Fiend Artisan
Creature — Nightmare
This creature gets +1/+1 for each creature card in your graveyard.
, 
, Sacrifice another creature: Search your library for a creature card with mana value X or less, put it onto the battlefield, then shuffle. Activate only as a sorcery.
- CMC
- 2
- Mana cost
- Color identity
- BG
- Rarity
- mythic
- Set
- Magic Online Promos
- Price
- —
- EDHREC rank
- #4161
Fiend Artisan is a tutor stapled to a growing threat — it converts any creature in your graveyard into whatever creature you need next, at instant speed, while its power and toughness scale with your body count. The cost is real: you're sacrificing a creature to activate it, so the engine needs fuel, and it folds to graveyard hate. In grind-forward shells like Jarad, Golgari Lich Lord, where the graveyard is a resource and Timestream Navigator-style silver bullets need finding, that trade is almost always worth it.
Best Commanders
Commanders with the highest synergy
Jarad, Golgari Lich Lord
Jarad, Golgari Lich Lord wants a stocked graveyard and high-power creatures on the battlefield, and Fiend Artisan delivers both while tutoring up the finisher that closes the game through Jarad's sacrifice ability.
Nethroi, Apex of Death
Fiend Artisan's sacrifice requirement actively fills the graveyard for Nethroi, Apex of Death's mutate trigger, and its creature type means it can come back in the same reanimate sweep.
Karador, Ghost Chieftain
Every sacrifice that fuels Fiend Artisan also deepens the graveyard that Karador, Ghost Chieftain converts into free casts, making the two engines mutually reinforcing rather than competing for the same resources.
Grist, Voracious Larva
Grist, Voracious Larva generates insect tokens as sacrifice fodder, and Fiend Artisan turns that stream of bodies into pinpoint creature tutors without needing any additional setup.
Meren of Clan Nel Toth
Sacrificing to Fiend Artisan generates experience counters for Meren of Clan Nel Toth and puts the sacrificed creature exactly where Meren wants it — in the graveyard ready for a free end-step recursion.
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 |
Commander is where Fiend Artisan is most at home — 100-card singleton means the silver bullets it tutors up are worth building around, and the multiplayer game length gives it time to grow into a genuine threat. In Modern and Legacy, it sees play in creature-combo shells that need redundant access to specific pieces, though it competes with faster, cheaper tutors in those formats and rarely earns a four-of slot. Pioneer is a narrower fit: the graveyard synergies that make Fiend Artisan hum are harder to assemble at that power level, and it shows up only in dedicated aristocrats builds. Oathbreaker grants the same singleton-tutor logic that makes it strong in Commander, compressed into a faster game where its enter-the-graveyard payoff may not fully materialize.
Key Combos
Combo lines featuring this card
Timestream NavigatorSquee, the ImmortalFiend Artisan
Infinite turns; Lock
View on Commander Spellbook ↗Price Context
Current price
unknown tier
Pricing data for Fiend Artisan isn't available at the moment, so check Scryfall or your preferred retailer for the current market rate. It has historically sat in the mid-tier mythic range — meaningful enough to feel the purchase, low enough that most graveyard-focused Commander decks can justify it without a second thought.
Explore
Sources
Mentioned
- Timestream Navigator
- Jarad, Golgari Lich Lord
- Nethroi, Apex of Death
- Karador, Ghost Chieftain
- Grist, Voracious Larva
- Meren of Clan Nel Toth
- Gravecrawler
- Squee, the Immortal
Updated . Data from Scryfall, EDHREC, and Commander Spellbook.