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Footsteps of the Goryo

Sorcery — Arcane

Return target creature card from your graveyard to the battlefield. Sacrifice that creature at the beginning of the next end step.

CMC
3
Mana cost
{2}{B}
Color identity
B
Rarity
uncommon
Set
Saviors of Kamigawa
Price
$1.49
EDHREC rank
#12848
Buy on TCGplayer
Footsteps of the Goryo card art
Footsteps of the Goryo drops a creature from your graveyard onto the battlefield until end of turn — ETB trigger included, sacrifice at cleanup — for three mana at instant speed. The catch is the forced sacrifice at end step, which is a cost, not a drawback, in the right shells: Cormela, Glamour Thief turns that sacrifice into a spell-recursion engine, and Obeka, Brute Chronologist can simply end the turn before the sacrifice ever happens.

Best Commanders

Commanders with the highest synergy

01
Obeka, Brute Chronologist

Obeka, Brute Chronologist

11.7% of decks · synergy 0.11

Obeka, Brute Chronologist is the cleanest home for Footsteps of the Goryo because ending the turn skips the cleanup sacrifice entirely, letting you keep whatever fatty you reanimated indefinitely — the "downside" just stops existing.

Format Analysis

Where it lives, where it can’t

FormatVerdict
commander legal
legacy legal
modern legal
pioneer not legal
standard not legal
vintage legal
pauper not legal
oathbreaker legal

Footsteps of the Goryo is legal in Commander, Legacy, Modern, Vintage, and Oathbreaker, but it sees virtually no competitive play outside Commander. In Legacy and Vintage, dedicated reanimation decks prefer Reanimate or Animate Dead for cheaper, permanent resurrections. Modern has enough graveyard hate that a one-turn reanimation at three mana rarely lines up well against the format's pace. Commander is where Footsteps of the Goryo actually earns a slot — sacrifice synergies, end-step manipulation via Obeka, and ETB-centric strategies all turn the forced exile into a feature rather than a liability.

Key Combos

Combo lines featuring this card

141 decks
Cormela, Glamour ThiefFootsteps of the GoryoAshnod's Altar

Cormela, Glamour ThiefFootsteps of the GoryoAshnod's Altar

Infinite blue mana that can only be spent to cast instant and sorcery spells; Infinite colorless mana; Infinite death triggers; Infinite ETB; Infinite LTB; Infinite magecraft triggers; Infinite red mana that can only be spent to cast instant and sorcery spells; Infinite sacrifice triggers; Infinite storm count

View on Commander Spellbook ↗
20 decks
Scholar of the AgesSacrificeFootsteps of the Goryo

Scholar of the AgesSacrificeFootsteps of the Goryo

Infinite black mana; Infinite death triggers; Infinite ETB; Infinite LTB; Infinite magecraft triggers; Infinite sacrifice triggers; Infinite storm count; Return all instant and sorcery cards from your graveyard to your hand

View on Commander Spellbook ↗

Price Context

Current price

$1.49 cheap tier

At $1.49, Footsteps of the Goryo sits in the cheap tier and represents a low-risk pickup for any graveyard or sacrifice build that can exploit it. Demand is narrow enough that the price is unlikely to spike, but narrow demand also means it won't drop much further — it's already priced at roughly what the niche is worth.

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Sources

Mentioned

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Updated . Data from Scryfall, EDHREC, and Commander Spellbook.