Price$20.59 – $58.28
Buy on TCGplayerNecropotence
Enchantment
LegalGame Changer Salt 1.73Card DrawRank #501
Skip your draw step.
Whenever you discard a card, exile that card from your graveyard.
Pay 1 life: Exile the top card of your library face down. Put that card into your hand at the beginning of your next end step.
Why is this card good?
Necropotence is one of the most powerful card advantage engines ever printed, and it's barely conditional: in a 40-life-equivalent format starting at 40, paying 1 life per card is trivially cheap. You can dump 10+ life into refilling your hand on a single turn and barely notice it.
It's a "Game Changer" for good reason — it turns life into an enormous resource, and mono-black or black-heavy decks have plenty of ways to gain it back (Whip of Erebos, Beseech, Bolas's Citadel synergies, Aetherflux Reservoir). It shines in:
- cEDH / high-power combo decks that just need to draw into their wins
- Aristocrats and lifegain shells that recoup the cost
- Any black control deck wanting to bury opponents in cards
Downsides: the cards don't arrive until your end step, so it's not instant gas, and you skip your draw step. It also feeds graveyard exile, so it's anti-synergistic with reanimator/recursion. Avoid it in burn-heavy metas or aggressive 1v1 where life total matters more.
Related cards
Bolas's Citadel
Pays life for card advantage and explosive plays in black.
Necrologia
Black instant that draws cards by paying life.
Sign in Blood
Classic life-for-cards black draw.
Dark Confidant
Repeatable card advantage at the cost of life.
Greed
Black enchantment converting life and mana into cards.
Phyrexian Arena
Steady card advantage by paying life each turn.
Erebos, God of the Dead
Pay life to draw cards repeatedly in black.
Underworld Connections
Repeatable life-payment card draw enchantment.
Printings (12)
Combos (8)
- Sheoldred, the Apocalypse + Vilis, Broker of Blood + Necropotence
→ Infinite card draw, Infinite draw triggers, Near-infinite lifegain
- Repay in Kind + Necropotence
→ Each opponent loses the game, Near-infinite lifeloss for all players, Near-infinite self-discard triggers
- Rowan, Scion of War + Exsanguinate + Necropotence
→ Near-infinite lifegain, Near-infinite lifeloss
- Approach of the Second Sun + Necropotence
→ Win the game at the beginning of your next upkeep
- Children of Korlis + Vizkopa Guildmage + Necropotence
→ Near-infinite lifeloss, Near-infinite card draw
- Vizkopa Guildmage + Tainted Sigil + Necropotence
→ Near-infinite lifeloss
Rulings (4)
- 2023-09-01
You can't look at the cards exiled by the last ability while they're face down.
- 2017-11-17
If a discarded card isn't put into your graveyard (due to an effect such as that of Obstinate Baloth) or leaves your graveyard (perhaps because another effect returned it to your hand), it won't be exiled.
- 2017-11-17
If you discard a card with madness and wish to cast it, Necropotence's ability won't exile that card. If you don't wish to cast it, you choose whether it ends up exiled or in your graveyard.
- 2017-11-17
Necropotence's last ability creates a delayed triggered ability that will put the exiled card into your hand. That ability still triggers even if Necropotence is removed from the battlefield before your end step.