Gisa, the Hellraiser
Legendary Creature — Human Warlock
Ward—
, Pay 2 life.
Skeletons and Zombies you control get +1/+1 and have menace.
Whenever you commit a crime, create two tapped 2/2 blue and black Zombie Rogue creature tokens. This ability triggers only once each turn. (Targeting opponents, anything they control, and/or cards in their graveyards is a crime.)
- CMC
- 5
- Mana cost
- Color identity
- B
- Rarity
- mythic
- Set
- Outlaws of Thunder Junction
- Price
- $5.86
- EDHREC rank
- #3085
Gisa, the Hellraiser lands and immediately threatens a Zombie flood — her end-step reanimation off any opponent's graveyard turns every removal spell your opponents cast into your next attacker. The five-mana cost is real, but the floor on her is still two or three free bodies before she eats removal, and that's a deal Marchesa, Dealer of Death shells are happy to take.
Best Commanders
Commanders with the highest synergy
Marchesa, Dealer of Death
Marchesa, Dealer of Death runs a punisher game that rewards attacking into opponents, and Gisa, the Hellraiser converts every creature those opponents lose — to combat or to Marchesa's own triggered removal — directly into your Zombie army.
Laughing Jasper Flint
Laughing Jasper Flint wants a wide board full of attackers to keep the damage train moving, and Gisa, the Hellraiser delivers bodies for free off whichever graveyard is most stocked — the two engines stack damage and pressure on the same axis.
Xu-Ifit, Osteoharmonist
Xu-Ifit, Osteoharmonist cares about creatures entering and leaving play in volume, and Gisa, the Hellraiser supplies a steady stream of Zombie tokens to fuel that churn without spending additional cards.
Grimgrin, Corpse-Born
Grimgrin, Corpse-Born needs a sacrifice outlet and a steady supply of bodies to untap and grow, and Gisa, the Hellraiser provides exactly that by reanimating tokens off opponents' graveyards each end step.
Sephiroth, Fabled SOLDIER
Sephiroth, Fabled SOLDIER scales on dealing damage and eliminating threats, which fills opposing graveyards fast — Gisa, the Hellraiser converts those fallen creatures into Zombies and keeps the pressure compounding.
Format Analysis
Where it lives, where it can’t
| Format | Verdict |
|---|---|
| commander | legal |
| legacy | legal |
| modern | legal |
| pioneer | legal |
| standard | legal |
| vintage | legal |
| pauper | not legal |
| oathbreaker | legal |
Commander is where Gisa, the Hellraiser does her best work — four opponents means four graveyards to raid, and the token count scales with how aggressive the table is. In 1v1 formats like Legacy or Modern, the five-mana cost is prohibitive and the reanimation trigger fires only once per turn cycle against a single opponent, which rarely generates enough value to matter. Pioneer and Standard are the same story: too slow for the tempo those formats demand, and the payoff requires opponents to already be losing creatures. Oathbreaker is a reasonable home if the signature spell enables sacrifice or discard loops, but the real ceiling on Gisa, the Hellraiser is a multiplayer table where the graveyard resources are abundant and free.
Key Combos
Combo lines featuring this card
Budget Alternatives
Cheaper options that do most of the same work
Diregraf Colossus and Headless Rider both generate Zombie tokens off similar triggers at a lower mana investment, though neither reanimates from opponents' graveyards — you're trading the political graveyard-raiding angle for simpler self-referential token generation. If the goal is pure token volume rather than the unique cross-table recursion that Gisa, the Hellraiser provides, either of those slots in under a dollar and covers most of the same ground in a dedicated Zombie shell.
Price Context
Current price
$5.86 mid tier
At $5.86, Gisa, the Hellraiser sits in the mid-price tier — expensive enough to feel like a real purchase, cheap enough that she belongs in any Zombie or aristocrats deck that can support her color identity. Her price is stable given the volume of Marchesa and Zombie tribal builds running her, so this is a buy-and-sleeve situation rather than a wait-for-a-reprint one.
Explore
Sources
Mentioned
- Marchesa, Dealer of Death
- Laughing Jasper Flint
- Xu-Ifit, Osteoharmonist
- Grimgrin, Corpse-Born
- Sephiroth, Fabled SOLDIER
Updated . Data from Scryfall, EDHREC, and Commander Spellbook.