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Cadaver Imp

Creature — Imp

Flying
When this creature enters, you may return target creature card from your graveyard to your hand.

CMC
3
Mana cost
{1}{B}{B}
Color identity
B
Rarity
common
Set
Commander Masters
Price
$0.07
EDHREC rank
#9771
Buy on TCGplayer
Cadaver Imp card art
Cadaver Imp enters the battlefield and immediately returns a creature from your graveyard to your hand — that's a two-for-one stapled onto a 1/1 flying body for three mana. The cost is real: three mana for a 1/1 is rate-negative, so Cadaver Imp earns its slot only in decks that loop it repeatedly, and Shirei, Shizo's Caretaker and Liliana, Heretical Healer // Liliana, Defiant Necromancer are exactly those decks.

Best Commanders

Commanders with the highest synergy

01
Shirei, Shizo's Caretaker

Shirei, Shizo's Caretaker

58.6% of decks · synergy 0.57

Cadaver Imp is a core piece in Shirei, Shizo's Caretaker decks because its 1-power body means Shirei returns it from the graveyard at end of turn — letting you retrigger the enter-the-battlefield reanimation every single turn cycle and rebuild your board for free.

02
Raphael, Fiendish Savior

Raphael, Fiendish Savior

20.5% of decks · synergy 0.20

Raphael, Fiendish Savior creates a Devil token whenever a Demon, Devil, or Vampire enters or dies, so Cadaver Imp pulling a recursive creature back to hand and then replaying it generates a steady token drip on top of the recovery value.

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 legal
oathbreaker legal

Cadaver Imp is a Commander card almost exclusively — the reanimation trigger is too slow and the body too small to compete in Legacy, Modern, or Vintage, where the same mana buys answers that end games. Pauper is the one non-Commander format where it sees occasional play, slotting into black reanimator shells that lack access to more efficient options at common. In Commander, the imp's ceiling is directly tied to whether your commander cares about repeated enter-the-battlefield triggers or power-one creatures dying — outside of those specific engines, it's a one-time Gray Ogre that underwhelms.

Key Combos

Combo lines featuring this card

Price Context

Current price

$0.07 bulk tier

At $0.07, Cadaver Imp is pure bulk — the kind of card you pull from a common box rather than buy. That price is stable and unlikely to move without a reprint into a pushed product or sudden combo breakout, neither of which is on the horizon.

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Sources

Mentioned

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