

Obeka, Brute Chronologist

42.3% of decks · synergy 0.40

Obeka, Brute Chronologist exists specifically to end turns on demand, which means the 'sacrifice at end of turn' clause on Apprentice Necromancer never has to resolve — you get the reanimated creature indefinitely as long as Obeka keeps ending turns before the trigger fires.

03
Inalla, Archmage Ritualist

Inalla, Archmage Ritualist

37.7% of decks · synergy 0.35

Apprentice Necromancer is a Wizard, so Inalla, Archmage Ritualist can pay one mana to copy it on entry, generating two separate reanimate triggers off a single cast and doubling the number of creatures you pull from the graveyard each turn cycle.

04
Zul Ashur, Lich Lord

Zul Ashur, Lich Lord

11.5% of decks · synergy 0.10

Zul Ashur, Lich Lord rewards running high creature counts in the graveyard, and Apprentice Necromancer does double duty — it functions as a reanimation outlet and then returns itself to the bin, keeping the graveyard full for Zul Ashur's payoffs.

Format Analysis

Where it lives, where it can’t

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

Commander is where Apprentice Necromancer earns its keep — 100-card singleton games are deep enough in high-value creatures to make a repeatable reanimate effect worthwhile, and the sacrifice clause synergizes with sacrifice payoffs and loop-enabling commanders rather than punishing you. Legacy and Vintage permit it, but faster, more efficient graveyard options crowd it out in both formats — you're not sleeving this over Animate Dead or Reanimate in a 60-card shell. Oathbreaker is a reasonable home for the same reasons as Commander, especially under a graveyard-themed planeswalker. Anywhere else, it simply isn't legal.

Key Combos

Combo lines featuring this card

Price Context

Current price

$0.85 bulk tier

At $0.85, Apprentice Necromancer sits firmly in bulk territory — cheap enough that there's no financial friction to trying it in a new build. Bulk rares with genuine combo applications tend to hold around this floor rather than crater further, so you're not taking a price risk picking up a copy.

Explore

Sources

Mentioned

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