The best card in my Golgari deck is a 2/1 for three. What it does is return the board wipe I cast two turns ago, or the removal spell an opponent forced out of me, or the land that got destroyed. In a format where every deck runs out of answers before it runs out of threats, getting the right card back is worth more than drawing a random one.

That's recursion: card advantage where you pick the card. This post covers cards that put things back in your hand or let you play them from the graveyard. Creatures going straight onto the battlefield is reanimation, which has its own guide. Here is what's worth a slot, grouped by what it gets back.

What makes a recursion card worth a slot?

Three questions sort the good ones. What can it return? Any card beats any permanent, which beats a creature only. How often? A repeatable engine beats a one-shot. And where does the card go? Your hand is best. The top of your library costs you your next draw.

Card spotlight

: return any card from your graveyard to your hand. It also leaves a body behind, and the body is the point. Blink it, reanimate it, or return it with Sun Titan, and Eternal Witness does its job again. Under a dollar, and the first card I put in any green deck.

Regrowth is the same effect for with no body. It's cheaper, which matters less than you'd think. Timeless Witness costs one more but eternalizes from the graveyard for a second use. Whatever you pick, plan for graveyard hate. Bojuka Bog and Soul-Guide Lantern are cheap and everywhere, so don't build a deck that folds the first time someone exiles your graveyard.

The best regrowth spells: return any card to your hand

The most flexible effects in the format: whatever you need most is a legal target, so they're never dead.

Card spotlight

to return any card to your hand, or play the back face as a land. That second half makes Bala Ged Recovery better than Regrowth in practice. In an opening hand it's land number three, and on turn nine it's the wrath you already cast.

Noxious Revival costs , so you can pay 2 life instead of the green, and it's an instant that targets any graveyard. Save your own card from a Bog, or put an opponent's reanimation target back on top of their library. Restock returns two cards for five mana. Seasons Past returns one card of each mana value and is the best late-game refill in green.

The new one is Ancestral Communion from Marvel Super Heroes Commander. It's to return a permanent card, and if you control your commander when you cast it, it copies itself and returns two. That's the best rate here. True Ancestry returns a permanent card and adds a Clue. Restore with Empathy, from this month's Reality Fracture, returns a permanent card at instant speed for one more mana, with 4 life in place of the Clue.

Creature recursion: getting creatures back to your hand

Black does this cheaply and repeatedly. Sacrifice and enter-the-battlefield decks want it most: every creature back in hand is a trigger you get again.

Card spotlight

One mana, then and 2 life to return a creature card to your hand, as often as you can pay. Phyrexian Reclamation makes an aristocrats deck's sacrifices worth more than a single trigger. I've watched it turn a lost game into a long one, and black wins long games. The life cost adds up, so put a lifelink payoff next to it.

Gravedigger and Graveshifter are the black versions of Eternal Witness for creatures. Grim Harvest has recover: while it's in your graveyard, whenever a creature of yours dies you can pay to return it to your hand, or let it be exiled.

The recent standout is Grave Venerations from Lorwyn Eclipsed Commander. It makes you the monarch, returns a creature card at your end step while you hold the crown, and drains each opponent for 1 whenever your creatures die. If you can keep the crown, that's three engines on one card.

Instant and sorcery recursion: replaying your best spells

Recasting your best removal or draw spell is how blue and red decks keep going late.

Card spotlight

: return an instant or sorcery card to your hand. Archaeomancer is a creature, so blinking it gives you the trigger again, and that makes it the reliable version of this effect. Not fancy; the one I'd play.

Mnemonic Wall is the second copy. Mission Briefing and Snapcaster Mage let you cast a spell from the graveyard instead of returning it. Mystic Sanctuary puts a spell back on top of your library from a land slot, but only when it enters untapped, which takes three other Islands. Mizzix's Mastery overloaded for exiles every instant and sorcery in your graveyard and casts copies of all of them for free. A finisher, not a value card. Underworld Breach gives every nonland card in your graveyard escape until end of turn, and it's a combo piece first. It's on the Game Changers list, which keeps it out of decks below Bracket 3.

For something recent, look at Fantastic Elasticity from Marvel Super Heroes Commander. It's with rebound, so you cast it again for free on your next upkeep and choose a mode each time: two spells back, or a bounce and a spell. Unproven, but a good rate.

Artifact and enchantment recursion

Artifact and enchantment decks lose the most to one removal spell, and they're the decks least likely to be green. These fill the gap.

