Magic: The Gathering's popular Commander format is home to a wide range of viable deck archetypes for players to explore when constructing powerful new decks. Whether you're looking to build a sacrifice-focused Aristocrats deck or a deck based around the utilization of the graveyard, sacrifice outlets are a must in many decks. As the name would suggest, a sacrifice outlet allows for your creatures to be sacrificed in order to provide various forms of value.
While some sacrifice outlets can only be used once per turn due to their need to be tapped, others can be reliably used several times within one turn — sometimes not even requiring mana to be spent. As sacrifice outlets are an incredible means of garnering value and making the most of death triggers, we're going to examine the best sacrifice outlets in the Commander format!
7 Prossh, Skyraider Of Kher
A great Commander in its own right, Prossh, Skyraider of Kher is a legendary Jund (black/green/red) Dragon for six mana that can offer great offensive value whilst serving as a powerful sacrifice outlet. A 5/5 with flying, you can create a number of 0/1 red Kobold creature tokens — the quantity of which depends on the mana spent. This means additional Kobolds are created when accounting for Commander Tax. Even when within a deck helmed by another commander, this can be a great, immediately accessible board state.
Perhaps most importantly, without requiring a payment of mana, Prossh's activated ability allows you to sacrifice a creature to provide Prossh with +1/+0. This means that when attacking with Prossh, a sizable number of sacrificed creatures can potentially deal massive sums of damage.
6 Viscera Seer
For the cost of a single black mana, Viscera Seer is a must-have for many Aristocrats decks. A 1/1 Vampire Wizard, Viscera Seer allows creatures to be sacrificed at instant speed to allow you to scry 1.
Though this effect may seem rather straightforward at first glance, when paired with easily recurrable creatures and board states full of tokens, a Viscera Seer can allow you to tear through your deck to dig for key cards to relevant answers to a given problem in a game — all whilst potentially triggering death-based abilities like that of Dictate of Erebos.
5 Goblin Bombardment
Goblin Bombardment is an effecient red enchantment for two mana potentially capable of serving as a win condition. With no further investment of mana required, Goblin Bombardment allows you to sacrifice a creature at instant speed in order to deal one damage to any target. Multifarious and flexible, this enchantment converts each of your creatures into removal for creatures and Planeswalkers. Most importantly, when paired with critical mass of creatures, Goblin Bombardment can be used to take an opponent out of the game through dealing direct lethal damage.
Though one damage may not seem like much, when sacrificing creatures that had already attacked in a given turn, this card can causes serious damage to be dealt within a single turn. Whether paired with tokens or recurrable creatures, Goblin Bombardment can put in serious work as a game-ending sacrifice outlet.
4 Krark Clan Ironworks
Though every other entry on this list comes in the form of a card meant to sacrifice creatures, Krark Clan Ironworks is a stellar three-mana artifact that is used to sacrifice other artifacts. So powerful that it's currently banned in the Modern format, Krark Clan Ironworks allows you to repurpose unwanted artifacts in order to provide serious mana ramp.
Whenever an artifact is sacrificed with Krark Clan Ironworks, you generate two colorless mana. When paired with a solid collection of artifacts, especially those that provide benefits from being destroyed, Krark Clan Ironworks can allow mana-instensive and game-winning cards to be cast with ease.
It's important to note that Krark Clan Ironworks pairs with treasure tokens in incredible fashion, as it effectively doubles that potential mana that could produce.
3 Ashnod's Altar
Ashnod's Altar and Krark Clan Ironworks are funamentally similar cards, each being three-mana artifacts that serve as mana-generating sacrifice outlets. However, while Krark Clan Ironworks provides two colorless mana at the cost of one sacrificed artifact, Ashnod's Altar proviodes two mana at the cost of one sacrificed creature. As creatures already have access to a litany of death-trigger synergizes, such as those commonly found within Aristocrats decks, Ashnod's Altar can reliably enable cards like Grave Pact whilst providing impressive mana ramp.
This card is incredibly powerful and flexible, potentially even catching opponents off guard, as it can be used to produce substantial amounts of mana at instant speed — allowing for it to be utilized unpredictibly during opponents' turns.
2 Altar of Dementia
Like Goblin Bombardment, Altar of Dementia is a sacrifice outlet that can easily serve as a win condition within a Commander deck. An artifact for the low cost of two mana, like the majority of the other entries on this list, Altar of Dementia allows you to sacrifice creatures at instant speed with additional mana cost. Upon doing so, target player mills a number of cards equal to that creature's power.
This can flexibly help a myriad of deck archetypes, allowing graveyard focused decks to reliably convert their creatures into self mill whilst enabling the likes of Thassa's Orcacle and Laboratory maniac. Alternatively, when paired with a large enough board state, an Altar of Dementia is capable of milling the remainder of an opponent's library, causing that player to lose the game the next time they'd draw a card.
1 Phyrexian Altar
Easily the most impressive sacrifice outlet in the Commander format, Phyrexian Altar is a stellar card that can repurpose one's creatures in a manner comperable to Ashnod's Altar. A three-mana artifact, this card allows creatures to be sacrificed in order to generate mana. However, while Ashnod's Altar creates two colorless mana when this is done, Phyrexian Altar produces one mana of any color.
This means that while the colorless nature of the mana produced by an Ashnod's Altar had limited applications, the mana produced by a Phyrexian Altar could be used to cast any spell or activate any ability, significantly adding to its flexibility.