Fiend of the Shadows
Creature — Vampire Wizard
Flying
Whenever this creature deals combat damage to a player, that player exiles a card from their hand. You may play that card for as long as it remains exiled.
Sacrifice a Human: Regenerate this creature.
- CMC
- 5
- Mana cost
- Color identity
- B
- Rarity
- rare
- Set
- Forgotten Realms Commander
- Price
- $0.30
- EDHREC rank
- #16462
Fiend of the Shadows strips a card from an opponent's hand and lets you cast it, stapling hand disruption and card advantage onto a flying, regenerating body — but five mana for a 2/2 is a steep ask in any competitive context. Unless your deck generates a lot of Human tokens to feed the sacrifice trigger, the rate is too slow to justify the slot.
Format Analysis
Where it lives, where it can’t
| Format | Verdict |
|---|---|
| commander | legal |
| legacy | legal |
| modern | legal |
| pioneer | not legal |
| standard | not legal |
| vintage | legal |
| pauper | not legal |
| oathbreaker | legal |
In Commander, Fiend of the Shadows occupies a narrow niche — it fits sacrifice-matters or Human-token decks that can reliably trigger the discard clause, but at five mana it competes with substantially more impactful threats. In Legacy and Vintage, it sees no meaningful play; both formats move faster than a 2/2 at five mana can meaningfully disrupt, and Thoughtseize does the hand-stripping job on turn one. Modern is similarly hostile — the rate simply doesn't hold up against the format's efficiency bar. Oathbreaker occasionally rewards the effect in slower, creature-centric builds, but even there cheaper discard spells outpace it.
Key Combos
Combo lines featuring this card
Price Context
Current price
$0.30 bulk tier
At $0.30, Fiend of the Shadows is deep bulk — easy to pick up without a second thought on price. That floor is unlikely to move; the card sees no competitive play and casual demand is narrow enough that supply will always outpace interest.
Explore
Sources
Mentioned
Updated . Data from Scryfall, EDHREC, and Commander Spellbook.