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Sacrifice

Instant

As an additional cost to cast this spell, sacrifice a creature.
Add an amount of {B} equal to the sacrificed creature's mana value.

CMC
1
Mana cost
{B}
Color identity
B
Rarity
uncommon
Set
30th Anniversary Edition
Price
$40.70
EDHREC rank
#2910
Buy on TCGplayer
Sacrifice card art
Sacrifice turns any creature into instant-speed life payment, letting you convert board presence into mana or combo fodder at will — and at one black mana, the cost is almost insultingly low. It's the glue piece in shells that need a zero-overhead sac outlet, and Saw in Half plus Dargo, the Shipwrecker // Tymna the Weaver both exploit it to devastating effect.

Best Commanders

Commanders with the highest synergy

01
Dargo, the ShipwreckerTymna the Weaver

Dargo, the Shipwrecker // Tymna the Weaver

89.3% of decks · synergy 0.88

Dargo, the Shipwrecker // Tymna the Weaver runs Sacrifice because it is a one-mana instant-speed sac outlet that feeds Dargo's cost reduction while keeping the loop tight and free of taxing overhead.

02
Rakdos, the Muscle

Rakdos, the Muscle

48.6% of decks · synergy 0.46

Rakdos, the Muscle wants bodies in the graveyard and pain dealt to opponents, and Sacrifice checks both boxes as a cheap, repeatable way to move creatures out of play while fueling Rakdos's trigger.

05
Imskir Iron-Eater

Imskir Iron-Eater

22.5% of decks · synergy 0.20

Imskir Iron-Eater rewards sacrificing artifacts and creatures for damage, and Sacrifice is the cheapest available outlet to trigger that engine at instant speed.

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

Commander is where Sacrifice earns its price tag — the format's singleton rule and long game reward instant-speed sac outlets that cost almost nothing, and the card slots cleanly into every black combo deck that needs one. In Legacy and Vintage it is legal but rarely played; dedicated combo decks in those formats prefer outlets that generate mana or chain more efficiently, and the card competes with a denser field of free effects. Sacrifice sees no play in Modern, Pioneer, Standard, or Pauper, either due to legality or format speed that makes a one-mana sorcery-adjacent effect too slow to matter.

Key Combos

Combo lines featuring this card

1,143 decks
Saw in HalfSacrificeScholar of the Ages

Saw in HalfSacrificeScholar of the Ages

Infinite black mana; Cast a subset of spells in your graveyard; Infinite death triggers; Infinite ETB; Infinite LTB; Infinite magecraft triggers; Infinite sacrifice triggers; Infinite storm count; Return all instant and sorcery cards from your graveyard to your hand

View on Commander Spellbook ↗

Budget Alternatives

Cheaper options that do most of the same work

If $40 is too steep, Viscera Seer covers the core job — instant-speed sacrifice with a scry upside — for under a dollar, and it's the closest functional replacement for Sacrifice in most combo contexts. The trade-off is that Viscera Seer is a creature and dies to removal, while Sacrifice is an instant that resolves before anyone can react; for loops that need to fire on opponents' turns or in response to removal, that distinction is meaningful enough to justify the price gap.

Price Context

Current price

$40.70 premium tier

At $40.70, Sacrifice sits firmly in the premium tier, driven by its status as a reserved-list instant that cannot be reprinted. It holds value as a result, but you are paying for irreplaceability, not raw power — functional alternatives exist at a fraction of the cost.

Explore

Sources

Mentioned

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