Patriarch's Bidding
Sorcery
Each player chooses a creature type. Each player returns all creature cards of a type chosen this way from their graveyard to the battlefield.
- CMC
- 5
- Mana cost
- Color identity
- B
- Rarity
- rare
- Set
- World Championship Decks 2003
- Price
- $4.99
- EDHREC rank
- #1383
Patriarch's Bidding reanimates your entire graveyard of a chosen tribe for five mana — and in a tribal deck, that's usually game over on the spot. The symmetrical clause barely matters when Ashcoat of the Shadow Swarm has loaded the yard with Rogues while your opponents are running three different creature types.
Best Commanders
Commanders with the highest synergy
Ashcoat of the Shadow Swarm
Ashcoat of the Shadow Swarm mills Rogues aggressively enough that Patriarch's Bidding can rebuild a full board from nothing in the mid-game, often returning more creatures than opponents can answer in a single turn.
Sethron, Hurloon General
Sethron, Hurloon General floods the yard with Minotaurs through combat and sacrifice loops, and Patriarch's Bidding turns that pile of dead creatures into a sudden lethal attack with Sethron's haste trigger firing for each one that enters.
Marrow-Gnawer
Marrow-Gnawer sacrifices Rats by the handful to generate tokens, so Patriarch's Bidding restores the original Rats while the tokens stay dead — effectively netting board presence the opponents can't match.
Syrix, Carrier of the Flame
Syrix, Carrier of the Flame wants Phoenixes dying and entering repeatedly, and Patriarch's Bidding mass-reanimates the whole flock at instant speed if an opponent gives you priority at the right moment.
Be'lakor, the Dark Master
Be'lakor, the Dark Master is a Demon lord, and Patriarch's Bidding naming Demons refills the board with the heaviest, most threatening creatures in the game while Be'lakor drains life for each one entering.
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 Patriarch's Bidding lives — tribal decks are everywhere in the format, and five mana to return ten creatures is the kind of disproportionate effect the format rewards. In Legacy and Vintage, it's technically legal but too slow and too narrow; reanimation that costs five and requires a tribal setup can't compete with Reanimate or Animate Dead targeting a single broken creature. Modern has faster and more consistent graveyard payoffs that don't rely on creature type synergy. Patriarch's Bidding is a Commander card through and through — draft it for tribal, play it nowhere else.
Key Combos
Combo lines featuring this card
Price Context
Current price
$4.99 cheap tier
At $4.99, Patriarch's Bidding sits at the low end of mass-reanimation pricing for an effect this powerful in tribal Commander. It's a genuine bargain given the impact ceiling, and as tribal strategies remain perennially popular, the price is unlikely to crater.
Explore
Sources
Updated . Data from Scryfall, EDHREC, and Commander Spellbook.