Courier Bat
Creature — Bat
Flying
When this creature enters, if you gained life this turn, return up to one target creature card from your graveyard to your hand.
- CMC
- 3
- Mana cost
- Color identity
- B
- Rarity
- common
- Set
- Innistrad: Crimson Vow
- Price
- $0.13
- EDHREC rank
- #11421
Courier Bat returns a permanent card from your graveyard to your hand whenever you gain life, stapling recursion directly onto a 2/2 flier for three mana. In Zoraline, Cosmos Caller decks that gain life on a schedule, that trigger fires repeatedly — making this a reliable value engine, not a one-shot trick.
Best Commanders
Commanders with the highest synergy
Zoraline, Cosmos Caller
Zoraline, Cosmos Caller's life-gain triggers are frequent and structured, meaning Courier Bat doesn't sit idle — it recurs key permanents turn after turn, functioning as a built-in recursion loop that the deck otherwise has to search for.
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 | legal |
| oathbreaker | legal |
Courier Bat lives and dies by how often the deck gains life, which makes Commander its best home by a wide margin — 100-card singleton lists built around life-gain commanders give it a near-guaranteed stream of triggers. In Pauper, it's legal but competes in a format where common-rarity life-gain payoffs are plentiful and recursion slots are contested; Courier Bat's floor is a 2/2 flier for three, which is passable but not exciting without the engine running. In Modern and Pioneer, dedicated life-gain decks exist but rarely want a three-mana creature whose value is conditional and slow relative to the format's pace. Legacy and Vintage are non-starters — Courier Bat doesn't come close to the raw power those formats demand.
Key Combos
Combo lines featuring this card
Price Context
Current price
$0.13 bulk tier
At $0.13, Courier Bat is deep bulk — it costs less than a sleeve. Given that 73% of Zoraline, Cosmos Caller decks already run it, the price reflects wide availability rather than low demand, and there's no realistic scenario where this climbs out of bulk territory.
Explore
Sources
Mentioned
Updated . Data from Scryfall, EDHREC, and Commander Spellbook.