Fierce Empath
Creature — Elf
When this creature enters, you may search your library for a creature card with mana value 6 or greater, reveal it, put it into your hand, then shuffle.
- CMC
- 3
- Mana cost
- Color identity
- G
- Rarity
- common
- Set
- Commander 2011
- Price
- $0.35
- EDHREC rank
- #2062
Fierce Empath enters and immediately finds any creature with mana value 6 or greater — the tutor is the entire point, and the 1/1 body is irrelevant. At three mana in green, that's an absurdly efficient rate, and in creature-heavy builds like Nikya of the Old Ways it's a staple rather than a consideration.
Best Commanders
Commanders with the highest synergy
Nikya of the Old Ways
Nikya of the Old Ways can't run noncreature spells, so Fierce Empath fills the tutor slot that instants and sorceries can't — it fetches Nikya herself before she's in play, or finds the haymaker that closes the game once the mana engine is online.
Imoti, Celebrant of Bounty
Imoti, Celebrant of Bounty cares about casting spells with mana value 6 or greater to trigger cascade, and Fierce Empath is the cheapest way to guarantee one hits your hand exactly when you need it.
Eladamri, Korvecdal
Eladamri, Korvecdal wants a stacked hand of high-cost creatures to cheat into play, and Fierce Empath is a three-mana tutor that keeps that pipeline full without competing on the spell axis.
Marwyn, the Nurturer
Marwyn, the Nurturer builds toward explosive mana and wants a payoff creature to dump it into; Fierce Empath finds that finisher reliably on curve without straining the deck's creature-only or low-spell construction.
Selvala, Heart of the Wilds
Selvala, Heart of the Wilds decks spike on the highest-power creature in play, and Fierce Empath tutors the biggest threat in the deck — the one that makes Selvala tap for the most mana — right to hand.
Format Analysis
Where it lives, where it can’t
| Format | Verdict |
|---|---|
| commander | legal |
| legacy | legal |
| modern | legal |
| pioneer | legal |
| standard | legal |
| vintage | legal |
| pauper | legal |
| oathbreaker | legal |
Fierce Empath is a Commander card through and through — the 99-card singleton format is exactly where a tutor that narrows to mana value 6 or greater earns its slot, since the high end of any creature-based game plan is one or two specific cards you need to find. In Pauper it's legal and occasionally sees play in green creature shells that need to consistently find a single large threat, though the format's power ceiling is low enough that the targets are rarely back-breaking. In Legacy, Modern, and Pioneer the card is too slow and too narrow; redundancy is cheap in those formats and a 1/1 with no enters-the-battlefield body isn't worth three mana when you can run more copies of the threat itself. Vintage doesn't need it. Commander is where Fierce Empath belongs.
Key Combos
Combo lines featuring this card
Price Context
Current price
$0.35 bulk tier
At $0.35, Fierce Empath is bulk — you'll find it in common binders or thrown into trade fodder piles — but the price understates how often it earns a slot in green creature decks. It's been printed enough times to stay cheap, and there's no pressure pushing it higher.
Explore
Sources
Updated . Data from Scryfall, EDHREC, and Commander Spellbook.