Price$8.04 – $43.45
Buy on TCGplayerAshnod's Altar
Artifact
Legal Salt 1.12RampRank #131
Sacrifice a creature: Add 
.
Why is this card good?
Ashnod's Altar is a colorless powerhouse and a staple sacrifice outlet that doubles as a mana engine. The key is that it's free to activate and produces two mana per creature, which untaps combo and value engines across the format.
Where it shines:
- Aristocrats: a free sac outlet that pings death triggers (Blood Artist, Zulaport Cutthroat) while generating mana. It's a build-around enabler.
- Tokens: convert hordes of bodies into a flood of colorless mana — great with Pitiless Plunderer, or to refuel after a board wipe.
- Combo: a critical piece in loops like Karmic Guide/Reveillark, or with persist/undying creatures for infinite mana and triggers.
The mana isn't lost value — you sacrifice creatures you'd lose anyway, and the colorless output fuels artifacts, X-spells, or activated abilities.
When to skip it: decks without meaningful creature throughput, voltron, or builds that don't care about sacrifice synergies. It's near-useless if you have no bodies to feed it and nothing to do with two colorless.
Related cards
Phyrexian Altar
Sac creature for any color mana, similar engine piece.
Pitiless Plunderer
Generates treasures when creatures die, pairs with sac outlets.
Altar of Dementia
Free sac outlet that mills, alternative for combos.
Goblin Bombardment
Free sac outlet dealing damage instead of mana.
Carrion Feeder
Free creature sac outlet for combo loops.
Viscera Seer
Free sac outlet with scry, cheap combo enabler.
Spawning Pit
Repeatable sac outlet making tokens.
Blasting Station
Sac outlet pinging on each sacrifice for combo kills.
Printings (14)
Played by these commanders
Krenko, Mob Boss100% of 1
Combos (8)
- Pitiless Plunderer + Ashnod's Altar + Reassembling Skeleton
→ Infinite colorless mana, Infinite death triggers, Infinite ETB
- Gravecrawler + Pitiless Plunderer + Ashnod's Altar
→ Infinite colorless mana, Infinite death triggers, Infinite ETB
- Luminous Broodmoth + Ashnod's Altar
→ Infinite LTB, Infinite ETB, Infinite sacrifice triggers
- Nim Deathmantle + Ashnod's Altar
→ Infinite LTB, Infinite ETB, Infinite sacrifice triggers
- Ashnod's Altar + Cathars' Crusade
→ Infinite +1/+1 counters on most creatures you control, Infinite ETB, Infinite LTB
- Ashnod's Altar + Rhythm of the Wild
→ Infinite ETB, Infinite LTB, Infinite colorless mana