Master of Dark Rites
Creature — Vampire Cleric
, Sacrifice another creature: Add 
. Spend this mana only to cast Vampire, Cleric, and/or Demon spells.
- CMC
- 1
- Mana cost
- Color identity
- B
- Rarity
- rare
- Set
- The Lost Caverns of Ixalan Commander
- Price
- $5.69
- EDHREC rank
- #2631
Master of Dark Rites drops onto the battlefield and immediately doubles your black mana for the turn — that's a Worn Powerstone stapled to a 2/2 body that also happens to be a Vampire Cleric. The cost is two mana and a creature slot, both of which Clavileño, First of the Blessed makes worthwhile by turning every Vampire you cast off that mana into a flying threat with upside.
Best Commanders
Commanders with the highest synergy
Clavileño, First of the Blessed
Clavileño, First of the Blessed runs Master of Dark Rites in nearly 85% of decks because the extra black mana lets you chain Vampires in a single turn, triggering Clavileño's ability multiple times and flooding the board with flying tokens before opponents can answer.
Edgar Markov
Edgar Markov wants as many Vampires hitting the battlefield as possible, and Master of Dark Rites effectively lets you cast two in one turn for the price of one, accelerating the eminence triggers and token accumulation that make Edgar's wide strategies snowball.
Orah, Skyclave Hierophant
Orah, Skyclave Hierophant cares about Clerics dying and returning, and Master of Dark Rites fits the tribe while providing the extra black mana needed to replay recursion targets the same turn Orah's trigger resolves.
Carmen, Cruel Skymarcher
Carmen, Cruel Skymarcher rewards exiling opponents' cards and attacking, and Master of Dark Rites accelerates the mana needed to cast the expensive threats Carmen wants swinging early.
Elenda, the Dusk Rose
Elenda, the Dusk Rose scales with creatures dying around her, and Master of Dark Rites gives the deck the mana headroom to sacrifice, recast, and rebuild in the same turn window that matters most.
Format Analysis
Where it lives, where it can’t
| Format | Verdict |
|---|---|
| commander | legal |
| legacy | legal |
| modern | not legal |
| pioneer | not legal |
| standard | not legal |
| vintage | legal |
| pauper | not legal |
| oathbreaker | legal |
Master of Dark Rites is a Commander card — full stop. In Commander, black-pip-heavy Vampire and Cleric decks prize it exactly because doubling your black mana for a single turn is equivalent to a ritual effect you can repeatably access by protecting the body. Legacy and Vintage allow it, but faster and more efficient mana acceleration means it doesn't compete there. It's absent from Modern, Pioneer, Standard, and Pauper entirely, so the entire conversation about Master of Dark Rites is a Commander conversation.
Key Combos
Combo lines featuring this card
Budget Alternatives
Cheaper options that do most of the same work
Nirkana Revenant does the same doubling trick on a much larger body but costs six mana and several times the price, so it's not a budget replacement — it's a different card for a different point in the curve. Crypt Ghast is the closest true alternative at a comparable price point, adding Extort as a bonus and doubling swamp mana similarly, though it lacks the Vampire creature type that makes Master of Dark Rites irreplaceable in tribal builds.
Price Context
Current price
$5.69 mid tier
At $5.69, Master of Dark Rites sits in mid-tier pricing that's easy to justify given its near-85% inclusion rate in the most popular shell it enables. It's not a card that fluctuates wildly — Commander staples with a narrow but deeply loyal home tend to hold steady rather than spike or crash.
Explore
Sources
Updated . Data from Scryfall, EDHREC, and Commander Spellbook.