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Alhammarret's Archive

Legendary Artifact

If you would gain life, you gain twice that much life instead.
If you would draw a card except the first one you draw in each of your draw steps, draw two cards instead.

CMC
5
Mana cost
{5}
Color identity
C
Rarity
mythic
Set
Commander 2021
Price
$11.24
EDHREC rank
#969
Buy on TCGplayer
Alhammarret's Archive card art
Alhammarret's Archive doubles every life gain trigger and replaces every draw with drawing twice that many cards — staple it onto a Peer into the Abyss and you're filling your hand from 30 cards to 60 in a single spell. Five mana is real, but The Archimandrite and similar life-gain-matters commanders treat it as the cornerstone of the engine, not a luxury.

Best Commanders

Commanders with the highest synergy

01
The Archimandrite

The Archimandrite

53.6% of decks · synergy 0.51

The Archimandrite's triggered ability rewards you for gaining life each turn, and Alhammarret's Archive doubles both the life gained and the cards drawn off those triggers — it's the single card that most amplifies what the deck is trying to do.

02
Hope Estheim

Hope Estheim

54.5% of decks · synergy 0.49

Hope Estheim drains and gains repeatedly, and Alhammarret's Archive turns every incremental life bump into a double-card-draw event, letting the deck convert a slow life-gain plan into a card-advantage avalanche.

03
Bilbo, Birthday Celebrant

Bilbo, Birthday Celebrant

50.9% of decks · synergy 0.47

Bilbo, Birthday Celebrant cares about reaching life-gain milestones, and Alhammarret's Archive doubles every gain that ticks toward those thresholds — fewer life-gain events needed, faster payoffs.

04
Oloro, Ageless Ascetic

Oloro, Ageless Ascetic

52.5% of decks · synergy 0.46

Oloro, Ageless Ascetic generates life every upkeep even from the command zone, and Alhammarret's Archive doubles that passive income while also doubling the cards drawn when Oloro's draw trigger fires.

05
Arjun, the Shifting Flame

Arjun, the Shifting Flame

42.8% of decks · synergy 0.42

Arjun, the Shifting Flame replaces your hand repeatedly, and Alhammarret's Archive means each replacement draws twice as many cards before the discard — turning a wheel effect into a double-wheel effect every time you cast a spell.

Format Analysis

Where it lives, where it can’t

FormatVerdict
commander legal
legacy legal
modern legal
pioneer legal
standard not legal
vintage legal
pauper not legal
oathbreaker legal

Alhammarret's Archive is legal in Commander, Legacy, Modern, Pioneer, Vintage, and Oathbreaker, but it only sees meaningful play in Commander. Five mana for a do-nothing artifact is a non-starter in Legacy and Vintage, where the game is over before the effect matters, and Modern and Pioneer have enough efficient threats that a five-mana symmetry-breaker with no immediate impact can't compete. In Commander, the calculus flips entirely — the game goes long, life-gain synergies are abundant, and doubling card draws compounds over multiple turns into an insurmountable advantage.

Key Combos

Combo lines featuring this card

58 decks
Ormos, Archive KeeperMind Over MatterAlhammarret's Archive

Ormos, Archive KeeperMind Over MatterAlhammarret's Archive

Infinite card draw; Infinite draw triggers; Infinite self-discard triggers; Near-infinite +1/+1 counters on a creature; Near-infinite mana permanents you control can produce; Near-infinite untap of permanents you control

View on Commander Spellbook ↗

Budget Alternatives

Cheaper options that do most of the same work

Thought Reflection does half the job — doubling cards drawn — for around $3, though it costs seven mana and skips the life-gain doubling entirely. Well of Lost Dreams converts life gain into card draw in the first place and pairs well with life-gain commanders, but unlike Alhammarret's Archive it requires mana activation rather than triggering automatically, so it's slower and less explosive.

Price Context

Current price

$11.24 mid tier

At $11.24, Alhammarret's Archive sits in the mid tier — expensive enough to feel like a deliberate include, cheap enough that it's justified in any deck that has more than two life-gain triggers or draw spells. It's a card with a stable demand base across a wide range of commanders, so the price reflects genuine play rate rather than speculation.

Explore

Sources

Mentioned

← All cards

Updated . Data from Scryfall, EDHREC, and Commander Spellbook.