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Havengul Lich

Creature — Zombie Wizard

{1}: You may cast target creature card in a graveyard this turn. When you cast it this turn, this creature gains all activated abilities of that card until end of turn.

CMC
5
Mana cost
{3}{U}{B}
Color identity
BU
Rarity
mythic
Set
Commander 2017
Price
$0.79
EDHREC rank
#5742
Buy on TCGplayer
Havengul Lich card art
Havengul Lich lets you cast creatures from any graveyard by paying their mana costs, then grants their activated abilities until end of turn — pair it with Ashnod's Altar and you have a self-fueling loop that can take over a game from a single board state. The six-mana body is the real cost, not the mana investment per activation, so it lives or dies by whether your deck can protect it long enough to untap.

Best Commanders

Commanders with the highest synergy

01
Gisa and Geralf

Gisa and Geralf

50.5% of decks · synergy 0.47

Gisa and Geralf mills your library on entry and lets you cast Zombies from the graveyard each turn, so Havengul Lich isn't filling a gap — it's doubling the reanimation density and extending reach to opponents' yards when your own runs dry.

02
Grimgrin, Corpse-Born

Grimgrin, Corpse-Born

31.6% of decks · synergy 0.28

Grimgrin, Corpse-Born wants a steady stream of creatures to sacrifice for counters and untap triggers, and Havengul Lich turns any graveyard into a supply line, letting Grimgrin keep moving through a turn where your board would otherwise stall.

03
The Scarab God

The Scarab God

21.3% of decks · synergy 0.17

The Scarab God already taxes opponents with its end-step scry-drain, and Havengul Lich adds a second angle of graveyard pressure that doesn't require tapping the commander — two independent reanimation vectors make the deck much harder to disrupt with a single piece of hate.

04
Varina, Lich Queen

Varina, Lich Queen

16.1% of decks · synergy 0.15

Varina, Lich Queen churns through the deck by attacking with Zombies and filtering in the combat step, meaning the graveyard fills fast; Havengul Lich converts that surplus into fresh threats without spending a card from hand.

05
Wilhelt, the Rotcleaver

Wilhelt, the Rotcleaver

17.7% of decks · synergy 0.14

Wilhelt, the Rotcleaver generates Decayed tokens on death and wants fodder to sacrifice for value, and Havengul Lich lets the deck recycle the best creatures from any yard rather than relying solely on token churn to close the game.

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 Havengul Lich actually belongs — multiplayer games fill multiple graveyards, turning its casting ability into a toolbox that grows richer as the game progresses. In Legacy and Vintage, the six-mana cost is disqualifying; those formats have Reanimator strategies that put the same creature into play for one or two mana with no activation required. Modern is technically legal territory but Havengul Lich sees essentially no play there, outclassed by cheaper recursive threats and lacking the critical mass of Zombie synergies that makes it worthwhile. Oathbreaker is a viable home in a Dimir graveyard shell, though the 60-card singleton constraint makes the combo lines harder to assemble consistently.

Key Combos

Combo lines featuring this card

Price Context

Current price

$0.79 bulk tier

At $0.79, Havengul Lich is deep bulk — a six-mana mythic that never broke out of its niche and has been reprinted enough to stay floor-priced. It's a safe pickup for any Zombie or reanimator Commander build precisely because the financial commitment is trivial, though don't expect the price to move; casual demand is steady but not the kind that drives mythic recovery.

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Sources

Mentioned

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