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Gollum, Patient Plotter

Legendary Creature — Halfling Horror

When Gollum leaves the battlefield, the Ring tempts you.
{B}, Sacrifice a creature: Return this card from your graveyard to your hand. Activate only as a sorcery.

CMC
2
Mana cost
{1}{B}
Color identity
B
Rarity
uncommon
Set
The Lord of the Rings: Tales of Middle-earth
Price
$0.39
EDHREC rank
#4228
Buy on TCGplayer
Gollum, Patient Plotter card art
Gollum, Patient Plotter is a self-recurring sacrifice outlet — he returns himself from the graveyard for two mana whenever a Food token enters the battlefield under your control, making him nearly impossible to permanently answer. The cost is real: you need a steady Food supply to keep the engine running, and without it he's just a 2/2 with no way back. Ratadrabik of Urborg and Sméagol, Helpful Guide both solve that dependency cleanly, which is exactly why he shows up in those decks at high rates.

Best Commanders

Commanders with the highest synergy

01
Sméagol, Helpful Guide

Sméagol, Helpful Guide

90.0% of decks · synergy 0.88

Sméagol, Helpful Guide generates Food tokens on attack triggers, which directly fuels Gollum, Patient Plotter's recursion condition — Gollum becomes a free, recurring sacrifice outlet that can come back turn after turn as long as Sméagol is attacking.

02
Frodo, Sauron's Bane

Frodo, Sauron's Bane

78.6% of decks · synergy 0.76

Frodo, Sauron's Bane cares about Food and life gain, and Gollum, Patient Plotter slots in as a persistent sacrifice outlet that ties the Food subtheme together while providing a graveyard-recursive body the deck can keep leveraging.

03
Ratadrabik of Urborg

Ratadrabik of Urborg

43.2% of decks · synergy 0.41

Ratadrabik of Urborg creates nonlegendary token copies of legendary creatures that die, and Gollum, Patient Plotter's self-returning ability means Ratadrabik decks get both a token trigger and a live Gollum back, doubling the value of each death.

04
Sauron, the Dark Lord

Sauron, the Dark Lord

25.6% of decks · synergy 0.23

Sauron, the Dark Lord rewards casting and replaying spells and creatures, and Gollum, Patient Plotter's recursive loop generates repeated enter-the-battlefield and die triggers that feed Sauron's amass and The Ring Tempts You payoffs.

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

Commander is where Gollum, Patient Plotter does his best work — the 100-card singleton format gives him enough Food synergies, sacrifice payoffs, and graveyard engines to make his recursion condition consistently live. In Legacy and Vintage he's legal but competes with recursive threats that require zero setup, so he won't see meaningful play there. Modern has the same problem: a 2/2 that needs Food tokens to recur is too conditional against the format's speed and interaction density. Oathbreaker is the one non-Commander 60-card-adjacent format worth noting, where Food-based Gollum builds around Sméagol, Helpful Guide as signature spell could generate a functional loop in a smaller, faster game.

Key Combos

Combo lines featuring this card

Price Context

Current price

$0.39 bulk tier

At $0.39, Gollum, Patient Plotter is firmly bulk — accessible for any budget and an easy include if the synergy fits. Bulk rares with niche recursive abilities can drift upward if a new Food or sacrifice commander spikes interest, but at this price you're buying him for the effect, not the speculation.

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Sources

Mentioned

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