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Ashnod's Altar

Artifact

Sacrifice a creature: Add {C}{C}.

CMC
3
Mana cost
{3}
Color identity
C
Rarity
uncommon
Set
Antiquities
Price
$31.30
EDHREC rank
#131
Buy on TCGplayer
Ashnod's Altar card art
Ashnod's Altar turns any creature into two colorless mana — free sacrifice outlet, immediate payoff, no activation cost. It's a staple because it does real work even without a combo in sight, and Rakdos, the Muscle running it in over 72% of builds is not an accident.

Best Commanders

Commanders with the highest synergy

01
Rakdos, the Muscle

Rakdos, the Muscle

72.7% of decks · synergy 0.62

Rakdos, the Muscle demands a free sacrifice outlet to cheat massive creatures into play consistently, and Ashnod's Altar fills that role while converting the sacrificed creature into mana that fuels the next move.

02
Atla Palani, Nest Tender

Atla Palani, Nest Tender

66.1% of decks · synergy 0.61

Atla Palani, Nest Tender needs a way to crack her Egg tokens on demand, and Ashnod's Altar lets you sacrifice them at instant speed while floating mana to immediately use whatever creature Atla drops into play.

03
Endrek Sahr, Master Breeder

Endrek Sahr, Master Breeder

78.3% of decks · synergy 0.58

Endrek Sahr, Master Breeder floods the board with Thrull tokens that threaten to destroy him once they reach five — Ashnod's Altar gives him a pressure-release valve that converts the excess Thrulls into mana before they trigger his self-sacrifice clause.

04
Ghave, Guru of Spores

Ghave, Guru of Spores

66.8% of decks · synergy 0.56

Ghave, Guru of Spores operates on a loop of creating and destroying tokens, and Ashnod's Altar closes that loop into a full engine: sacrifice a token for two mana, spend one mana to put a counter on Ghave, remove a counter to make a new token, repeat.

05
Yarus, Roar of the Old Gods

Yarus, Roar of the Old Gods

56.6% of decks · synergy 0.54

Yarus, Roar of the Old Gods generates value off creature cast triggers and wants a high-velocity game state — Ashnod's Altar recycles creatures that have already triggered Yarus into mana for the next wave.

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 legal
oathbreaker legal

Commander is where Ashnod's Altar earns its reputation — 100-card singleton games run long, creature-based strategies dominate, and a zero-activation-cost sacrifice outlet that also generates mana is structurally impossible to replace on rate. In Legacy and Vintage it sees fringe play in reanimator and storm shells that need cheap ways to bin creatures or generate colorless mana, but those formats are fast enough that its three-mana investment is a real tax. Pauper is the surprise entry: Ashnod's Altar is legal and functional there, slotting into any token or sacrifice shell that can afford the setup. Modern and Pioneer don't get it at all.

Key Combos

Combo lines featuring this card

23,596 decks
Ashnod's AltarCathars' Crusade

Ashnod's AltarCathars' Crusade

Infinite +1/+1 counters on most creatures you control; Infinite ETB; Infinite LTB; Infinite colorless mana; Infinite death triggers; Infinite sacrifice triggers

View on Commander Spellbook ↗

Budget Alternatives

Cheaper options that do most of the same work

Phyrexian Altar does the same job for colored mana instead of colorless — often better in combo shells, similarly priced, so it's a companion rather than a substitute. If you genuinely need to cut cost, Thermopod and Spawning Pit both offer sacrifice outlets for free or near-free, but neither generates mana at the rate Ashnod's Altar does, which means loops that rely on the two-mana return either break or need additional pieces to compensate.

Price Context

Current price

$31.30 premium tier

At $31.30, Ashnod's Altar sits firmly in the premium tier — expensive for a single artifact with no enters-the-battlefield effect, but justified by its ubiquity across creature-based Commander archetypes. It has been reprinted several times and the price has stayed elevated, which reflects genuine demand rather than scarcity.

Explore

Sources

Mentioned

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