Recursion
Recursion gets cards back from your graveyard. In a singleton format, losing a key card to removal feels worse than in formats where you run four copies. Recursion lets you replay your best cards multiple times in a game.
Run 2-4 recursion effects in most decks. If your strategy is graveyard-focused (Aristocrats, Reanimator), run 8-15.
To hand
Return a card to your hand. You still need mana to cast it again.
- Eternal Witness — 3 mana creature, return any card from your graveyard to your hand. The baseline recursion creature.
- Regrowth — 2 mana sorcery, return any card from your graveyard to your hand.
- Archaeomancer — 4 mana creature, return an instant or sorcery. Good in spellslinger decks.
- Bala Ged Recovery — modal DFC that's a land on the back side. Regrowth when you need it, land when you don't.
To battlefield
Skip the mana cost entirely. These cheat expensive creatures into play from the graveyard.
- Reanimate — 1 mana, put any creature from any graveyard onto the battlefield. You lose life equal to its mana value. Black staple.
- Animate Dead — 2 mana enchantment, brings back a creature with a small power reduction. Cheap and effective.
- Victimize — 3 mana, sacrifice a creature, return two creatures from your graveyard to the battlefield. Net gain of one creature.
- Sun Titan — 6 mana, returns a permanent with mana value 3 or less from your graveyard when it enters or attacks. Recurring value.
- Living Death — 5 mana, swaps all creatures in graveyards with all creatures on the battlefield. Devastating when your graveyard is stacked.
Repeatable recursion
Effects that recur cards every turn or on a regular basis. These are engines, not one-shots.
- Meren of Clan Nel Toth — gains experience counters when creatures die, returns a creature end step based on experience count. One of the best recursion commanders.
- Muldrotha, the Gravetide — play one permanent of each type from your graveyard each turn. Your graveyard becomes a second hand.
- Palace Siege — choose mode: return a creature from graveyard to hand each upkeep, or drain 2 life per opponent each upkeep.
Mass recursion
Return many cards at once. These are finishers in graveyard-focused decks.
- Rise of the Dark Realms — 9 mana, return all creatures from all graveyards to the battlefield under your control. Wins games when resolved.
- Eerie Ultimatum — 7 mana, return any number of permanents with different names from your graveyard. Requires Abzan colors (W/B/G).
- Living Death — mentioned above, but it belongs in this category too. It's both recursion and a board wipe.
Graveyard hate awareness
Recursion has a hard counter: graveyard exile. Rest in Peace, Leyline of the Void, Bojuka Bog, and Tormod's Crypt all shut down graveyard strategies. If your deck depends on recursion, expect opponents to pack graveyard hate.
This doesn't mean you shouldn't run recursion. It means you should have a backup plan that doesn't require the graveyard, or ways to remove enchantments (Rest in Peace, Leyline of the Void) when they appear.