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Cathar's Shield

Artifact — Equipment

Equipped creature gets +0/+3 and has vigilance.
Equip {3} ({3}: Attach to target creature you control. Equip only as a sorcery.)

CMC
0
Mana cost
{0}
Color identity
C
Rarity
common
Set
Eldritch Moon
Price
$0.31
EDHREC rank
#7481
Buy on TCGplayer
Cathar's Shield card art
Cathar's Shield contributes exactly zero power and toughness to the board — the entire reason to run it is combo potential, specifically how it interacts with Cavalier of Dawn's bounce loop or how Fblthp, Lost on the Range can stack it on top of a library for guaranteed value. A 0/3 vigilance bump for zero equip cost is irrelevant in most games; this card earns its slot only when it's a named piece in an engine.

Best Commanders

Commanders with the highest synergy

01
Fblthp, Lost on the Range

Fblthp, Lost on the Range

61.1% of decks · synergy 0.60

Fblthp, Lost on the Range lets you put Cathar's Shield on top of your library to repeatedly draw and cast it for free, turning a zero-mana artifact into a self-sustaining card-advantage loop that fuels the whole deck.

02
Meria, Scholar of Antiquity

Meria, Scholar of Antiquity

23.3% of decks · synergy 0.23

Meria, Scholar of Antiquity taps noncreature artifacts for mana, so Cathar's Shield — cheap to cast and free to equip — gives Meria decks a zero-investment mana source that also enables artifact-count payoffs in the same shell.

Format Analysis

Where it lives, where it can’t

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

In Commander, Cathar's Shield is a niche combo piece rather than a generically playable card — it shows up almost exclusively in Fblthp, Lost on the Range builds where the zero-equip cost and zero mana value are features, not bugs. In Pauper it's legal but sees no meaningful play; the format's artifact synergy decks have better options at the same price point. Modern, Pioneer, Legacy, and Vintage have no reason to touch it — the stat line is negligible and the combo potential doesn't translate outside of Commander's specific top-of-library manipulation. Oathbreaker mirrors Commander's dynamic: playable only if your planeswalker is explicitly engineering a Cathar's Shield loop.

Key Combos

Combo lines featuring this card

Price Context

Current price

$0.31 bulk tier

At $0.31, Cathar's Shield is bulk in every sense — you're not paying for the card, you're paying for the shipping. Bulk commons rarely move on price, so don't expect this to spike or crater; just grab a copy if the combo applies to your deck and move on.

Explore

Sources

Mentioned

← All cards

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