Jawbone Duelist
Creature — Phyrexian Soldier
Double strike
Toxic 1 (Players dealt combat damage by this creature also get a poison counter.)
- CMC
- 2
- Mana cost
- Color identity
- W
- Rarity
- uncommon
- Set
- Phyrexia: All Will Be One
- Price
- $0.24
- EDHREC rank
- #9625
Jawbone Duelist puts first strike on a 2/2 body and spreads it to every other creature you control with higher power — a static anthem that rewards the go-wide toxic and proliferate shells it lands in. Ixhel, Scion of Atraxa is the flagship home: her team swings poisoned, and first strike turns combat into a one-sided massacre against anything that tries to block.
Best Commanders
Commanders with the highest synergy
Ixhel, Scion of Atraxa
Jawbone Duelist's first strike distribution is tailor-made for Ixhel, Scion of Atraxa, where toxic creatures need to connect cleanly and first strike lets them kill blockers before taking damage back.
Vishgraz, the Doomhive
Vishgraz, the Doomhive generates a board of Mites with toxic, and Jawbone Duelist hands first strike to any of them that outsize the 1/1 baseline — a meaningful combat upgrade once Vishgraz himself is on board.
Elesh Norn
Elesh Norn's Phyrexian army theme wants every creature to pull double duty, and Jawbone Duelist adds a layer of first strike redundancy that makes combat math reliably favorable for the whole team.
Odric, Lunarch Marshal
Odric, Lunarch Marshal redistributes keywords at the start of combat, and Jawbone Duelist's first strike is exactly the kind of ability he wants in the pool — it costs nothing extra once the engine is running.
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 |
Jawbone Duelist is a Commander card through and through — the ability scales with board width in a way that only matters when you're running 30+ creatures. In Modern and Pioneer it's too slow and too conditional; aggro and midrange decks want their two-drops to do something immediately, not depend on having bigger creatures already in play. Legacy and Vintage have no interest in a 2/2 that relies on a battlefield state to matter. Commander is where it lives, specifically in Phyrexian tribal and toxic-adjacent builds where the creature density and power-spread conditions are met almost automatically.
Key Combos
Combo lines featuring this card
Price Context
Current price
$0.24 bulk tier
At $0.24, Jawbone Duelist is pure bulk — easy to pick up as a throw-in or in a bundle without a second thought. Bulk commons and uncommons at this price point rarely appreciate unless they find a breakout competitive home, and that's not happening here, so buy it for the deck and don't think twice about the cost.
Explore
Sources
Mentioned
Updated . Data from Scryfall, EDHREC, and Commander Spellbook.