All 29 Incarnation Creatures in Magic Ranked

Last updated on February 24, 2026

Fury | Illustration by Raoul Vitale

Incarnations. The embodiment of a (usually) single-word feeling or emotion in a single creature, usually affecting the board with a powerful ETB or static ability. They’re very evocative of whatever they’re representing and are packed with flavor, and many of the oldest are still played.

We’ve had multiple full cycles of incarnations in Magic now, plus a few bonus ones along the way, so let’s take a look and figure out what the best of the best are!

What Are Incarnation Creatures in MTG?

Subtlety | Illustration by Anastasia Ovchinnikova

With a few exceptions, incarnations in Magic are the living embodiments of an emotion or characteristic represented by creatures that also seem like forces of nature. This is a creature type associated with impactful abilities, whether passive or as an enter the battlefield ability.

They’re all super flavorful, and many are still popular and heavily played to this day. You might well have seen one or two of these creatures in the past and not realized that they’re usually part of a cycle, with one in each color. Some have been more infamous than others and some are way more powerful.

Honorable Mentions: Alchemy Cards

Alchemy cards are the least likely card to be played here, but they're relevant for Arena players. Indris, the Hydrostatic Surge shuffling a Lightning Bolt with storm into your library is a cool concept, and Infestation is just a powerhouse evoke creature if you're playing formats where it's legal.

#29. Personal Incarnation

Personal Incarnation is the oddball of the group. When it was originally printed all the way back in Alpha, it didn’t have the incarnation type. It’s since been errata’d to have the creature type, because it’s in the name!

The first incarnation not to have a single-word name, this one is unfortunately not very good, which fits with a lot of the creatures from that time in Magic. It does help you survive damage, and it was probably annoying back in the day, but the downside of losing your life when it dies is just too much.

#28. Idris, Soul of the TARDIS

There's a lot of strange stuff going on with Idris, Soul of the TARDIS, but that's par for the course with Doctor Who cards. This is an artifact-centric Izzet card that copies activated and triggered abilities of an artifact you control, while also becoming a large creature itself. Vanishing adds some strategic depth to the card, though it's definitely a real hindrance if you can't proliferate the time counters.

#27. Catharsis

Catharsis hits hard; when cast for its full value, it adds 8 power and three hasty bodies to the board. But it’s one of the weaker evoke incarnations from Lorwyn Eclipsed because its evoke modes aren’t the best. Two mana for two 1/1s often comes with flash, and the team-wide pump matters far less if you aren’t actively adding to the board. It’s the least flexible, and thus the weakest of its cycle.

#26. Filth

The first of the “real” incarnations, Filth (what a fantastic name, let’s be honest) isn’t too bad of a card. As one of the original Apocalypse cycle which care about being in your graveyard, giving all your creatures swampwalk for (essentially) free isn’t bad at all. Black is pretty highly played in Commander, and the addition of an Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth can make all your creatures unblockable. The only reason it’s this far down on the list is because the rest of the cards we’re looking at are also pretty cool!

#25. Hostility

Hostility could've been really sweet. It’s part of the Lorwyn cycle which all cost 3CCC and has an ability that prevents damage, and a red payoff sounds like it must have a fantastic ability. Unfortunately, its ability isn’t quite there for a number of reasons. For starters, it prevents the damage that your spells do to your opponent, even if it then gives you 3/1s in return.

Hey, at least the Elemental Shamans have haste though, right?

#24. Vibrance

If your deck plays Sylvan Scrying, there’s a healthy argument for it to play Vibrance as well. Sure, it costs instead of , but in exchange for that it also works as a cheap removal spell and a proper threat later in the game. And you'll feel great when you cast it and get both triggers at once.

#23. Impulsivity

Impulsivity is the weakest of Lorwyn Eclipsed’s encore incarnations, if only because it has a prerequisite for the ability: It’s worthless without instants and sorceries in the graveyard, though it can pull from opposing ‘yards. Even then, you want bigger ones to warrant the high cost. Is it really enough to cast Lightning Bolt and a cantrip?

#22. Genesis

Genesis is an incarnation from the original cycle that saw a reprint in Modern Horizons 1, but unfortunately it’s still not good enough for Modern. It’s still pretty cool, if a little underwhelming. Getting creatures back from your graveyard is nothing to be sniffed at, but needing Genesis in your ‘yard and still having to pay mana to get it back isn’t great. Honestly, this could just put something back to your hand for or even for free and it wouldn’t have been broken in modern-day Magic.

