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Hell's Caretaker

Creature — Horror

{T}, Sacrifice a creature: Return target creature card from your graveyard to the battlefield. Activate only during your upkeep.

CMC
4
Mana cost
{3}{B}
Color identity
B
Rarity
rare
Set
Chronicles
Price
$1.90
EDHREC rank
#9377
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Hell's Caretaker card art
Hell's Caretaker turns your graveyard into a toolbox — tap it, sacrifice a creature, and return any creature from the bin to the battlefield, no questions asked. The cost is real: summoning sickness means you wait a turn before the first activation, and you need a warm body to feed it every time. Pair it with Thornbite Staff or run it under Endrek Sahr, Master Breeder and the feeding problem evaporates entirely.

Best Commanders

Commanders with the highest synergy

Format Analysis

Where it lives, where it can’t

FormatVerdict
commander legal
legacy legal
modern legal
pioneer not legal
standard not legal
vintage legal
pauper not legal
oathbreaker legal

Commander is where Hell's Caretaker earns its slot — 100-card singleton means your best creatures will hit the graveyard eventually, and a repeatable, unconditional reanimate effect on a creature body is exactly the kind of slow-burn value that thrives in long games. Legacy and Vintage are legal but uninterested; those formats close out games before a tap-to-activate reanimator gets rolling, and dedicated reanimate spells like Reanimate and Animate Dead are just faster. Oathbreaker is the one non-Commander 60-card format where it can show up, though the faster pace works against it there too.

Key Combos

Combo lines featuring this card

130 decks
Intruder AlarmHell's Caretaker

Intruder AlarmHell's Caretaker

Infinite death triggers; Infinite ETB; Infinite LTB; Infinite sacrifice triggers; Infinite untap of creatures; Infinite mana creatures you control can produce; Infinite untap of creatures you control

View on Commander Spellbook ↗
8 decks
Hell's CaretakerSkeleton CrewCoercive Recruiter

Hell's CaretakerSkeleton CrewCoercive Recruiter

Infinite LTB; Infinite ETB; Infinite sacrifice triggers; Infinite death triggers; Infinite creature tokens with haste; Infinite mana creatures you control can produce; Gain control of all creatures until end of turn; Return all creature cards from your graveyard to the battlefield; Infinite untap of creatures you control

View on Commander Spellbook ↗

Price Context

Current price

$1.90 cheap tier

At $1.90, Hell's Caretaker sits in the cheap tier — strong for what it does at that price point, and a repeatable reanimation effect on a creature body doesn't have many direct competitors this affordable. The price is unlikely to spike dramatically given its niche role, but picking one up now costs less than a pack.

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Sources

Mentioned

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