April O'Neil, Human Element
Legendary Creature — Human Detective
Whenever a player casts an artifact, instant, or sorcery spell, you create a Mutagen token. (It's an artifact with "
, 
, Sacrifice this token: Put a +1/+1 counter on target creature. Activate only as a sorcery.")
- CMC
- 4
- Mana cost
- Color identity
- U
- Rarity
- rare
- Set
- Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Eternal
- Price
- $9.90
- EDHREC rank
- #14813
April O'Neil, Human Element turns every nontoken creature you control into a source of card advantage, drawing you a card the first time each one deals combat damage to a player each turn. The cost is real — you need creatures connecting with opponents — but in a deck that can reliably push through damage, she replaces herself and then some within two attack steps.
Format Analysis
Where it lives, where it can’t
| Format | Verdict |
|---|---|
| commander | legal |
| legacy | legal |
| modern | not legal |
| pioneer | not legal |
| standard | not legal |
| vintage | legal |
| pauper | not legal |
| oathbreaker | legal |
April O'Neil, Human Element is Commander-native design: a four-mana legend whose payoff scales with a board state, multiple opponents, and a long game — exactly the environment she wants. In Commander, she slots into any go-wide or voltron shell that attacks consistently, and the three-opponent table means her trigger fires up to three times per combat step if you have creatures through. Legacy and Vintage are legal but irrelevant — she's too slow and too dependent on a sustained battlefield to compete in those formats. Oathbreaker is the one other shell worth a thought, where she can serve as the planeswalker's signature spell support, but Commander is where she actually earns her slot.
Key Combos
Combo lines featuring this card
Budget Alternatives
Cheaper options that do most of the same work
Edric, Spymaster of Trest fills a similar role — drawing cards off combat damage to players — and runs under $2, though it hands the cards to your opponents' creatures too, which is a meaningful political trade-off April O'Neil, Human Element avoids entirely. Bident of Thassa is another close analogue at roughly $1, hitting every attacking creature and sticking as an artifact, but it lacks the Human type and the commander-zone option that make April worth building around.
Price Context
Current price
$9.90 mid tier
At $9.90, April O'Neil, Human Element sits in the mid tier — premium for a support piece, but in line with other mythic-rarity legends from crossover sets that carry collector demand on top of play demand. The price is driven partly by the IP, so if you're buying for gameplay rather than collection, compare what you're getting against Edric or Bident before committing.
Explore
Sources
Mentioned
Updated . Data from Scryfall, EDHREC, and Commander Spellbook.