Gloom Surgeon
Creature — Spirit
If combat damage would be dealt to this creature, prevent that damage and exile that many cards from the top of your library.
- CMC
- 2
- Mana cost
- Color identity
- B
- Rarity
- rare
- Set
- Avacyn Restored
- Price
- $0.11
- EDHREC rank
- #26206
Gloom Surgeon turns every hit it takes into a mill-yourself engine, exiling the top card of your library to prevent damage — a meaningful defensive ability that doubles as graveyard fuel. It's a niche two-drop that earns its slot only in decks that want cards in the bin, and nowhere else.
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 |
Gloom Surgeon is a Commander card first — it belongs in self-mill and graveyard-value decks where exiling your own library cards on defense generates resource advantage rather than card loss. In Legacy and Vintage it's too fragile and too slow; a 2/1 that eats its own library to survive isn't competing with those formats' threat density. Modern has the same problem — the payoff requires a dedicated graveyard shell, and better tools exist for that role. Gloom Surgeon is legal in Oathbreaker and carries the same narrow use case there: run it only if your signature spell or commander actively rewards cards hitting the graveyard.
Key Combos
Combo lines featuring this card
Price Context
Current price
$0.11 bulk tier
At $0.11, Gloom Surgeon is deep bulk — you're picking it out of a dollar bin, not tracking it down. Niche graveyard pieces at this price point don't move unless a commander or combo pushes them into the spotlight, and nothing on the current radar does that for Gloom Surgeon.
Explore
Sources
Mentioned
Updated . Data from Scryfall, EDHREC, and Commander Spellbook.