Clone Shell
Artifact Creature — Shapeshifter
Imprint — When this creature enters, look at the top four cards of your library, exile one face down, then put the rest on the bottom of your library in any order.
When this creature dies, turn the exiled card face up. If it's a creature card, put it onto the battlefield under your control.
- CMC
- 5
- Mana cost
- Color identity
- C
- Rarity
- uncommon
- Set
- Scars of Mirrodin
- Price
- $0.13
- EDHREC rank
- #12589
Clone Shell cheats a creature into play from the top four cards of your library when it dies — the impact is a free creature, the cost is a five-mana 2/2 that has to die first. In dedicated reanimator or sacrifice shells, that built-in delay is a feature, not a bug; everywhere else, it's too slow to matter. Herigast, Erupting Nullkite makes Clone Shell look like a bargain by letting you imprint for free and recur the whole engine from the graveyard.
Best Commanders
Commanders with the highest synergy
Herigast, Erupting Nullkite
Herigast, Erupting Nullkite can imprint Clone Shell for free as part of its attack trigger, turning a five-mana 2/2 into a zero-cost creature cheater that also feeds the graveyard recursion loop Herigast is already building.
Grenzo, Dungeon Warden
Grenzo, Dungeon Warden puts Clone Shell into play from the bottom of the library, and once it's on the board it doubles as a sacrifice outlet target — when Grenzo kills it, the imprinted creature drops into play and the whole line repeats if you rebuild.
Feldon of the Third Path
Feldon of the Third Path copies Clone Shell's creature token at the end of combat, which means the imprinted creature enters play, Clone Shell leaves, and Feldon can do it again next turn — effectively giving you a recurring free creature every rotation.
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 |
Clone Shell is legal in Commander, Legacy, Modern, Vintage, and Oathbreaker, but it sees virtually no play outside Commander. In Legacy and Vintage the five-mana cost and enter-the-battlefield delay are disqualifying — those formats have Entomb and Reanimate to do the same job in two mana total. Modern has enough efficient threats that a fragile 2/2 which needs to die before it does anything meaningful doesn't compete. Commander is where Clone Shell actually earns its slot: the slower format pace gives the imprint trigger time to fire, sacrifice synergies are plentiful, and the payoff of landing a free creature from the top four is meaningful when those creatures are seven-mana bombs.
Key Combos
Combo lines featuring this card
Price Context
Current price
$0.13 bulk tier
At $0.13, Clone Shell is bulk — you can pick up a playset for the price of a coffee. Given its narrow home in sacrifice and reanimator Commander decks, that price is stable; there's no competitive demand pulling it up, but dedicated players in the right shell will always want a copy.
Explore
Sources
Mentioned
- Herigast, Erupting Nullkite
- Grenzo, Dungeon Warden
- Feldon of the Third Path
Updated . Data from Scryfall, EDHREC, and Commander Spellbook.