Inquisitor Exarch
Creature — Phyrexian Cleric
When this creature enters, choose one —
• You gain 2 life.
• Target opponent loses 2 life.
- CMC
- 2
- Mana cost
- Color identity
- W
- Rarity
- uncommon
- Set
- New Phyrexia
- Price
- $0.17
- EDHREC rank
- #20255
Inquisitor Exarch enters the battlefield and immediately moves the life total needle two points in either direction — drain an opponent for 2 or gain 2 yourself, no attack step required. Two mana for a 2/2 with a guaranteed ETB effect is the floor; in any shell that recurs or blinks creatures, the ceiling is much higher.
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 |
In Commander, Inquisitor Exarch earns its slot in any white deck built around ETB triggers — blink engines like Brago, King Eternal or Ranar the Ever-Watchful get repeated drain triggers off a single copy, and the life swing matters more in a four-player pod than it looks on paper. In Modern and Legacy, Inquisitor Exarch is a fringe piece at best, showing up only in dedicated Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker combo lists where the drain on an infinite loop closes the game immediately. Vintage is technically legal but irrelevant — the card is too slow for that environment. Oathbreaker offers the same blink-value angle as Commander in a compressed game state, where two-mana value creatures are more playable.
Key Combos
Combo lines featuring this card
Price Context
Current price
$0.17 bulk tier
At $0.17, Inquisitor Exarch is deep bulk — pick up as many copies as you need without a second thought. Bulk rare status is stable here; there's no competitive spike driving demand, and the supply is wide enough that the price is unlikely to move without a significant reprint in a high-profile precon.
Explore
Sources
Mentioned
Updated . Data from Scryfall, EDHREC, and Commander Spellbook.