Deranged Assistant
Creature — Human Wizard
, Mill a card: Add 
. (To mill a card, put the top card of your library into your graveyard.)
- CMC
- 2
- Mana cost
- Color identity
- U
- Rarity
- common
- Set
- Double Masters 2022
- Price
- $0.27
- EDHREC rank
- #4621
Deranged Assistant mills the top card of your library and adds one mana of any color — a Llanowar Elves that feeds the graveyard instead of tapping for green. The self-mill cost is the point, not the downside, which is why Araumi of the Dead Tide runs it in over 69% of decks.
Best Commanders
Commanders with the highest synergy
Araumi of the Dead Tide
Araumi of the Dead Tide needs cards in the graveyard to power Encore, and Deranged Assistant delivers both the ramp and the fuel in one body — 69% of Araumi decks run it for exactly that reason.
Sidisi, Brood Tyrant
Sidisi, Brood Tyrant triggers off creatures hitting the graveyard, so every activation of Deranged Assistant is a potential Zombie token on top of the mana it produces.
Grolnok, the Omnivore
Grolnok, the Omnivore puts frog counters on permanents milled from the library, making Deranged Assistant a repeatable source of both acceleration and free spells waiting to be cast.
Emet-Selch, Unsundered
Emet-Selch, Unsundered cares about exiling cards from graveyards to reconstruct permanents, and Deranged Assistant consistently stocks that pile turn after turn.
The Ancient One
The Ancient One wants the library milled aggressively to hit delirium and fuel its condition, and Deranged Assistant is a cheap, repeatable enabler that pulls its weight on mana too.
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 | legal |
| oathbreaker | legal |
Deranged Assistant is a Commander card through and through — the self-mill rider is negligible in most other formats but exactly what graveyard-centric Commander decks want. In Pauper it's legal and theoretically playable, but the format lacks the graveyard engines that make the mill meaningful, so it rarely shows up. Legacy and Vintage have access to far more broken mana acceleration, and the mill clause doesn't compensate for being a vanilla one-drop in those contexts. Commander is where Deranged Assistant earns its slot: the combination of cheap colored mana and incremental self-mill maps directly onto the most popular graveyard strategies in the format.
Key Combos
Combo lines featuring this card
Price Context
Current price
$0.27 bulk tier
At $0.27, Deranged Assistant is deep bulk — grab a copy out of any common box or bulk bin without thinking twice. Bulk commons with narrow but real demand tend to stay right here, so there's nothing to wait on.
Explore
Sources
Mentioned
- Araumi of the Dead Tide
- Sidisi, Brood Tyrant
- Grolnok, the Omnivore
- Emet-Selch, Unsundered
- The Ancient One
Updated . Data from Scryfall, EDHREC, and Commander Spellbook.