Cabal Trainee
Creature — Human Minion
Sacrifice this creature: Target creature gets -2/-0 until end of turn.
- CMC
- 1
- Mana cost
- Color identity
- B
- Rarity
- common
- Set
- Judgment
- Price
- $0.07
- EDHREC rank
- #27677
Cabal Trainee asks you to pay two mana and tap to make an opponent sacrifice an artifact or creature — but only if you control more creatures than them, a condition that collapses the moment anyone wipes the board or blocks profitably. There are cleaner sacrifice outlets and better removal spells at every price point; Cabal Trainee rarely earns its slot.
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 | legal |
| oathbreaker | legal |
In Commander, Cabal Trainee competes against unconditional forced-sacrifice effects like Plaguecrafter and Demon's Disciple, and the conditional nature of its ability — requiring you to have more creatures — makes it unreliable in a four-player game where board states swing constantly. Pauper is the one format where Cabal Trainee might see fringe consideration, since the commons-only card pool thins the competition, but even there the tempo cost of tapping two mana at sorcery speed is steep. Legacy and Vintage are both legal formats for it, but the power level of those environments makes Cabal Trainee effectively invisible. Oathbreaker's tighter game states could theoretically support it, though the same board-state dependency problem follows it there too.
Key Combos
Combo lines featuring this card
Price Context
Current price
$0.07 bulk tier
At $0.07, Cabal Trainee is deep bulk — the kind of card you find in a dollar box without looking. That price reflects its play rate accurately, and there's no pressure driving it upward.
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Sources
Mentioned
Updated . Data from Scryfall, EDHREC, and Commander Spellbook.