Emissary of the Sleepless
Creature — Spirit
Flying
When this creature enters, if a creature died this turn, create a 1/1 white Spirit creature token with flying.
- CMC
- 5
- Mana cost
- Color identity
- W
- Rarity
- common
- Set
- Shadows over Innistrad
- Price
- $0.05
- EDHREC rank
- #27331
Emissary of the Sleepless enters with a 1/1 Spirit token for each opponent who lost life this turn — in a four-player pod where even a Shock has gone around, that's three bodies on a 3/3 flier for five mana. The cost is real: five mana is a lot to ask before the token-generation condition is live, and outside creature-death or burn-heavy decks the baseline is just a vanilla 3/3.
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 |
In Commander, Emissary of the Sleepless is at its ceiling — three opponents means up to three tokens per cast, and in aggressive or sacrifice-based pods the condition is almost trivially met. In Pauper it's legal but competing against more efficient common threats, so the token upside rarely offsets the five-mana price tag in a two-player context. Across Legacy, Modern, and Pioneer the card sees essentially no play; the rate is too slow for those formats and the life-loss trigger only fires once against a single opponent, gutting the primary payoff. Oathbreaker sits closer to Commander in multiplayer feel, so the same logic applies — pair it with a Planeswalker that pressures life totals and Emissary of the Sleepless earns its slot.
Key Combos
Combo lines featuring this card
Price Context
Current price
$0.05 bulk tier
At $0.05, Emissary of the Sleepless is pure bulk — the kind of card you pick up as a throw-in without thinking twice. There's no realistic price ceiling here; it's a niche role-player in a narrow set of Commander decks, and supply will keep it glued to the floor.
Explore
Sources
Mentioned
Updated . Data from Scryfall, EDHREC, and Commander Spellbook.