Dread Defiler
Creature — Eldrazi
Devoid (This card has no color.)
, Exile a creature card from your graveyard: Target opponent loses life equal to the exiled card's power. ( represents colorless mana.)
- CMC
- 7
- Mana cost
- Color identity
- B
- Rarity
- rare
- Set
- Oath of the Gatewatch
- Price
- $0.21
- EDHREC rank
- #21451
Dread Defiler turns your graveyard into a damage engine — exile any creature from it to make an opponent lose that much life, stapled onto an 8/8 eldrazi body with devoid. The 8-mana price tag is steep, but in a deck that fills the yard fast, one activation can close a game.
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 |
Dread Defiler is a Commander card through and through — the format's longer games and graveyard-centric strategies give it the time and fodder it needs to matter. In black reanimator, aristocrats, or eldrazi builds, it converts a full graveyard into a game-ending burst of life loss that bypasses combat entirely. Competitive Constructed formats ignore it completely; eight mana buys far more efficient threats in Modern, Pioneer, or Legacy, and no graveyard deck there wants a slow, top-end payoff with no immediate board impact on resolution. Oathbreaker is the one non-Commander 60-card format where it could theoretically appear as a one-of finisher in a black graveyard shell, but the mana cost makes that fringe at best.
Key Combos
Combo lines featuring this card
Price Context
Current price
$0.21 bulk tier
At $0.21, Dread Defiler is deep bulk — easy to pick up as a throw-in or trade fodder. That price is unlikely to move; it sees little competitive demand, and Commander supply keeps bulk eldrazi at the bottom of the market.
Explore
Sources
Mentioned
Updated . Data from Scryfall, EDHREC, and Commander Spellbook.