Erstwhile Trooper
Creature — Zombie Soldier
Discard a creature card: This creature gets +2/+2 and gains trample until end of turn. Activate only once each turn.
- CMC
- 3
- Mana cost
- Color identity
- BG
- Rarity
- common
- Set
- Guilds of Ravnica
- Price
- $0.04
- EDHREC rank
- #28153
Erstwhile Trooper gives you a repeatable discard outlet stapled to a toughness pump, which is exactly what Dredge and graveyard strategies want from a two-mana creature. The cost — discarding a creature card each activation — is the engine, not the drawback.
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 |
Erstwhile Trooper sees its most relevant play in Commander graveyard builds, where dumping creatures from hand fuels reanimation, threshold, and Dredge synergies simultaneously. In Pauper it competes in self-mill and sacrifice shells that want cheap, repeatable discard at common. Modern and Legacy have access to faster, more redundant outlets, so Erstwhile Trooper rarely makes the cut in those formats. Pioneer graveyard decks could register it as a budget discard option, but it's outclassed by more impactful two-drops in those piles.
Key Combos
Combo lines featuring this card
Price Context
Current price
$0.04 bulk tier
At $0.04, Erstwhile Trooper is deep bulk — you're paying almost nothing for a card that does real work in the right shell. Bulk commons with focused graveyard utility tend to stay at this price floor indefinitely, so there's no financial reason to hesitate on picking up copies.
Explore
Sources
Mentioned
Updated . Data from Scryfall, EDHREC, and Commander Spellbook.