Mortal Combat
Enchantment
At the beginning of your upkeep, if twenty or more creature cards are in your graveyard, you win the game.
- CMC
- 4
- Mana cost
- Color identity
- B
- Rarity
- rare
- Set
- Tenth Edition
- Price
- $5.70
- EDHREC rank
- #12360
Mortal Combat wins the game on the spot if you control twenty or more creature cards in your graveyard at the beginning of your upkeep — the condition is steep but entirely achievable in dedicated self-mill or token-sacrifice shells. Commanders like Iname, Death Aspect dump an entire Spirit tribe into the graveyard in one shot, and Grist, the Hunger Tide mills and generates Insect tokens to sacrifice, making the threshold feel less like a constraint and more like a turn counter.
Best Commanders
Commanders with the highest synergy
Grist, the Hunger Tide
Grist, the Hunger Tide mills the top of your library every turn, generates Insect tokens that feed sacrifice outlets, and kills creatures to stuff more bodies into the graveyard — every mode accelerates Mortal Combat's threshold simultaneously, making it the most consistent shell for the enchantment.
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 |
Commander is where Mortal Combat lives. A 100-card singleton deck, multiple opponents, and graveyard-centric strategies like Meren of Clan Nel Toth or Grist create the density of creatures in the bin that the enchantment demands. In Legacy and Vintage the card is technically legal but sees no real play — four mana for a delayed win condition that requires twenty creatures in the graveyard cannot compete with the raw efficiency of those formats. Mortal Combat is a build-around at heart, and Commander is the only format that gives it the space and synergy density to close games.
Key Combos
Combo lines featuring this card
Iname, Death AspectMortal Combat
Win the game at the beginning of your next upkeep
View on Commander Spellbook ↗
Morality ShiftMortal Combat
Near-infinite self-mill; Win the game at the beginning of your next upkeep
View on Commander Spellbook ↗Budget Alternatives
Cheaper options that do most of the same work
If Mortal Combat's graveyard-count threshold feels too high, Thassa's Oracle provides a cleaner alternative in blue-black shells — mill your deck, win immediately, no upkeep delay. For decks that want to stay in black and keep the enchantment-win aesthetic, Revel in Riches or Mayhem Devil pivot the payoff away from creature count entirely, though they ask for a different kind of sacrifice engine rather than replacing Mortal Combat directly.
Price Context
Current price
$5.70 mid tier
At $5.70, Mortal Combat sits in the mid tier — affordable enough to slot into a dedicated deck without much hesitation. It's a casual-format build-around with a narrow home, so the price is unlikely to climb without a major reprint or sudden spike in graveyard-combo popularity.
Explore
Sources
Mentioned
- Iname, Death Aspect
- Grist, the Hunger Tide
- Morality Shift
Updated . Data from Scryfall, EDHREC, and Commander Spellbook.