Karn, Living Legacy
Legendary Planeswalker — Karn
+1: Create a tapped Powerstone token. (It's an artifact with "
: Add 
. This mana can't be spent to cast a nonartifact spell.")
−1: Pay any amount of mana. Look at that many cards from the top of your library, then put one of those cards into your hand and the rest on the bottom of your library in a random order.
−7: You get an emblem with "Tap an untapped artifact you control: This emblem deals 1 damage to any target."
- CMC
- 4
- Mana cost
- Color identity
- C
- Rarity
- mythic
- Set
- Dominaria United
- Price
- $1.37
- EDHREC rank
- #5268
Karn, Living Legacy lands and immediately starts converting mana rocks into card advantage — his plus ticks up a loyalty counter while powering out an artifact token, and his minus digs into your library for a key piece like Time Sieve. The four-mana cost is steep enough that slower Commander tables are his home, and swapping him for Karn, Legacy Reforged is a real consideration in any mono-artifact build where the Reforged version generates mana directly.
Best Commanders
Commanders with the highest synergy
Karn, Legacy Reforged
Karn, Legacy Reforged turns your artifact count into a mana engine, and Karn, Living Legacy slots in as a tutor and card-advantage outlet that keeps the artifact density high enough for Reforged to keep firing — over half of Reforged decks include him for exactly that reason.
Ashnod, Flesh Mechanist
Ashnod, Flesh Mechanist wants a steady stream of artifacts entering and leaving play, and Karn, Living Legacy supplies both the tokens to sacrifice and the ability to tutor up whatever artifact piece the engine is missing.
Alibou, Ancient Witness
Alibou, Ancient Witness rewards you for tapping artifacts, and Karn, Living Legacy's token generation keeps the artifact count high enough for Alibou's triggered damage to snowball every combat.
Urza, Lord Protector
Urza, Lord Protector leans on a dense artifact package, and Karn, Living Legacy supplements it as a low-cost tutor that doesn't demand you already be ahead on board.
Graaz, Unstoppable Juggernaut
Graaz, Unstoppable Juggernaut cares about artifact creatures specifically, and Karn, Living Legacy produces colorless artifact tokens that immediately count toward Graaz's critical mass while his minus hunts for payoffs.
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, Karn, Living Legacy is a solid role-player in artifact-heavy builds — not a headliner, but a reliable source of card selection and tokens that pulls weight across a long game. Constructed formats tell a different story: in Modern and Pioneer the four-mana slot is brutally competitive, and Karn, Living Legacy rarely clears the bar against faster threats and more explosive planeswalkers. Legacy and Vintage have the power density to simply ignore him. Oathbreaker is his secondary sweet spot, where he can serve as a signature spell anchor and his abilities scale reasonably against the lower overall power of the format.
Key Combos
Combo lines featuring this card
Time SieveMyr BattlesphereTeleportation CircleKarn, Living Legacy
Infinite turns; Lock
View on Commander Spellbook ↗Price Context
Current price
$1.37 cheap tier
At $1.37, Karn, Living Legacy sits firmly in the bulk-rare tier — easy to pick up without a second thought for any artifact deck. That price reflects his limited Constructed demand; Commander play keeps a floor under it, but don't expect significant movement in either direction.
Explore
Sources
Updated . Data from Scryfall, EDHREC, and Commander Spellbook.