How it has actually done
Not a rating — results from Commander games recorded at a table. See commander stats worth tracking and what mmr means in magic, which rates the deck rather than its pilot.
Combos in this deck
9 combos · 9 infinite — looked up in Commander Spellbook, which only knows the ones somebody has written up, so this deck can hold more than these and never fewer.
INFINITE Gravecrawler + Phyrexian Altar
INFINITE Mikaeus, the Unhallowed + Ashnod's Altar
INFINITE Liliana, Untouched by Death + Phyrexian Altar
Show the other 6 combos
INFINITE Mikaeus, the Unhallowed + Phyrexian Altar + Plague Belcher
INFINITE Xu-Ifit, Osteoharmonist + Thornbite Staff + Ashnod's Altar
INFINITE Ghoulcaller Gisa + Thornbite Staff + Phyrexian Altar + Lord of the Accursed
INFINITE Ghoulcaller Gisa + Thornbite Staff + Phyrexian Altar + Cemetery Reaper
INFINITE Ghoulcaller Gisa + Thornbite Staff + Phyrexian Altar + Liliana's Mastery
INFINITE Ghoulcaller Gisa + Thornbite Staff + Phyrexian Altar + Coat of Arms
Bracket 4 — Optimized
A floor, not a verdict — read off the cards in the list, so a deck can play higher than this and never lower. Read how the commander bracket system works, and bring it to your Rule 0 conversation.
- a two-card infinite combo (Gravecrawler + Phyrexian Altar) — more than Bracket 3 allows
What it's built out of
Measured against the Balanced Midrange blueprint. Counts overlap and sum past 100 — a card counts toward every job it does, which is how deck builders count; see the 100-card commander deck template.
Slot by slot — 6 slots are outside their band, 4 inside
| Slot | In the deck | Target | Verdict |
|---|---|---|---|
| Lands | 36 | 37 | On target |
| Ramp | 11 | 10 | On target |
| Card advantage | 7 | 10 | 3 short |
| Spot removal | 3 | 8 | 5 short |
| Board wipes | 6 | 3 | 3 over |
| Creatures | 33 | 28 | On target |
| Recursion | 10 | 3 | 7 over |
| Protection | 0 | 3 | 3 short |
| Tutors | 2 | 2 | On target |
| Planeswalkers | 3 | 0 | 3 over |
| Artifacts | 13 | — | No target |
| Enchantments | 5 | — | No target |
| Instants | 1 | — | No target |
| Sorceries | 10 | — | No target |
| Graveyard hate | 1 | — | No target |
| Token makers | 17 | — | No target |
| Sacrifice outlets | 10 | — | No target |
Mana curve
Average mana value 3.44 across 64 nonland cards, against a target of 3.54. More on what makes a good curve and on building the mana base.
- 0-1 8
- 2 6
- 3 21
- 4 14
- 5 12
- 6 1
- 7+ 2
The written read
An AI review of this specific list, generated by its owner. Bracket 4 — Optimized.
This deck’s commander and card choices assemble sacrifice/recursion loops: Ghoulcaller Gisa and abundant sacrifice outlets/recursion let you repeatedly convert creatures into Zombie tokens and trigger death/ETB effects, while two-card and multi-card altar loops (Gravecrawler/Altar, Mikaeus/Altar variants) allow the deck to generate infinite death, ETB and token triggers to drain opponents or deal lethal damage through repeated triggers and token-based effects.
Typically closes around turn 4 in a four-player game. Turn 4 is realistic because cheap sac engines (Phyrexian Altar/Tower/Ashnod's Altar), Graveyard-cast creatures (Gravecrawler), and fast ritual/ramp let the deck assemble a loop quickly; increasing early recursion/sac fodder density would move it earlier.
Its three strongest interactions
- Gravecrawler + Phyrexian Altar: Gravecrawler can be cast from the grave repeatedly while Altar sacrifices it for mana, enabling an infinite sacrifice loop that generates infinite death/ETB triggers and tokens with supporting pieces.
