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Extract from Darkness

Sorcery

Each player mills two cards. Then you put a creature card from a graveyard onto the battlefield under your control.

CMC
5
Mana cost
{3}{U}{B}
Color identity
BU
Rarity
uncommon
Set
Zendikar Rising Commander
Price
$0.23
EDHREC rank
#3199
Buy on TCGplayer
Extract from Darkness card art
Extract from Darkness reanimates any creature from any graveyard while milling every opponent — one five-mana sorcery that generates card advantage, fills yards, and puts a body on your side of the table. The cost is real: five mana at sorcery speed means it does nothing against fast decks before turn four, but in any shell running Ashnod's Altar or topping out with Sauron, Lord of the Rings, the value is immediate and hard to argue with.

Best Commanders

Commanders with the highest synergy

01
Sauron, Lord of the Rings

Sauron, Lord of the Rings

60.6% of decks · synergy 0.58

Sauron, Lord of the Rings mills opponents as a core function, so Extract from Darkness arrives with fat targets already in every graveyard — cast it, take the best creature at the table, and Sauron's mill trigger mills three more to reload for next time.

02
Captain N'ghathrod

Captain N'ghathrod

55.6% of decks · synergy 0.48

Captain N'ghathrod mills on every combat damage, and Extract from Darkness turns that accumulated graveyard pile into a direct steal — the card does exactly what the deck is already trying to do, just at instant-value scale.

03
Lazav, Dimir Mastermind

Lazav, Dimir Mastermind

39.8% of decks · synergy 0.32

Lazav, Dimir Mastermind wants opponents' graveyards stocked with high-value creatures to copy, and Extract from Darkness both mills three per opponent and puts one of those creatures directly onto your battlefield — it feeds and closes the loop simultaneously.

04
Anowon, the Ruin Thief

Anowon, the Ruin Thief

34.1% of decks · synergy 0.27

Anowon, the Ruin Thief mills on rogue combat damage, and Extract from Darkness converts that milled-out graveyard into a free creature while milling even more — the synergy is direct and the two effects compound with every swing.

05

Runo Stromkirk

34.2% of decks · synergy 0.27

Runo Stromkirk wants large creatures in the graveyard to copy and transform, and Extract from Darkness mills three per opponent on resolution, seeding those yards with exactly the monsters Runo needs while also snagging the best target already there.

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

Extract from Darkness is a Commander card — full stop. Five mana at sorcery speed is simply too slow for Legacy or Vintage, where the legal status is irrelevant in practice, and the effect is redundant in those formats when cheaper reanimation exists. In Commander, the multiplayer math flips the equation: milling three cards per opponent means you're milling twelve cards across a four-player table, which reliably puts something worth stealing in a graveyard even if you cast it on turn five. Oathbreaker is the only other format where it realistically sees play, and only in two-color black-blue shells that can afford the five-mana slot.

Key Combos

Combo lines featuring this card

Price Context

Current price

$0.23 bulk tier

At $0.23, Extract from Darkness is deep bulk — you're paying for the cardboard, not the effect. The price reflects low reprint pressure and a narrow home, but for any Dimir graveyard or mill deck it's an auto-include at essentially zero cost.

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Sources

Mentioned

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