Karn, Scion of Urza
Legendary Planeswalker — Karn
+1: Reveal the top two cards of your library. An opponent chooses one of them. Put that card into your hand and exile the other with a silver counter on it.
−1: Put a card you own with a silver counter on it from exile into your hand.
−2: Create a 0/0 colorless Construct artifact creature token with "This token gets +1/+1 for each artifact you control."
- CMC
- 4
- Mana cost
- Color identity
- C
- Rarity
- mythic
- Set
- Dominaria
- Price
- $4.23
- EDHREC rank
- #5225
Karn, Scion of Urza generates card advantage immediately on the turn it lands — the +1 digs two cards deep and banks one as a Silver Token, which means it replaces itself even if it dies the following turn. The cost is four mana and no protection, so it needs a stable board; in artifact-heavy shells it's a must-answer threat, and Karn, Legacy Reforged decks treat it as a near-auto-include.
Best Commanders
Commanders with the highest synergy
Karn, Legacy Reforged
Karn, Legacy Reforged pumps all artifact creatures using the highest mana value among your artifacts, so Karn, Scion of Urza's Silver Tokens — which inherit the highest artifact MV on the battlefield — arrive as legitimately large threats rather than 1/1 afterthoughts, turning two cards of value into one sizable attacker each turn.
Urza, Lord Protector
Urza, Lord Protector cares about artifacts and has synergy with other legendary permanents, and Karn, Scion of Urza slots cleanly into that strategy as a repeatable source of card selection and token production that doesn't require the deck to stretch beyond its existing gameplan.
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, Scion of Urza earns its slot in any artifact-matters build — four mana for a planeswalker that draws cards and grows tokens scales well in a 40-life format where the game goes long enough for the loyalty to matter. In Modern and Pioneer, it saw play in Tron and artifact shells where the card-selection helped find threats and the tokens provided incidental pressure, though the rise of faster linear strategies has pushed it toward fringe status in those formats. Legacy and Vintage have too much raw power at the four-mana slot for Karn, Scion of Urza to be a consistent player, but it occasionally appears as a value engine in colorless or artifact-based lists that can protect it.
Key Combos
Combo lines featuring this card
Price Context
Current price
$4.23 cheap tier
At $4.23, Karn, Scion of Urza is firmly budget-tier for a planeswalker with legitimate cross-format history. That price reflects its gradual rotation out of competitive Modern sideboards rather than any drop in Commander demand, so it's a low-risk pickup for artifact builds.
Explore
Sources
Updated . Data from Scryfall, EDHREC, and Commander Spellbook.