- Ghoulcaller Gisa + Phyrexian Altar: Gisa turns sacrificed creatures into X 2/2 Zombie tokens and Altar lets you sacrifice creatures repeatedly, enabling repeated token creation and sacrifice triggers to lock or kill opponents when paired with the right payoffs.
- Mikaeus, the Unhallowed + Phyrexian Altar: Mikaeus gives undying to non-Human creatures so when combined with an altar you can loop a creature dying and returning to create persistent/indefinite death triggers and repeated enters/leaves-the-battlefield effects.
Cards that would extend them
- Bloodghast: extends the Gravecrawler + Phyrexian Altar synergy by adding another recurring graveyard creature that can be repeatedly sacrificed or recast to keep the loop going without needing additional reanimation.
- Nim Deathmantle: extends the Ghoulcaller Gisa + Phyrexian Altar synergy by providing a graveyard resurrection engine that turns sacrifices into recurring ETB/trigger sources that Ghoulcaller can reuse.
- Walking Ballista: extends the Mikaeus + Phyrexian Altar synergy by giving a scalable creature that can be looped for repeated damage or kill effects when it dies and returns under undying-style loops.
The decklist
100 cards, grouped by the main job each one does. Every name links to its own page — win rate, the commanders it's most played under, and the colors it turns up in.
Building it in paper? TCGplayer's Mass Entry takes all 100 cards at once at the cheapest available printing of each. The bench isn't included.
Buy this deck on TCGplayerTokens 13
Ramp 11
Creature 10
Recursion 8
Card Advantage 6
Board Wipe 6
Spot Removal 3
Sacrifice Outlet 2
Land 36
Tutor 1
Sorcery 1
Take this list with you
Archidekt, Moxfield and Manabox all accept a pasted list, and neither Moxfield nor Archidekt offers an import-by-URL — so copy, open a new deck, paste.
Or open it in TurnZero
Import this list into your own account and it starts tracking — games, win rate, MMR and the same bracket read you're looking at now.
See the plain text list
Commander 1 Ghoulcaller Gisa Deck 1 Arcane Signet 1 Archghoul of Thraben 1 Army of the Damned 1 Ashnod's Altar 1 Ayara, First of Locthwain 1 Bontu's Monument 1 Butcher of Malakir 1 Cemetery Reaper 1 Champion of the Perished 1 Coat of Arms 1 Commander's Sphere 1 Cursecloth Wrappings 1 Dark Petition 1 Dark Ritual 1 Dark Salvation 1 Death Baron 1 Diabolic Tutor 1 Diregraf Colossus 1 Dread Return 1 Ellie's Rage 1 Endless Ranks of the Dead 1 Falkenrath Noble 1 Fell Stinger 1 Fleshbag Marauder 1 From Under the Floorboards 1 Ghouls' Night Out 1 Gravecrawler 1 Gravedig 1 Grimoire of the Dead 1 Headless Rider 1 Jadar, Ghoulcaller of Nephalia 1 Josu Vess, Lich Knight 1 Liliana's Devotee 1 Liliana's Mastery 1 Liliana, Death's Majesty 1 Liliana, Heretical Healer 1 Liliana, Untouched by Death 1 Lord of the Accursed 1 Midnight Reaper 1 Mikaeus, the Unhallowed 1 Mirkwood Bats 1 Open the Graves 1 Phyrexian Altar 1 Phyrexian Tower 1 Plague Belcher 1 Ravenous Rotbelly 1 Reanimate 1 Risky Shortcut 1 Rot-Tide Gargantua 1 Shepherd of Rot 1 Sol Ring 1 Spark Reaper 35 Swamp 1 Syr Konrad, the Grim 1 The Darkness Crystal 1 Thornbite Staff 1 Tomb Tyrant 1 Tormod, the Desecrator 1 Undead Warchief 1 Urza's Incubator 1 Vampiric Rites 1 Vengeful Bloodwitch 1 Vengeful Dead 1 Wayfarer's Bauble 1 Xu-Ifit, Osteoharmonist
Tracked in TurnZero HQ, where decks are public by default and their owners can make them private at any time. Stats come from Commander games recorded at a table, and a win rate is withheld below 5 completed games where the sample is too small to mean anything. Track your own decks.