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Arcus Acolyte

Creature — Human Cleric Archer

Reach, lifelink
Outlast {G/W} ({G/W}, {T}: Put a +1/+1 counter on this creature. Outlast only as a sorcery.)
Each other creature you control without a +1/+1 counter on it has outlast {G/W}.

CMC
2
Mana cost
{G}{W}
Color identity
GW
Rarity
uncommon
Set
Modern Horizons 2
Price
$0.21
EDHREC rank
#12859
Buy on TCGplayer
Arcus Acolyte card art
Arcus Acolyte gives every creature you control with a +1/+1 counter on it outreach — effectively reach — which turns a board of counters-matters creatures into a aerial defense without spending a card slot on enchantments or equipment. The cost is a single green mana for a 1/3 body, which is negligible; the payoff is highest in Shalai and Hallar or Tadeas, Juniper Ascendant builds where counters are already the currency of the deck.

Best Commanders

Commanders with the highest synergy

01
Tadeas, Juniper Ascendant

Tadeas, Juniper Ascendant

21.9% of decks · synergy 0.20

Tadeas, Juniper Ascendant rewards creatures with power 5 or greater by tapping them for green mana, and Arcus Acolyte's outreach ability means those same pump targets now threaten fliers — closing the one gap a ground-based Simic counters build typically has against flying aggro.

Format Analysis

Where it lives, where it can’t

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

Arcus Acolyte is a Commander card through and through — the outreach ability scales with the size of your board and the depth of your counters payoffs, neither of which matter much in Legacy or Vintage where the game ends before a wide creature base accrues meaningful counters. In those formats it's legal but functionally irrelevant. Commander is where Arcus Acolyte earns its slot: a one-mana 1/3 that passively upgrades every counters-laden creature on your board is repeatable value that compounds as the game goes long.

Key Combos

Combo lines featuring this card

Price Context

Current price

$0.21 bulk tier

At $0.21, Arcus Acolyte is bulk — the kind of card you pick up as a throw-in and never think about the cost again. Bulk rares with narrow homes rarely climb unless a new commander pushes the archetype into the spotlight, so treat this as a cheap role-player, not a pickup for speculation.

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Sources

Mentioned

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