Garrulous Sycophant
Creature — Human Advisor
At the beginning of your end step, if you're the monarch, each opponent loses 1 life and you gain 1 life.
- CMC
- 3
- Mana cost
- Color identity
- B
- Rarity
- common
- Set
- Treasure Chest
- Price
- —
- EDHREC rank
- #16332
Garrulous Sycophant hands every opponent a life buffer each upkeep, which sounds terrible until you realize Monarch decks want the Monarch to move around — and this card can hand the crown to whichever player is most useful to keep alive. In Queen Marchesa builds especially, the life-gain-to-others effect doubles as political currency that costs you nothing but a one-drop.
Best Commanders
Commanders with the highest synergy
Queen Marchesa
Queen Marchesa wants to give up the Monarch and reclaim it on her controller's turn, and Garrulous Sycophant fits that loop by keeping other players healthy enough to stay at the table and keep swinging the crown back and forth — more combat steps means more Monarch triggers, more draw, more value.
Format Analysis
Where it lives, where it can’t
| Format | Verdict |
|---|---|
| commander | legal |
| legacy | legal |
| modern | not legal |
| pioneer | not legal |
| standard | not legal |
| vintage | legal |
| pauper | legal |
| oathbreaker | legal |
Garrulous Sycophant is a Commander card through and through — the political dimension of handing opponents life only matters when there are multiple opponents whose threat assessment you're trying to manipulate. In Legacy and Vintage it's legal but has no competitive home; no constructed deck wants a one-drop whose primary output is life for other players. Pauper is the one non-Commander format worth a second look, since the Monarch mechanic exists there, but even in Pauper the effect is too passive for aggressive strategies and too slow for combo. Stick to 75-card Commander tables, preferably ones where your group rewards creative politics.
Key Combos
Combo lines featuring this card
Price Context
Current price
unknown tier
Pricing data isn't available for Garrulous Sycophant at the moment, so check Scryfall or TCGPlayer for a current figure. Given its narrow use case — almost exclusively Queen Marchesa and Monarch-themed Commander decks — it's unlikely to command a premium, and most printings of niche political cards sit well under a dollar.
Explore
Sources
Mentioned
Updated . Data from Scryfall, EDHREC, and Commander Spellbook.