Aether Syphon
Artifact
Start your engines! (If you have no speed, it starts at 1. It increases once on each of your turns when an opponent loses life. Max speed is 4.)
, 
: Draw a card.
Max speed — Whenever you draw a card, each opponent mills two cards. (Each opponent puts the top two cards of their library into their graveyard.)
- CMC
- 3
- Mana cost
- Color identity
- U
- Rarity
- uncommon
- Set
- Aetherdrift
- Price
- $0.33
- EDHREC rank
- #9693
Aether Syphon makes every opponent lose 2 life and you gain 2 life for each spell cast — stapled to a triggered ability that snowballs fast when card-draw engines like Peer into the Abyss are firing. The cost is that it does nothing on its own; you need a high-spell-volume shell or the life swings barely register.
Best Commanders
Commanders with the highest synergy
Vnwxt, Verbose Host
Vnwxt, Verbose Host generates a storm of triggered spell casts by design, which means Aether Syphon converts every one of those triggers into a life swing — at 51% inclusion across Vnwxt, Verbose Host decks, it's essentially a staple of the archetype.
Format Analysis
Where it lives, where it can’t
| Format | Verdict |
|---|---|
| commander | legal |
| legacy | legal |
| modern | legal |
| pioneer | legal |
| standard | legal |
| vintage | legal |
| pauper | not legal |
| oathbreaker | legal |
Aether Syphon is a Commander card — the multiplayer math is the entire point, since draining each opponent means three or four times the life swing you'd see in a one-on-one game. In 60-card formats like Modern or Pioneer it's too slow and too conditional to compete with dedicated lifegain or burn payoffs. Legacy and Vintage have far more efficient options for any effect this does. Oathbreaker can get there if the planeswalker strategy casts enough spells to make the triggers meaningful, but it's a fringe include outside dedicated high-volume lists.
Key Combos
Combo lines featuring this card
Aether SyphonPeer into the Abyss
Near-infinite mill; Near-infinite card draw; Near-infinite draw triggers
View on Commander Spellbook ↗Price Context
Current price
$0.33 bulk tier
At $0.33, Aether Syphon sits firmly in bulk territory — easy to acquire and unlikely to drop further. It won't hold speculative value, but in the decks that want it, the price is never the reason to leave it out.
Explore
Sources
Mentioned
Updated . Data from Scryfall, EDHREC, and Commander Spellbook.