Card spotlight

Affinity for artifacts makes Emry close to free in an artifact deck. She mills four when she enters, which usually gives her a target. From the next turn on, she taps to let you cast an artifact card from your graveyard, every turn. Every cheap artifact you sacrifice becomes reusable. Under a dollar, and as good in the 99 as in the command zone.

Academy Ruins puts an artifact on top of your library for , and it's a land, so it doesn't take a spell slot. Buried Ruin is the colourless one-shot version, and it returns the artifact to your hand. For enchantments, Hall of Heliod's Generosity does the same job from a land slot. Auramancer and Monk Idealist each return an enchantment to your hand when they enter, at three mana.

The new option is White Widow, Free Agent from Marvel Super Heroes. It's , and when she enters you choose an artifact or enchantment card to return, or a +1/+1 counter on each of two creatures when there's nothing worth returning. White rarely gets this effect, and for a dime she belongs in any white artifact or enchantment deck.

Land recursion: playing lands from your graveyard

Playing lands from your graveyard turns every fetch land, sacrifice land and cycling land into a repeatable resource. It's the engine of landfall decks.

Card spotlight

for a 2/3 with one line of rules text: you may play lands from your graveyard. Ramunap Excavator makes a Myriad Landscape into two basics every turn for your land drop, and a sacrifice land into a recurring effect. In green it's the one I'd take.

Crucible of Worlds is the same effect on a colourless artifact. It survives creature wipes, and at around $18 it's priced to match. Life from the Loam returns three lands for and dredges itself back instead of a draw, which makes it endless with cycling lands. World Shaper mills three each time it attacks, and when it dies it returns every land card in your graveyard to the battlefield.

The 2025–26 sets added two good ones. Icetill Explorer from Edge of Eternities adds an extra land drop and mills a card on every landfall. It's the strongest version of the effect printed, and at $22 the price shows it. Mole Man, Moloid Master is a three-mana Ramunap that makes a 1/1 on every landfall, and as a legendary creature he can also be a mono-green commander.

Recursion commanders and engines that replay your graveyard

When your commander recurs cards, your graveyard becomes a second hand that every removal spell adds to.

Card spotlight

On each of your turns, Muldrotha lets you play a land and cast one permanent spell of each permanent type from your graveyard. On a good turn that's four cards from the graveyard. I've watched her rebuild a whole board in two turns after a wrath.

Meren of Clan Nel Toth recurs a creature at each of your end steps: straight onto the battlefield if your experience counters are high enough, otherwise to your hand. Karador casts one creature from the graveyard each turn and gets cheaper as the graveyard fills. Lurrus does the same for permanents with mana value 2 or less, and he's at his best in decks full of cheap artifacts and auras.

Newer is Conduit of Worlds from Marvel Super Heroes Commander. It lets you play lands from your graveyard, and it taps to cast a nonland permanent card from your graveyard at sorcery speed. The catch is that you can't have cast a spell yet that turn, and you can't cast another one after. A small Muldrotha on an artifact.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is recursion in MTG?

Recursion is any effect that gets a card back from your graveyard: to your hand, to the top of your library, onto the battlefield, or cast straight from there. Reanimation is the subset that puts creatures onto the battlefield.

What is the best recursion card in Commander?

Eternal Witness. It returns any card, it leaves a body you can reuse, and it costs under a dollar. Outside green, Archaeomancer in blue and Phyrexian Reclamation in black fill the same role.

How many recursion cards should a Commander deck run?

Three or four for most decks: enough to rebuy a key answer without cutting threats. Graveyard decks built around Muldrotha or Meren run ten or more, because there recursion is the plan.

What's the best budget recursion card?

Regrowth at two cents. Gravedigger and Auramancer are nearly as cheap, for black and white.

How do you protect recursion from graveyard hate?

Hold instant-speed recursion for the moment it matters. When someone targets your graveyard with Bojuka Bog, you can respond with Noxious Revival and keep your best card. Against Rest in Peace, nothing reaches the graveyard at all, so pack enchantment removal.

Are recursion cards Game Changers?

Almost none. Here only Underworld Breach is on the list. Everything else is off it, so the Game Changer limits never touch them.

Which recursion cards should you start with?

Start with one card that returns anything and one engine that suits your deck. In green, that's Eternal Witness and Bala Ged Recovery. Black wants Phyrexian Reclamation, blue wants Archaeomancer, and a deck with lots of lands wants Ramunap Excavator.

To find the recursion targets your own list is missing, Carl will go through it with you in the deck builder and point out which cards you'd most want back. If you're unsure how Muldrotha handles an artifact creature, or what happens when someone exiles the card you're targeting in response, Trisha answers rules questions in chat.