Cinder Shade
Creature — Shade
: This creature gets +1/+1 until end of turn.
, Sacrifice this creature: It deals damage equal to its power to target creature.
- CMC
- 3
- Mana cost
- Color identity
- BR
- Rarity
- uncommon
- Set
- Invasion
- Price
- $0.11
- EDHREC rank
- #30142
Cinder Shade is a repeatable pump-and-drain on a 1/1 body: pay a black mana, it gets +1/+1 until end of turn and costs an opponent a life. The activation cost scales with how many times you use it per turn, which makes Cinder Shade a mana sink that rewards you for having excess black floating but punishes you for going deep on a single combat step.
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 | not legal |
| oathbreaker | legal |
In Commander, Cinder Shade occupies an awkward slot — the drain is one life against one opponent at a time, which barely registers at a four-player table, and a 1/1 for two mana needs to justify itself with an engine. Legacy and Vintage are legal formats but have no interest in a two-mana 1/1 with a slow incremental effect when faster threats exist at every point on the curve. Cinder Shade is most relevant in mono-black or black-heavy Commander builds that generate obscene amounts of mana and want a late-game mana dump, but even there, better sinks exist.
Key Combos
Combo lines featuring this card
Price Context
Current price
$0.11 bulk tier
At $0.11, Cinder Shade is deep bulk — you're paying for cardboard and postage, not the card. There's no meaningful demand driver that would push this off the floor.
Explore
Sources
Mentioned
Updated . Data from Scryfall, EDHREC, and Commander Spellbook.