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Basilisk Collar

Artifact — Equipment

Equipped creature has deathtouch and lifelink. (Any amount of damage it deals to a creature is enough to destroy it. Damage dealt by this creature also causes you to gain that much life.)
Equip {2} ({2}: Attach to target creature you control. Equip only as a sorcery.)

CMC
1
Mana cost
{1}
Color identity
C
Rarity
rare
Set
The List
Price
$5.55
EDHREC rank
#257
Buy on TCGplayer
Basilisk Collar card art
Basilisk Collar turns any pinger or fight effect into a removal engine and a life gain engine simultaneously — one equipment, two keywords, one mana to equip. Goblin Sharpshooter with this attached kills every small creature on the board and gains you life for each death; Kelsien, the Plague gets deathtouch so every tap costs one damage instead of many.

Best Commanders

Commanders with the highest synergy

01
Kelsien, the Plague

Kelsien, the Plague

89.0% of decks · synergy 0.85

Kelsien, the Plague is built around tapping to deal one damage to a creature and gaining experience counters — Basilisk Collar makes that one damage lethal regardless of toughness, turning Kelsien into a repeatable sniper that grows faster and gains life with every activation.

02
Auntie Blyte, Bad Influence

Auntie Blyte, Bad Influence

86.6% of decks · synergy 0.75

Auntie Blyte, Bad Influence cares about taking damage in odd increments, and Basilisk Collar gives her a lifelink outlet that lets her trade life aggressively while staying topped off — equip it to something that pings you and the life gain offsets the cost.

03
Dogmeat, Ever Loyal

Dogmeat, Ever Loyal

79.5% of decks · synergy 0.74

Dogmeat, Ever Loyal looks for Junk cards including equipment to attach to creature tokens, and Basilisk Collar is one of the cheapest high-impact equipment pieces in the color identity — it equips for one and makes any token a deathtouch lifelinker on contact.

04
Ghyrson Starn, Kelermorph

Ghyrson Starn, Kelermorph

77.8% of decks · synergy 0.70

Ghyrson Starn, Kelermorph triggers whenever a source deals exactly one damage to a creature or player, adding two more — Basilisk Collar on any pinger means each one-damage ping now has deathtouch, and Ghyrson's bonus two damage closes out whatever survived.

05
Captain America, First Avenger

Captain America, First Avenger

69.5% of decks · synergy 0.65

Captain America, First Avenger attacks and throws his shield to hit multiple targets, and Basilisk Collar turns those hits into deathtouch kills — every creature the shield bounces into dies, and lifelink on a voltron attacker keeps the pilot's life total healthy through blocks.

Format Analysis

Where it lives, where it can’t

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

Commander is where Basilisk Collar earns its reputation — pingers are everywhere in the format, and any 1/1 token wearing this collar becomes a deathtouch lifelink blocker that trades up the curve indefinitely. In Legacy and Vintage it sees fringe play in Death and Taxes-style creature toolboxes, but those formats move fast enough that a two-mana artifact that doesn't impact the board the turn it lands rarely makes the cut. Modern and Pioneer have similar problems: the equip cost is fine, but dedicated combo or value engines exist that don't require a creature to already be in play. Standard legality means it can appear in draft or constructed, though without a specific pinch-and-ping combo partner the effect is incremental rather than explosive. Basilisk Collar is at its absolute ceiling in Commander, where games go long, creatures are big, and a one-mana equip on an untapping pinger ends tables.

Key Combos

Combo lines featuring this card

Budget Alternatives

Cheaper options that do most of the same work

If Basilisk Collar is out of budget, Viridian Longbow and Pathway Arrows each give a creature a tap-to-deal-one-damage ability for under a dollar, which pairs with deathtouch from a separate source like Bow of Nylea to approximate the combo — but splitting the two keywords across multiple cards costs more mana and more card slots. Nothing under $2 staples both keywords onto one equipment at Basilisk Collar's equip cost, so the budget version is always a two-piece solution where the original is a one-piece.

Price Context

Current price

$5.55 mid tier

At $5.55, Basilisk Collar sits in mid-tier equipment pricing — expensive enough that you notice it, cheap enough that it belongs in any deck built around its synergies without a second thought. It has been reprinted multiple times and the price reflects a stable floor rather than a spike, so this is roughly what it costs and is likely to stay there.

Explore

Sources

Mentioned

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