Containment Priest
Creature — Human Cleric
Flash
If a nontoken creature would enter and it wasn't cast, exile it instead.
- CMC
- 2
- Mana cost
- Color identity
- W
- Rarity
- special
- Set
- Amonkhet Invocations
- Price
- —
- EDHREC rank
- #4635
Containment Priest shuts down any creature that would enter the battlefield without being cast — reanimation, flash-in effects, token copies, cheat-into-play commanders — all get exiled on entry instead. Two mana with flash means you can hold up interaction and drop it at instant speed, and paired with Lavinia, Azorius Renegade it forms one of the tightest "no free stuff" locks in Commander.
Best Commanders
Commanders with the highest synergy
Lavinia, Azorius Renegade
Lavinia, Azorius Renegade already taxes noncreature spells cast without paying their costs; Containment Priest closes the creature-side loophole, together blanking free spells, reanimation, and cascade in one two-card package that appears in nearly half of all Lavinia lists.
Grand Arbiter Augustin IV
Grand Arbiter Augustin IV decks lean on taxing and slowing opponents down, and Containment Priest adds a hard exile clause to the soft tax shell — anything sneaking in outside of paying full retail gets exiled, not just delayed.
Phelia, Exuberant Shepherd
Phelia, Exuberant Shepherd blinks creatures at will, and Containment Priest's replacement effect is templated narrowly enough that creatures entering under your own control via blink don't trigger it — so it pulls double duty as an engine piece and a hate card.
Katilda and Lier
Katilda and Lier care about humans entering the battlefield, and Containment Priest is both a human itself and a piece of interaction that slots cleanly into the tribal density those decks want to maintain.
Heliod, Sun-Crowned
Heliod, Sun-Crowned decks run dense creature suites and often need to protect their board state from opposing reanimation and cheat effects; Containment Priest fills that role while being a legal target for Heliod's lifelink anthem.
Format Analysis
Where it lives, where it can’t
| Format | Verdict |
|---|---|
| commander | legal |
| legacy | legal |
| modern | legal |
| pioneer | legal |
| standard | not legal |
| vintage | legal |
| pauper | not legal |
| oathbreaker | legal |
In Commander, Containment Priest is a staple hate piece — reanimation is everywhere, "put into play" triggers are common, and two mana at flash speed is a trivially low ask for a permanent that can exile an Elesh Norn on entry. Legacy is where Containment Priest has a competitive track record, specifically hosing Tin Fins, Reanimator, and Show and Tell strategies that win by cheating in large threats. Modern sees it as a sideboard option against Goryo's Vengeance and Amulet-adjacent lines, though the format's speed limits how reliably it can be deployed on time. Pioneer and Vintage give it legal standing, but the relevant cheat-into-play density in Pioneer is lower and in Vintage the card competes with faster interaction.
Key Combos
Combo lines featuring this card
Price Context
Current price
unknown tier
No current price data is available for Containment Priest in this context — check Scryfall or your preferred retailer for the most recent figures. It has seen multiple reprints, which has historically kept its price accessible relative to its power level, so it's worth verifying current stock before assuming it's expensive.
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Sources
Mentioned
Updated . Data from Scryfall, EDHREC, and Commander Spellbook.