Shilgengar wants a deck that sacrifices its own creatures to drain opponents' life. It also suits a deck that gives up its own cards on purpose to get something back.
Mana cost
White, Black ()
Power / toughness6 / 6
RarityRare
Flying
Sacrifice another creature: Create a Blood token. If you sacrificed an Angel this way, create a number of Blood tokens equal to its toughness instead.
, Sacrifice six Blood tokens: Return each creature card from your graveyard to the battlefield with a finality counter on it. Those creatures are Vampires in addition to their other types.
Picked for what they do in Shilgengar's deck. When two cards do the same job, the one with the lower comes first. All of them fit Shilgengar's color identity.Mana ValueThe total amount of mana a card costs, all added up. A card costing two generic and one green has a mana value of three. Wizards renamed this from "converted mana cost" in 2021, so older cards and articles may still use the old name.Open the full glossary
explain how Shilgengar works in tricky situations. They come from Wizards of the Coast, the company that makes Magic.RulingThe official answer to how a card works in a tricky situation. Most rulings are written by Wizards of the Coast, the company that makes Magic, and a few are notes from Scryfall, the card database Magic players use. A ruling explains a card. It does not change what the card says.Open the full glossary
Wizards of the Coast7 Jun 2024
Finality counters aren't keyword counters, and a finality counter doesn't give any abilities to the permanent it's on. If that permanent loses its abilities and then would go to a graveyard, it will still be exiled instead.
Wizards of the Coast7 Jun 2024
Finality counters don't stop permanents from going to zones other than the graveyard from the battlefield. For example, if a permanent with a finality counter on it would be put into its owner's hand from the battlefield, it does so normally.
Wizards of the Coast7 Jun 2024
Finality counters work on any permanent, not only creatures. If a permanent with a finality counter on it would go to a graveyard from the battlefield, exile it instead.
Wizards of the Coast7 Jun 2024
If you sacrificed an Angel to pay the cost of Shilgengar's second ability, use the toughness of that Angel as it last existed on the battlefield to determine how many Blood tokens to create.
Wizards of the Coast7 Jun 2024
Multiple finality counters on a single permanent are redundant.
Wizards of the Coast24 Jan 2025
If an effect refers to a Blood token, it means any artifact token with the subtype Blood, even if it has gained other subtypes.
Wizards of the Coast24 Jan 2025
Some triggered abilities trigger "whenever you sacrifice a Blood token." These abilities trigger regardless of why you sacrificed that Blood token.
Wizards of the Coast24 Jan 2025
You can't sacrifice a Blood token to pay multiple costs.
Color identityEvery color of mana symbol on a card, in its cost and in its rules text. Your commander's color identity sets the limit for your whole deck: every other card has to fit inside it. A deck led by a green and white commander cannot play a card with any blue in its color identity.Open the full glossaryWBPlayers write colors as letters: W for white, B for black.AristocratsAristocrats decks sacrifice their own creatures on purpose and profit every time one dies, often by draining life from each opponent. A sacrifice outlet, a card that lets you sacrifice whenever you like, decides when that happens.Open the Aristocrats pageReanimationReturns a creature card from a graveyard straight to the battlefield, skipping its mana cost. That is why decks built around it put their biggest creatures into the graveyard on purpose. Named for Reanimate. Animate DeadOpen the Reanimation pageCounter ManipulationAdds, moves or multiplies counters already on permanents. It works on any kind (+1/+1, loyalty, charge), so the same card can serve very different decks. Karn's Bastion, Doubling SeasonOpen the Counter Manipulation pageSacrifice OutletA permanent that lets you sacrifice your own creatures or artifacts whenever you want, usually for free. Every Aristocrats deck needs one, because cards that reward a creature dying only help if you choose when it dies. Ashnod's Altar, Viscera SeerOpen the Sacrifice Outlet pageToken EngineMakes tokens again and again rather than once. A token is a creature or other permanent created by a card, with no card of its own. Something that makes one token gives you a body; something that makes them every turn gives you a board you can keep rebuilding after it is cleared. Grave Titan, Bitterblossom, OphiomancerOpen the Token Engine pageMana SinkGives you somewhere useful to spend spare mana, usually through an ability you can activate again and again. Rogue's Passage, Mind StoneOpen the Mana Sink pageSacrificeSacrifice decks give up their own creatures, Treasures and other cards on purpose and get something back each time. A sacrifice outlet, a card that lets you sacrifice whenever you want, is the heart of the deck.Open the Sacrifice pageType ChangerAdds a type to permanents on top of the types they already have. Making everything an artifact or a land switches on cards that only interact with that type. Liquimetal Torque, Phyrexian MetamorphOpen the Type Changer pageGame ChangerCards that warp the game disproportionately around themselves, requiring immediate answers.What the brackets meanRecursionBrings cards back from the graveyard: to your hand, to the battlefield, or letting them be cast again from where they lie. Eternal Witness, Reanimate, VictimizeOpen the Recursion pageReanimatorReanimator decks put big creatures into their own graveyard early, then bring them back onto the battlefield without paying their cost. It gets a huge creature into play far sooner than you could afford to cast it.Open the Reanimator pageBlood TokensBlood tokens are artifacts that let you pay 1 mana, discard a card and sacrifice the token to draw a new card. Most Blood cards are black or red.Open the Blood Tokens pageToken MakerCreates one or more tokens. Different cards make very different ones: creatures Grave Titan, Treasures Smothering Tithe, Clues Tireless Tracker or Food Gilded Goose. This is one of our largest tags, so pair it with an archetype or theme when you are hunting a specific kind.Open the Token Maker page
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