Krovikan Horror
Creature — Horror Spirit
At the beginning of the end step, if this card is in your graveyard with a creature card directly above it, you may return this card to your hand.
, Sacrifice a creature: This creature deals 1 damage to any target.
- CMC
- 4
- Mana cost
- Color identity
- B
- Rarity
- rare
- Set
- Alliances
- Price
- $16.37
- EDHREC rank
- #26076
Krovikan Horror is a recursive threat that keeps coming back as long as a creature died this turn — free value in any deck that churns through bodies. The catch is it demands a creature in the graveyard at end of turn to stay alive, which is less a drawback and more a deckbuilding contract.
Format Analysis
Where it lives, where it can’t
| Format | Verdict |
|---|---|
| commander | legal |
| legacy | legal |
| modern | not legal |
| pioneer | not legal |
| standard | not legal |
| vintage | legal |
| pauper | not legal |
| oathbreaker | legal |
In Commander, Krovikan Horror earns its slot in sacrifice and aristocrats shells where creature death is a resource, not a setback — the end-of-turn recursion means it effectively never leaves the game as long as the engine is running. Legacy and Vintage both allow it, but it's too slow and conditional for those formats where the graveyard is either hated out aggressively or used for far more broken things than a 2/2 that comes back to hand. Oathbreaker is legal and mirrors the Commander read — it's best paired with a Planeswalker commander whose strategy involves creature churn.
Key Combos
Combo lines featuring this card
Budget Alternatives
Cheaper options that do most of the same work
Nether Shadow does the same recursive-from-graveyard trick for less money and without the upkeep condition, though it requires three creatures above it in the yard to come back rather than just one dying at end of turn. Reassembling Skeleton is the cleanest cheap substitute — it returns itself to the battlefield rather than hand, costs one mana to activate, and never depends on Krovikan Horror's specific timing window.
Price Context
Current price
$16.37 mid tier
At $16.37, Krovikan Horror sits in mid-tier pricing for a card with a narrow competitive home — that number is driven almost entirely by collector and casual demand for an old card with limited reprints, not by tournament play. It holds its price passively but unlikely to climb meaningfully; if you need the effect rather than the card specifically, cheaper alternatives do the job.
Explore
Sources
Mentioned
Updated . Data from Scryfall, EDHREC, and Commander Spellbook.