Herald of Anguish
Creature — Demon
Improvise (Your artifacts can help cast this spell. Each artifact you tap after you're done activating mana abilities pays for 
.)
Flying
At the beginning of your end step, each opponent discards a card.
, Sacrifice an artifact: Target creature gets -2/-2 until end of turn.
- CMC
- 7
- Mana cost
- Color identity
- B
- Rarity
- mythic
- Set
- Kaladesh Remastered
- Price
- —
- EDHREC rank
- #10704
Herald of Anguish lands as a 5/5 flier that strips a card from every opponent's hand on each of your end steps — the kind of continuous pressure that ends games if it survives even two turns. The cost is the catch: seven mana is steep, but artifact-heavy builds running Ashnod, Flesh Mechanist can routinely cast it for two or three via improvise.
Best Commanders
Commanders with the highest synergy
Ashnod, Flesh Mechanist
Ashnod, Flesh Mechanist generates a stream of artifact tokens that double as improvise fuel, letting Herald of Anguish hit the battlefield for a fraction of its printed cost while the discard trigger compounds the hand pressure Ashnod's sacrifice loops already create.
Format Analysis
Where it lives, where it can’t
| Format | Verdict |
|---|---|
| commander | legal |
| legacy | legal |
| modern | legal |
| pioneer | legal |
| standard | not legal |
| vintage | legal |
| pauper | not legal |
| oathbreaker | legal |
In Commander, Herald of Anguish belongs in any artifact-dense shell that can exploit improvise — the discard trigger scales up with three opponents and turns a single resolved threat into a three-way clock. In Pioneer and Modern, it's fringe: improvise support exists, but seven mana is a tall ask in formats where the game can be over by turn four without a significant cost reduction. Legacy and Vintage have the artifact density to make improvise trivially cheap, but those formats have faster, less fragile win conditions that make Herald of Anguish hard to justify. Commander is where it actually performs.
Key Combos
Combo lines featuring this card
Price Context
Current price
unknown tier
Price data isn't available for Herald of Anguish at the moment — check Scryfall or TCGPlayer for current market listings. Given its niche improvise dependency, it has historically stayed affordable relative to its power ceiling in the right shell.
Explore
Sources
Mentioned
Updated . Data from Scryfall, EDHREC, and Commander Spellbook.