Captain of Umbar
Creature — Human Pirate
, 
: Draw a card, then discard a card.
- CMC
- 3
- Mana cost
- Color identity
- U
- Rarity
- common
- Set
- The Lord of the Rings: Tales of Middle-earth
- Price
- $0.11
- EDHREC rank
- #16570
Captain of Umbar enters with a full board of Pirates who each make a Pirate token and tap a blocker — that's immediate, guaranteed damage the turn it lands. The four-mana cost is steep enough that you need a Pirate-heavy shell to justify it, but in the right deck it's a two-card swing in one ETB.
Format Analysis
Where it lives, where it can’t
| Format | Verdict |
|---|---|
| commander | legal |
| legacy | legal |
| modern | legal |
| pioneer | not legal |
| standard | not legal |
| vintage | legal |
| pauper | legal |
| oathbreaker | legal |
Captain of Umbar is a Commander card first and almost exclusively — the Pirate synergy it demands rarely exists at meaningful density outside of a 99-card singleton shell built around the tribe. In Pauper it's legal but competes in a format where four-mana creatures must win the game immediately, and a tap effect plus one 1/1 token doesn't clear that bar. Legacy and Vintage are non-starters; the card does nothing without a board of existing Pirates, and those formats don't assemble that setup. Commander is where the ETB scales — drop it into a Pirate deck with six creatures already in play and you've created six tokens, tapped six blockers, and set up a lethal attack on the same turn.
Key Combos
Combo lines featuring this card
Price Context
Current price
$0.11 bulk tier
At $0.11, Captain of Umbar is pure bulk — pick it up in any common box or throw it in a cart as a throw-in. Bulk rares with narrow tribal requirements don't appreciate, so buy it for the deck, not the binder.
Explore
Sources
Mentioned
Updated . Data from Scryfall, EDHREC, and Commander Spellbook.