Cycle of Life
Enchantment
Return this enchantment to its owner's hand: Target creature you cast this turn has base power and toughness 0/1 until your next upkeep. At the beginning of your next upkeep, put a +1/+1 counter on that creature.
- CMC
- 3
- Mana cost
- Color identity
- G
- Rarity
- rare
- Set
- Mirage
- Price
- $0.71
- EDHREC rank
- #30232
Cycle of Life turns your commander's death into a tutor — every time it dies, you search your library for a creature with equal or lesser power and put it onto the battlefield. The cost is real: it only triggers on commander death, so outside a deck built around that loop, it sits as an expensive enchantment doing nothing.
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 |
Cycle of Life is legal in Commander, Legacy, Vintage, and Oathbreaker, but Commander is the only format where it makes sense. Legacy and Vintage have no commander zone, so the trigger condition — a commander dying — never exists, making it a dead card in those formats. In Commander, it rewards decks that want the commander to die repeatedly, converting each death into a free creature tutor that puts the target directly onto the battlefield. Oathbreaker technically supports it, but the smaller game size and lower ceiling on board impact keep it fringe there.
Key Combos
Combo lines featuring this card
Price Context
Current price
$0.71 bulk tier
At $0.71, Cycle of Life sits firmly in bulk territory — cheap to pick up, cheap to cut if the synergy doesn't pan out. It's a narrow enough card that price movement is unlikely; it will hold bulk value in commander-death builds and stay ignored everywhere else.
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Sources
Mentioned
Updated . Data from Scryfall, EDHREC, and Commander Spellbook.