Price$53.88 – $64.89
Buy on TCGplayerPhyrexian Altar
Artifact
Legal Salt 1.26RampRank #310
Sacrifice a creature: Add one mana of any color.
Why is this card good?
Phyrexian Altar is the premium sacrifice outlet for combo and aristocrats decks, and its mana flexibility (any color) is what separates it from cheaper alternatives like Ashnod's Altar.
The big draw is enabling infinite loops. Pair it with a creature that returns itself plus a token generator, and you get infinite sacrifices, ETB triggers, and—critically—infinite colored mana to actually cast or activate something lethal. It's a staple in decks like Meren, Teysa Karlov, Karador, and any reanimator/persist combo shell. The colored mana also smooths casting in greedy multicolor builds.
It wants you to have:
- A free sac outlet payoff (Blood Artist, Zulaport Cutthroat, drain effects)
- A token engine or recursion loop to fuel it
- A combo finish that benefits from mana, not just death triggers
Skip it in decks without a real sacrifice payoff—on its own it's a slow, do-nothing mana rock that eats your board. If you just need a sac outlet and don't care about color, Ashnod's Altar usually does the job for combo mana.
Related cards
Ashnod's Altar
Sacrifice creature for two colorless mana; classic combo engine.
Carrion Feeder
Free sacrifice outlet for creatures, similar combo role.
Viscera Seer
Free creature sac outlet with scry, used in same combos.
Goblin Bombardment
Repeatable free sac outlet dealing damage.
Altar of Dementia
Sacrifice creatures to mill, another altar combo enabler.
Pitiless Plunderer
Generates treasures on creature death, pairs for infinite combos.
Blasting Station
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Woe Strider
Free sac outlet that recurs itself for combos.
Printings (8)
Played by these commanders
Krenko, Mob Boss100% of 1