Is Izzet Chronarch good in Commander?

Izzet Chronarch in Commander — Combos, Decks & Price

Izzet Chronarch returns any instant or sorcery from your graveyard to your hand the moment it enters — the payoff is immediate and requires no extra mana. The cost is a five-mana 2/2 body, which is steep, but pairing it with Ghostly Flicker turns that limitation into an engine.

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	legal
oathbreaker	legal

Izzet Chronarch is a Pauper staple, where the Ghostly Flicker loop is a known and respected combo kill and five mana is an achievable threshold in that format's slower games. In Commander, it fills a niche role in Izzet spell-loop decks as a redundant recursion piece, though it faces stiff competition from cheaper alternatives like Snapcaster Mage and Mnemonic Wall. Legacy and Vintage are theoretically legal but offer no realistic home — the card is simply outclassed at every axis in those formats. Izzet Chronarch is a narrow card that earns its slot only when the deck is explicitly built around looping it.

Key Combos

Combo lines featuring this card

221 decks

Ghostly Flicker Peregrine DrakeIzzet Chronarch

Infinite LTB; Infinite ETB; Infinite storm count; Infinite mana lands you control can produce; Infinite magecraft triggers; Infinite blinking; Infinite landfall triggers; Infinite untap of lands you control

View on Commander Spellbook ↗

190 decks

Displace Peregrine DrakeIzzet Chronarch

Infinite LTB; Infinite ETB; Infinite storm count; Infinite mana lands you control can produce; Infinite magecraft triggers; Infinite blinking; Infinite landfall triggers; Infinite untap of lands you control

View on Commander Spellbook ↗

142 decks

Illusionist's Stratagem Peregrine DrakeIzzet Chronarch

Infinite card draw; Infinite draw triggers; Near-infinite LTB; Near-infinite blinking; Near-infinite landfall triggers; Near-infinite magecraft triggers; Near-infinite mana lands you control can produce; Near-infinite storm count; Near-infinite untap of lands you control

View on Commander Spellbook ↗

34 decks

DoppelgangIzzet Chronarch

Infinite ETB; Infinite storm count; Infinite creature tokens; Infinite magecraft triggers; Infinite landfall triggers; Infinite copies of all permanents; Infinite mana permanents you control can produce; Return all instant and sorcery cards from your graveyard to your hand

View on Commander Spellbook ↗

27 decks

Saw in Half Burnt OfferingIzzet Chronarch

Infinite LTB; Infinite ETB; Infinite sacrifice triggers; Infinite death triggers; Infinite storm count; Infinite red mana; Infinite magecraft triggers; Infinite black mana

View on Commander Spellbook ↗

Price Context

Current price

$0.25 bulk tier

At $0.25, Izzet Chronarch is deep bulk — easy to acquire as a throw-in or cheap pickup. That price is stable; there's no scarcity pressure, and its demand is confined to Pauper and occasional Commander builds that want redundancy on the Ghostly Flicker loop.