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Out of the Tombs

Enchantment

At the beginning of your upkeep, put two eon counters on this enchantment, then mill cards equal to the number of eon counters on it.
If you would draw a card while your library has no cards in it, instead return a creature card from your graveyard to the battlefield. If you can't, you lose the game.

CMC
3
Mana cost
{2}{B}
Color identity
B
Rarity
rare
Set
Warhammer 40,000 Commander
Price
$13.54
EDHREC rank
#3224
Buy on TCGplayer
Out of the Tombs card art
Out of the Tombs mills you every upkeep and returns a creature or land from your graveyard to the battlefield — repeated recursion stapled to self-mill, no activation cost required. The catch is giving opponents extra turns via Magosi, the Waterveil triggers, which makes it a build-around rather than a slam in any blue-black shell; Imotekh the Stormlord decks eat the downside for breakfast.

Best Commanders

Commanders with the highest synergy

01
Imotekh the Stormlord

Imotekh the Stormlord

54.6% of decks · synergy 0.52

Imotekh the Stormlord creates Necron Warrior tokens whenever artifacts hit the graveyard, and Out of the Tombs mills artifacts into that zone every upkeep while pulling permanents back — the extra-turn drawback barely registers when your board refills faster than opponents can spend their bonus time.

02
Trazyn the Infinite

Trazyn the Infinite

52.8% of decks · synergy 0.50

Trazyn the Infinite can exile cards from graveyards and copy their abilities, so Out of the Tombs stocking the yard with high-value permanents gives Trazyn a deep pool to reach into each turn.

03
The Mycotyrant

The Mycotyrant

31.5% of decks · synergy 0.29

The Mycotyrant scales on creatures entering from non-hand zones, and Out of the Tombs returns creatures directly to the battlefield every upkeep — each trigger is a free Mycotyrant proc without spending a card from hand.

04
Coram, the Undertaker

Coram, the Undertaker

21.4% of decks · synergy 0.20

Coram, the Undertaker cares about the top card of libraries and deals damage when creatures mill there, making Out of the Tombs a reliable upkeep trigger that both fuels Coram's ability and recovers whatever falls into the graveyard.

05
Teval, Arbiter of Virtue

Teval, Arbiter of Virtue

22.2% of decks · synergy 0.20

Teval, Arbiter of Virtue rewards stacking the graveyard with high-value targets, and Out of the Tombs provides a steady drip of self-mill plus free recursion that keeps Teval's conditions online without burning extra resources.

Format Analysis

Where it lives, where it can’t

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

Out of the Tombs is legal in Commander, Legacy, Vintage, and Oathbreaker — illegal everywhere else. Commander is where it actually lives; the extra-turn clause is manageable in a multiplayer game where opponents can also capitalize on those turns, and the recursion engine is powerful enough to justify the risk in the right shell. Legacy and Vintage have access to it on paper, but those formats move too fast for a three-mana enchantment with a delayed, symmetry-adjacent drawback to see competitive play. Oathbreaker is the one fringe case worth noting — if your planeswalker and signature spell both interact with the graveyard, Out of the Tombs can do real work in a lower-power pod.

Key Combos

Combo lines featuring this card

Budget Alternatives

Cheaper options that do most of the same work

Dredge effects like Golgari Thug and Stinkweed Imp provide repeatable self-mill and recursion for well under a dollar each, though they require combat to trigger rather than firing on upkeep. Unmarked Grave and Buried Alive cost one to two dollars and fill the graveyard faster in a single shot — they lack the recurring land-drop angle of Out of the Tombs, but they don't hand opponents extra turns either.

Price Context

Current price

$13.54 mid tier

At $13.54, Out of the Tombs sits in mid-tier territory — expensive enough to feel like a considered purchase, cheap enough that dedicated Imotekh or Mycotyrant builds will just run it. It's a narrow card with a real home, so price stability depends on whether those commanders stay popular; there's no crossover demand propping it up if the Necron archetype cools off.

Explore

Sources

Mentioned

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