Aphotic Wisps
Instant
Target creature becomes black and gains fear until end of turn. (It can't be blocked except by artifact creatures and/or black creatures.)
Draw a card.
- CMC
- 1
- Mana cost
- Color identity
- B
- Rarity
- common
- Set
- Shadowmoor
- Price
- $0.68
- EDHREC rank
- #8669
Aphotic Wisps makes a creature unblockable and black until end of turn, then replaces itself with a card draw — all for one black mana. In the right shell, specifically anything running Horobi, Death's Wail, that targeting trigger is a free creature kill stapled to a cantrip, and with K'rrik, Son of Yawgmoth on board the spell costs zero mana entirely.
Best Commanders
Commanders with the highest synergy
Horobi, Death's Wail
Horobi, Death's Wail turns every targeting spell into a Doom Blade, so Aphotic Wisps becomes a zero-mana cantrip that incidentally destroys whatever creature you point it at. Over half of Horobi decks run it for exactly that reason — it's one of the cleanest kill spells the deck has access to.
Tor Wauki the Younger
Tor Wauki the Younger deals damage whenever you cast an instant or sorcery, so Aphotic Wisps slots in as a one-mana ping that replaces itself while threatening unblockability for a key attacker. It's cheap enough to chain into longer spell sequences and keep Tor Wauki's damage trigger firing.
Toshiro Umezawa
Toshiro Umezawa flashbacks instants from the graveyard when creatures die, and Aphotic Wisps in the yard means a free cantrip every time a creature death trigger lines up. The low cost keeps it castable on Toshiro's rebuy without taxing the mana base.
Kuja, Genome Sorcerer
Kuja, Genome Sorcerer cares about casting spells and generating value off instants and sorceries, and Aphotic Wisps fits as a near-free spell that replaces itself while enabling a creature to slip through blockers on a critical turn. Its inclusion across nearly 14% of Kuja decks reflects how well it slots into spell-count-matters strategies.
Lord of the Nazgûl
Lord of the Nazgûl creates a Wraith token every time you cast a spell with Nazgûl in its name or a Wraith spell, and Aphotic Wisps is a cheap cantrip that triggers that engine while giving one of your Wraiths a free path through blockers. The self-replacing nature means it never costs you card advantage while it builds your token army.
Format Analysis
Where it lives, where it can’t
| Format | Verdict |
|---|---|
| commander | legal |
| legacy | legal |
| modern | legal |
| pioneer | not legal |
| standard | not legal |
| vintage | legal |
| pauper | legal |
| oathbreaker | legal |
Aphotic Wisps is legal in Commander, Legacy, Modern, Vintage, Pauper, and Oathbreaker, but its real home is Commander, where synergy-dependent engines make a one-mana cantrip that also targets a creature far more powerful than it looks in a vacuum. In Pauper it's legal and occasionally sees fringe play in tempo or black-based aggro lists that want cheap card neutral spells, though it rarely makes cuts there. In Legacy and Vintage the competition at one mana is steep enough that Aphotic Wisps almost never appears outside of niche brews. Modern is the same story — it's legal but effectively absent from competitive lists. Commander is where Aphotic Wisps earns its keep, and specifically in decks that convert targeting triggers into free effects.
Key Combos
Combo lines featuring this card
K'rrik, Son of YawgmothDoomsdayAphotic WispsCruel BargainSacrificeMikaeus, the UnhallowedWalking BallistaViscera Seer
Infinite damage; Infinite death triggers; Infinite ETB; Infinite LTB; Infinite sacrifice triggers; Infinite scry 1
View on Commander Spellbook ↗Price Context
Current price
$0.68 bulk tier
At $0.68, Aphotic Wisps sits firmly in bulk territory — easy to pick up in a trade binder or throw into a cart without thinking about it. It's not a card that holds or gains value on its own merits; price stability here just reflects steady low-level demand from Commander players sleeving up Horobi, Death's Wail and similar decks.
Explore
Sources
Mentioned
Updated . Data from Scryfall, EDHREC, and Commander Spellbook.