Grimoire of the Dead
Legendary Artifact — Book
, 
, Discard a card: Put a study counter on Grimoire of the Dead., Remove three study counters from Grimoire of the Dead and sacrifice it: Put all creature cards from all graveyards onto the battlefield under your control. They're black Zombies in addition to their other colors and types.
- CMC
- 4
- Mana cost
- Color identity
- C
- Rarity
- mythic
- Set
- Innistrad
- Price
- $0.80
- EDHREC rank
- #5165
Grimoire of the Dead puts every creature from every graveyard onto the battlefield under your control — a mass reanimation effect that scales with the entire table. The cost is real: four mana to deploy, three study counters to charge, and a discard each turn to load it, meaning you're six or more turns from payoff without acceleration. In a commander like Gisa and Geralf where the graveyard fills itself, that gap closes fast enough to matter.
Best Commanders
Commanders with the highest synergy
Gisa and Geralf
Gisa and Geralf mills creatures into the yard constantly and casts them back for free, so Grimoire of the Dead arrives in a deck that's already stuffed the graveyard by the time the counters are loaded — the payoff is enormous and the setup cost is nearly free.
Asmoranomardicadaistinaculdacar
Asmoranomardicadaistinaculdacar demands discard as a resource, so the study trigger on Grimoire of the Dead is a feature rather than a tax — every activation feeds the commander's discard-matters engine while charging toward a board-wide reanimation.
Anje Falkenrath
Anje Falkenrath untaps when you discard a Madness card, turning the Grimoire of the Dead study trigger into a repeatable loot engine that loads counters at double speed while filtering through the deck.
Oskar, Rubbish Reclaimer
Oskar, Rubbish Reclaimer casts spells directly from the graveyard whenever you discard, so the study trigger on Grimoire of the Dead generates card advantage on top of charging the counter — every discard does double work.
The Scarab God
The Scarab God already reanimates and exiles creatures from graveyards, and Grimoire of the Dead gives the deck a one-shot nuclear option that reclaims everything opponents have lost across the game in a single activation.
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 |
Grimoire of the Dead is a Commander card through and through — the slow setup is irrelevant when games routinely go ten or more turns, graveyards get stuffed by the midgame, and the mass reanimation payoff wins at a pod table in a way it never would in a shorter format. In Legacy and Vintage it's unplayable; those formats end before the third study counter lands, and dedicated reanimation packages cost one or two mana. Oathbreaker is a marginal case — shorter games make the charge-up painful, but graveyard-focused signatures can make it work. Anywhere outside Commander, skip it entirely.
Key Combos
Combo lines featuring this card
Price Context
Current price
$0.80 bulk tier
At $0.80, Grimoire of the Dead sits in bulk territory — it's essentially a throw-in. The price reflects a narrow niche in a slow format rather than any lack of power on resolution; if anything, it's a fine pickup for graveyard builds where the ceiling is backbreaking.
Explore
Sources
Updated . Data from Scryfall, EDHREC, and Commander Spellbook.