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Dross Harvester

Creature — Horror

Protection from white
At the beginning of your end step, you lose 4 life.
Whenever a creature dies, you gain 2 life.

CMC
3
Mana cost
{1}{B}{B}
Color identity
B
Rarity
rare
Set
Commander Legends: Battle for Baldur's Gate
Price
$0.34
EDHREC rank
#14461
Buy on TCGplayer
Dross Harvester card art
Dross Harvester gains 4 life every time a creature dies and costs you 2 life at the start of each turn — in a sacrifice deck, that math tilts heavily in your favor. Under Yawgmoth, Thran Physician, where creatures die by the dozen, the life gain outpaces the drain so completely that the downside barely registers.

Format Analysis

Where it lives, where it can’t

FormatVerdict
commander legal
legacy legal
modern legal
pioneer not legal
standard not legal
vintage legal
pauper not legal
oathbreaker legal

Dross Harvester is a Commander card through and through — the life swing only compounds meaningfully over the multiple turns and high creature-death counts that EDH games provide. In Legacy and Vintage it's legal but sees no play; four mana for a 4/4 with conditional life gain is far too slow against those formats' answer density and pace. Modern is the same story: the card's payoff requires a dedicated sacrifice shell and several turns to matter, which doesn't compete with what Modern decks are doing by turn four. Commander is where the two-life-per-upkeep clause stops being a liability and starts being trivia.

Key Combos

Combo lines featuring this card

Price Context

Current price

$0.34 bulk tier

At $0.34, Dross Harvester is deep bulk — easy to pick up in any common/uncommon lot or cheap single order. The price is unlikely to move meaningfully given its narrow application, but for the decks that want it, the cost of entry is essentially zero.

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Sources

Mentioned

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Updated . Data from Scryfall, EDHREC, and Commander Spellbook.