The Best Aristocrat Cards in Commander - Green Edition

Nick Benstead • March 22, 2025

Miscellaneous
Birthing Pod
 by Titus Lunter

As Magic players, we've all been there: the aristocrat player waits for the perfect moment to unleash a long string of sacrifice effects that ends the game. On one hand, it's impressive to watch; it feels like a complex puzzle being assembled before your eyes. On the other hand, it can feel like an unsatisfying way to lose, essentially having your gameplan amount to nothing.

Whatever your feelings may be on aristocrats, there's no denying their popularity within Magic, especially in Commander. According to EDHREC data, there are 108,378 aristocrat decks in their database. This huge amount of popularity means that there are only 6 deck "themes" or strategies that are more popular than it on EDHREC's website.

Most aristocrat decks are heavily associated with the color black, as it provides the most support for both sacrifice outlets and cards that benefit from creatures dying. However, there are plenty of great aristocrat cards outside of black, and this mini-series of articles will cover the best options for aristocrat players in every color!

Surprisingly, we will not be starting with black, but with a color that's often associated with board presence rather than aristocrats: green.

This list is in no particular order, but I would be remiss if I did not kick off green's list with this next card.

#1: Birthing Pod

What's not to love about this card? It's a notorious combo piece in cEDH and Modern alike, acting as the linchpin of the "bloodpod" strategy (often tutoring for cards like Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker

). Even outside of combo decks, Birthing Pod is an incredible value piece. Just like Yisan, the Wanderer Bard
, this card acts as the perfect "toolbox" for any deck with a decent amount of creatures. Have creatures with enter-the-battlefield triggers? This card gets exponentially better. Imagine turning something like a Paradise Druid
 into a critical removal spell, like Reclamation Sage
; now that's value!

Ever since Birthing Pod

took the stage, Wizards of the Coast has released several similar "pod"-like cards. This includes cards like the new Repurposing Bay
, Simic commander Prime Speaker Vannifar
, and a single-use sorcery version in Eldritch Evolution
. If Wizards is willing to make more versions of this card, that has to mean it's good, right?

#2: Birthing Ritual

This is less controllable than Birthing Pod, but that's not a bad thing. This is two mana cheaper than Birthing Pod, and can act as the "less scary" version. The "random" nature of what you can find (or if you hit anything at all) makes this card much more fun in a casual setting, especially for your opponents. On the plus side, Birthing Ritual can get around any Null Rod

effects, where Birthing Pod cannot.

#3: Cankerbloom/Caustic Caterpillar/Haywire Mite

These three cards all have similar effects, as they are able to remove artifacts or enchantments, but need to sacrifice themselves to do it. There are more than just these three cards that have a similar effect, but you get the idea. The aristocrat strategy is based on the ability to sacrifice creatures, so any creatures that can sacrifice themselves are often more important than any other creatures in your strategy (aside from "Blood Artist" type effects, but green doesn't have that). 

#4: Greater Good

Greater Good is usually one of the first cards I set aside when building a green deck because it's just that good. Oftentimes, the creatures you'll sacrifice to it will have power large enough to outweigh the downside of discarding three cards. Even this "downside" can be turned into an upside in our hands, as most aristocrat decks will be running some kind of reanimation/recursion package to get back things they sacrifice.

#5: Disciple of Freyalise/Momentous Fall

These two cards do basically the same thing, but have their own pros and cons. Disciple of Freyalise

may seem stronger on its face, as it is a creature and could be blinked, reanimated, copied, etc., but unless you have a way to grant it flash, it can only act as a sorcery speed effect. This is where Momentous Fall
 shines. While it doesn't have the upside of being a creature, it can act as an instant-speed way to refill our hand in response to a removal spell or board wipe. Overall, the ability to turn an expandable creature into more cards in our hand is what puts these cards on my list.

#6: Evolutionary Leap

While cards like Greater Good

and Momentous Fall
 give us the ability to actually draw cards, Evolutionary Leap
 can be an even better piece of value in creature-heavy decks. Here's a secret: if you're playing aristocrats, you probably have a decent amount of creatures in your deck. Evolutionary Leap is a repeatable way to turn small unnecessary creatures into other creatures that could benefit our gameplan. Be careful though, you do reveal the card you get, so if it's something scary you might have some unwanted attention on you before you can build your engine. 

#7: Emrakul's Evangel/Fresh Meat

Emrakul's Evangel

is absolutely nuts in aristocrat decks because it's a one-shot mass-sacrifice outlet AND a board-in-a-can all in one! The ability to sacrifice any number of creatures and turn them into 3/2 attackers is nothing to scoff at, as it can trigger death effects AND give you a potentially lethal board state. This card is crazy, and you should play it. 

Like Emrakul's Evangel

, Fresh Meat
 is a card that I think players need to run more often, especially in aristocrat strategies. It can be hard to hold up four mana, but if you sacrifice a large amount of creatures in one go, you can instantly replenish your board. The best part about this card is that it can be used after an opponent casts a board wipe to turn all of your former creatures into 3/3s while still allowing death triggers!

#8: Magus of the Order/Natural Order

Tutoring cards directly into play? Yeah, it's pretty good. Just like my thoughts on Disciple of Freyalise

vs. Momentous Fall
, these cards do functionally the same thing and have their pros and cons. The only thing that could be tough about these cards is that they can only tutor for green creatures, but some of the strongest creatures in the game are in green. Can someone say Craterhoof Behemoth
?

#9: Spore Frog

The "fog frog", as it's so lovingly referred to by the community, is probably the most popular card in Meren of Clan Nel Toth

decks, and while it's nuts when you loop it every turn, it's also just straight-up good in most situations. Being an aristocrats deck, people will try to attack you to prevent you from going on one of your infamous "long turns", so being able to blank a lethal attack is something more aristocrat players should consider. Also, it's a creature we can reanimate later, so that's always a huge plus.

#10: The Skullspore Nexus

While creating this list, I had completely forgotten about this card, but I would be objectively wrong for not including it. It looks like eight mana on its face, but it will almost always cost less, and it provide us with extra value when our creatures die! It occupies a similar space that Emrakul's Evangel

and Fresh Meat
 do, but it creates creatures that mirror the power and toughness of the creatures that die (as long as they die in separate instances). If you are the victim of a board wipe with this card out, you create one massive creature that can have its power doubled to close out the game!

That concludes my list for the color green! I hope all you aristocrat players out there learned something new today! Stay tuned for my exploration into the remaining colors, all while saving the best (black) for last! 

Nick Benstead

Nick Benstead

Nick is a full-time educator of America's youth, teaching them to love stories, and write for expression. Outside of teaching, his life is steeped in Magic the Gathering, whether it be through playing commander with his wife, or coming up with wacky brews to take to Friday Night Magic at his local game store.