Cloistered Youth // Unholy Fiend
Creature — Human // Creature — Horror
At the beginning of your upkeep, you may transform this creature.
- CMC
- 2
- Mana cost
- Color identity
- BW
- Rarity
- uncommon
- Set
- Innistrad
- Price
- $0.05
- EDHREC rank
- #30239
Cloistered Youth // Unholy Fiend flips into a 3/3 flying lifelink on your upkeep and then punishes opponents for simply having permanents — a meaningful threat for two mana. The cost is real: it transforms at a fixed point rather than on your terms, and the back half's drain trigger requires board presence to sting.
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 | not legal |
| oathbreaker | legal |
In Commander, Cloistered Youth // Unholy Fiend slots cleanly into lifegain, aristocrats, and W/B aggro shells — the drain trigger scales up at a table of three opponents, and the lifelink on the back half compounds with any lifegain payoffs you're running. Legacy and Vintage have access to it but have no interest; their creature bars are set high enough that a two-mana 1/1 with a delayed transformation doesn't compete. Modern could theoretically run it in a W/B life-matters shell, but the transformation being locked to upkeep rather than a triggered condition makes it a tempo liability against fast decks. Commander is where Cloistered Youth // Unholy Fiend earns its slot.
Key Combos
Combo lines featuring this card
Price Context
Current price
$0.05 bulk tier
At $0.05, Cloistered Youth // Unholy Fiend is deep bulk — easy to pick up in any commons box or throw into an order as a filler. Bulk rares with niche Commander appeal rarely spike without a combo discovery or a high-profile deck feature, so treat it as a cheap pickup for synergy value rather than a hold.
Explore
Sources
Mentioned
Updated . Data from Scryfall, EDHREC, and Commander Spellbook.