Crypt of Agadeem
Land
This land enters tapped.
: Add 
.
, : Add for each black creature card in your graveyard.
- CMC
- 0
- Mana cost
- Color identity
- B
- Rarity
- rare
- Set
- Commander 2014
- Price
- $5.46
- EDHREC rank
- #1766
Crypt of Agadeem can produce an absurd amount of black mana in the mid-to-late game when your graveyard is stocked — tapping for four or more black off a single land is the kind of asymmetry that ends games. The cost is real: it enters tapped and produces colorless when empty, so it's a liability in the early turns, but Teval, the Balanced Scale and any deck that fills the graveyard fast makes that trade-off disappear.
Best Commanders
Commanders with the highest synergy
Teval, the Balanced Scale
Teval, the Balanced Scale mills cards aggressively and rewards you for having a full graveyard, which turns Crypt of Agadeem into a mana engine that scales directly with the deck's core strategy — 40% inclusion rate across 32,000-plus decks confirms how naturally it fits.
Syr Konrad, the Grim
Syr Konrad, the Grim triggers off every creature leaving the graveyard, so the same black creature density that makes Crypt of Agadeem tap for five-plus mana is also pinging every opponent repeatedly.
Zul Ashur, Lich Lord
Zul Ashur, Lich Lord builds around a large black creature count by design, and Crypt of Agadeem converts that density directly into the kind of mana surplus needed to cast multiple spells in a single turn.
Xu-Ifit, Osteoharmonist
Xu-Ifit, Osteoharmonist cares about bones and bodies in the graveyard, and Crypt of Agadeem rewards exactly the same resource accumulation — the land does no extra work, it just gets paid generously for work the deck was already doing.
Rat King, Verminister
Rat King, Verminister floods the graveyard with low-cost black creatures, and Crypt of Agadeem scales off creature count specifically — a wide rat board dying and refilling the yard means this land regularly taps for five or six mana in the second half of the game.
Format Analysis
Where it lives, where it can’t
| Format | Verdict |
|---|---|
| commander | legal |
| legacy | legal |
| modern | legal |
| pioneer | not legal |
| standard | not legal |
| vintage | legal |
| pauper | not legal |
| oathbreaker | legal |
Commander is the clear home for Crypt of Agadeem — 100-card decks in a multiplayer format have the time and graveyard volume to make it explosive, and the 40-life clock gives opponents enough runway that a turn-six seven-mana land can actually close games. In Legacy and Vintage it's legal but essentially absent from competitive play; those formats move too fast for a land that does nothing the turn it enters and needs five-plus creatures in the graveyard to justify the slot. Oathbreaker is a reasonable secondary home if the planeswalker and signature spell are black-heavy and the deck mills itself, but the 60-card format compresses game length enough that the window is tighter.
Key Combos
Combo lines featuring this card
Budget Alternatives
Cheaper options that do most of the same work
Cabal Coffers is the obvious comparison but costs far more and requires Swamps specifically; Crypt of Agadeem serves as a budget analog for mono-black graveyard decks that can't afford it. Deserted Temple or a simple Swamp outperform Crypt of Agadeem in the early game, but if you need a creature-count-based mana sink in the $1–2 range, Crypt of Agadeem has no direct substitute — the closest workaround is leaning harder on ritual effects like Dark Ritual or Cabal Ritual to replicate the burst without the land slot.
Price Context
Current price
$5.46 mid tier
At $5.46, Crypt of Agadeem sits in the mid tier — expensive enough to feel like a deliberate inclusion but cheap enough that any graveyard-focused black deck can justify it without budget strain. The price is stable given its narrow but enthusiastic audience; it won't spike, but it's not getting cheaper either.
Explore
Sources
Mentioned
- Teval, the Balanced Scale
- Syr Konrad, the Grim
- Zul Ashur, Lich Lord
- Xu-Ifit, Osteoharmonist
- Rat King, Verminister
Updated . Data from Scryfall, EDHREC, and Commander Spellbook.