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Chainer, Nightmare Adept

Legendary Creature — Human Minion

Discard a card: You may cast a creature spell from your graveyard this turn. Activate only once each turn.
Whenever a nontoken creature you control enters, if you didn't cast it from your hand, it gains haste until your next turn.

CMC
4
Mana cost
{2}{B}{R}
Color identity
BR
Rarity
mythic
Set
Commander 2019
Price
—
EDHREC rank
#1556
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Chainer, Nightmare Adept card art
Chainer, Nightmare Adept lets you cast creatures from your graveyard every turn — and they come in with haste — for the cost of discarding a card first, which most graveyard decks treat as a feature rather than a drawback. The floor is a reanimation engine stapled to a haste-granter; the ceiling, in shells like Slimefoot and Squee or Asmoranomardicadaistinaculdacar that actively want cards in the yard, is one of the best value engines in Rakdos.

Best Commanders

Commanders with the highest synergy

01
Asmoranomardicadaistinaculdacar

Asmoranomardicadaistinaculdacar

62.2% of decks · synergy 0.54

Asmoranomardicadaistinaculdacar's discard-to-tutor loop feeds directly into Chainer, Nightmare Adept — every card pitched to activate the chef becomes fuel for a free hasted creature off the top of your graveyard, closing the loop without losing card advantage.

02
Syrix, Carrier of the Flame

Syrix, Carrier of the Flame

59.3% of decks · synergy 0.51

Syrix, Carrier of the Flame cares about Phoenix creatures dying and returning, and Chainer, Nightmare Adept provides both the discard outlet to pitch them and the free recast that triggers Syrix's damage ability — the two together form a self-sustaining recursive engine.

03
Henzie "Toolbox" Torre

Henzie "Toolbox" Torre

56.6% of decks · synergy 0.45

Henzie "Toolbox" Torre already wants beefy creatures hitting the battlefield as cheaply as possible, and Chainer, Nightmare Adept lets him replay anything that died with haste on the same turn, effectively doubling the blitz value without spending extra mana.

04

Norman Osborn

44.1% of decks · synergy 0.41

Norman Osborn wants a steady discard outlet to fuel his villain-creature synergies, and Chainer, Nightmare Adept converts each discard into an immediate hasted threat out of the graveyard — keeping the board pressured while the hand cycles through.

05
Coram, the Undertaker

Coram, the Undertaker

47.7% of decks · synergy 0.37

Coram, the Undertaker mills cards and casts from the graveyard, so Chainer, Nightmare Adept slots in as a redundant reanimation vector that also grants haste — ensuring the largest creature Coram just milled can swing the turn it enters.

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 not legal
oathbreaker legal

Commander is where Chainer, Nightmare Adept lives — a four-mana legendary that rewards building around it is exactly the kind of card the format was designed for, and the 62% inclusion rate in Asmoranomardicadaistinaculdacar decks alone reflects how deeply it's been adopted. In Legacy and Vintage it's technically legal but sees no meaningful play; four mana for a conditional reanimation effect is far too slow against those fields, and neither format lacks better options. Modern is the same story — Chainer competes in a format that demands interaction on turns one and two, not turn four value engines. Oathbreaker is the one non-Commander 60-card format where it could reasonably slot into a Rakdos graveyard shell as the signature spell's support, though it's rarely built around there.

Key Combos

Combo lines featuring this card

2 decks
Chainer, Nightmare AdeptLoran of the Third PathMarvin, Murderous MimicAshnod's Altar

Chainer, Nightmare AdeptLoran of the Third PathMarvin, Murderous MimicAshnod's Altar

Infinite self-discard triggers; Near-infinite ETB; Infinite draw triggers; Near-infinite storm count; Near-infinite LTB; Infinite rummaging; Near-infinite death triggers; Near-infinite sacrifice triggers; Infinite card draw for target opponent; Infinite draw triggers for target opponent; Near-infinite draw triggers for target opponent; Near-infinite card draw for target opponent

View on Commander Spellbook ↗

Price Context

Current price

unknown tier

Current pricing data for Chainer, Nightmare Adept isn't available in this snapshot, but it has historically settled in the $1–3 range given its non-mythic rarity and the number of printings it's received. At any price under $5 it's an easy pickup for any Rakdos graveyard build — the combination of discard outlet, free recast, and haste-granting is genuinely hard to replicate at the same mana cost.

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Sources

Mentioned

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