#21. Glory

Protection is one of the most potentially broken mechanics in Magic, which is why it wasn’t printed on cards for a number of years. Glory is a good example of a card with protection that’s just waiting to be broken. There’s nothing stopping you from sinking 15 mana into this and giving your creatures protection from all colors. That's a lot to ask, but the flexibility allows you to take opponents out without them noticing. Nowhere near the top 10 of this list, but it can still see a good amount of play in the right deck that can get it into the graveyard consistently.

#20. Subterfuge

Subterfuge boasts the most unnerving chimeric art Magic has ever produced. The card itself is also pretty good. Most of its strength comes from encore; its enters ability can target itself, so you get a flying attack and up to nine cards, assuming all goes well. That’s a massive swing for 9 mana, and it takes very little for it to be even stronger.

#19. Valor

Valor is one from the Judgment cycle, which give your creatures an ability while in the graveyard. Easily the least exciting of the cycle, giving your team first strike isn’t something to turn your nose up at. Getting it in your yard may be a bit of an issue in white, but it’s not impossible.

One good way to use this is to put it in a deck where you can easily give your creatures deathtouch. First strike and deathtouch is one nasty combination!

#18. Guile

Guile has a super interesting ability in a counterspell-focused deckl you’re unlikely to ever see it on another card. And if you ever play it against someone you don’t know, you just know they’re going to ask to read the card and be blown away too. It’s also pretty balanced, if you can find a table that’s okay with you playing counters!

#17. Dread

One of my favorite parts of Dread is that it comes with the keyword fear, which lines up so perfectly with the name. The ability is also pretty cool. With a No Mercy effect tacked onto the 6/6 body, you’re not invulnerable but you become so much more difficult to kill through combat damage.

#16. Purity

You know what’s going to make your burn opponent mad? Gaining life when they want to deal damage to you. That’s exactly what Purity does. Not only that, a hilarious way to break this is to pair it with a card that should normally deal damage to you, but this makes you gain the life instead!

Note that this doesn’t count combat damage, so it’s a little narrow in that way. Still, it’s a sweet ability that’s sometimes a headache to play against.

#15. Emptiness

Emptiness haunts battlefields as a grim reaper of sorts, one as happy to reanimate your creatures as it is to kill opposing ones. It works well as the top-end of an aggro deck that builds your board or just clears a blocker so you can attack well. It can also be part of an infinite combo with Samwise the Stouthearted, if you’re into that.

#14. Belonging

Belonging offers a simple yet potent payoff: tokens! White exploits Belonging extremely well between token-matters cards like Elspeth, Storm Slayer and flicker effects like Cloudshift. This is probably at its best in Boros, where it represents four bodies for cards like Impact Tremors and Purphoros, God of the Forge. An encore creature that leaves a board state behind is also nice, and pretty unique for the mechanic.

#13. Lamentation

Removal in Commander needs to be more than a 1-for-1. Some amount of 1-for-1 interaction, like Swords to Plowshares and Swan Song, is necessary for efficiency, but that can’t be all you play. Which is where Lamentation comes in as a super-Nekrataal that ideally kills four creatures between its enters and encore triggers. It’s a big swing that pushes the game in your favor.

#12. Brawn

You'll regularly see Brawn at Commander tables. For starters, it’s pretty easy to get into your graveyard in green decks, and giving your big green beefers trample for free can be a fantastic advantage for some decks. Not the most powerful card ever, but a useful effect that rarely costs you very much to include.

#11. Vigor

Now we’re getting into the good stuff. Vigor makes your creatures effectively unstoppable in combat, and you can do some pretty silly things with red damage-based board wipes like Blasphemous Act (although it doesn’t prevent the damage to itself). You’re likely to become the target when you play this, but it’s totally worth it.

#10. Jubilation

Be prepared to lose to Jubilation. It will happen. The face value of the card is one of a hundred mass pump creatures worse than Craterhoof Behemoth, but this elemental has some spice. It’s much cheaper, for one. More importantly, it has encore, which results in a mass pump of +6/+6 to at minimum three hasty 5/5s. Since encore works from the graveyard, it’s ideal in graveyard-based decks that want valuable threats to mill or discard. But you don’t even need that: A big creature that punishes your opponents for killing it is quite handy.

#9. Wonder

If you think giving your creatures trample is good, then flying is even better. Wonder is exactly the card you’re looking for if you want that! Like the rest of this cycle, getting it into your graveyard is free in the right deck, and once it’s there your creatures are likely to be unopposed.

#8. Deceit

Deceit is no Grief, but it still packs a punch and is probably worth scamming your opponent with. Even though you only make them discard one card, you get a significant threat. Remember when playing this that the abilities of a card resolve top-down. That means if you cast Deceit with , you’ll bounce the creature first, and you can then force your opponent to discard the card you bounced.

#7. Anger

While Anger doesn’t give your creatures evasion, giving them haste instead is better for some decks because it can allow you to combo off in a single turn. Of course, you can always just use Anger to get in quicker and surprise them with a huge attack out of nowhere, but that’s not as fun as comboing, right?

#6. Wistfulness

Wistfulness has made waves in Standard and beyond. You could think of this as Magic’s most flexible Naturalize. Sometimes it exiles an artifact or enchantment, sometimes it fixes your draw, sometimes it does both attached to a massive body. That level of flexibility is exactly what you want from a card like this. Notably for older formats, its colors are perfect to pitch it to Force of Negation or Force of Vigor.

#5. Subtlety

No surprises that the top five all come from a particular cycle of incarnations from Modern Horizons 2. Of all these, Subtlety is easily the lowest, and the only one that could have missed the top 5. At the end of the day, free spells are rarely bad, and if you can get the non-evoked value here you’re really laughing.

#4. Endurance

Sometimes you just need to deal with your opponent's graveyard to stop them going off, and when you’re in that pinch, Endurance is what you need. On top of that, a 3/4 flash blocker for 3 mana is surprisingly useful. It’s rarely going to win you the game, but it can certainly stop your opponent from winning!

#3. Grief

The top card in the deck that may or may not have been known as “scam” in Modern, Grief is a scary card to get out on turn 1, especially if you can combo the sacrifice trigger with a Feign Death, Ephemerate, or similar. This is a Pro Tour-winning card and arguably should take the top spot. It’s a tight battle up here though!

#2. Solitude

Swords to Plowshares is a powerful card, but a free version of it that can also come with a body is even better. Solitude, one of Magic's best lifelink creatures, is arguably the best removal spell in Modern, and it deals with pretty much any creature you need it to. It may not be super interesting to everyone, but it’s efficient and powerful.

#1. Fury

Heading off the list is none other than Fury. Single-handedly pushing out 1-toughness creatures from Modern while it was legal (well, maybe Wrenn and Six has some say on that too), format-warping is a phrase that some would happily use for this card. If nothing else, it’s controversial as well as powerful and has only gotten more popular since it was first printed.

Best Incarnation Creature Payoffs

There’s no real theme running through the incarnations in Magic, but there are some strong themes within some of the cycles that we can find some good payoffs for.

The MH2 cycle has some synergy with Up the Beanstalk. Drawing cards with your free spells is all kinds of silly, and it’s a good way to make up for the card disadvantage of having to exile a card from your hand to cast them for free. The value this uncommon lends to some of these decks is unparalleled.

For the cycle from Judgment that want to go into your graveyard, a card like Entomb is a good way to get them there. If you want multiples in your graveyard, you could always go for something like Buried Alive.

The evoke elementals from Modern Horizons 2 and Lorwyn Eclipsed work well with flicker effects like Ephemerate or effects like Malakir Rebirth that return a creature to play when it dies. This play pattern is called “scam,” after the dominant deck that got Grief and Fury banned in Modern. It isn’t as good with the ECL elementals since you need to spend mana to get the enters trigger, but it still results in a good enters ability, then a big threat.

Alternatively, ECL’s elementals work extremely well with airbending cards like Airbending Lesson and Aang, Swift Savior since you can pay the and still get an enters effect, as long as you paid mana of the same color.

Wrap Up

Vibrance | Illustration by Jakub Kasper

Incarnations don’t have a set theme to them, but there are so many of these cards that are either iconic in themselves or come from super well-known cycles. Almost any Magic player recognizes at least one card on this list, and everyone has to love the ability on one of these monsters.

If you could create an incarnation to fit with one of the existing cycles, what would it do? Or could you see some kind of “incarnation matters” commander? I always love to see speculation on this, so make sure you stick your thoughts in the comments below or over on Draftsim’s Discord.

I hope you’ve enjoyed this journey through this unusual creature type, and I’ll see you next time!