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Kurkesh, Onakke Ancient

Legendary Creature — Ogre Spirit

Whenever you activate an ability of an artifact, if it isn't a mana ability, you may pay {R}. If you do, copy that ability. You may choose new targets for the copy.

CMC
4
Mana cost
{2}{R}{R}
Color identity
R
Rarity
rare
Set
Magic 2015
Price
$0.26
EDHREC rank
#17130
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Kurkesh, Onakke Ancient card art
Kurkesh, Onakke Ancient doubles every activated artifact ability for a single red mana — pay once, get the effect twice. The payoff is enormous wherever Gilded Lotus or any tap-activated artifact lives, and the tax is cheap enough that you'll almost always have the mana to pull the trigger.

Format Analysis

Where it lives, where it can’t

FormatVerdict
commander legal
legacy legal
modern legal
pioneer legal
standard not legal
vintage legal
pauper not legal
oathbreaker legal

Commander is the only format where Kurkesh, Onakke Ancient is genuinely threatening — the singleton format's density of powerful tap-activated artifacts gives it constant targets, and it scales into a combo piece or value engine depending on the build. In Legacy, Modern, and Pioneer it's technically legal but never sees play; four mana for a 4/3 with a conditional activated-ability rider doesn't compete in formats where the game ends before artifact synergies snowball. Vintage has the most broken artifacts in existence, but the format's speed and the presence of fast mana make a four-drop creature the wrong way to exploit them.

Key Combos

Combo lines featuring this card

Price Context

Current price

$0.26 bulk tier

At $0.26, Kurkesh, Onakke Ancient is firmly bulk — surprising for a card with real combo upside in Commander. That price is unlikely to climb unless it finds a breakout moment in a popular deck, but at this tier it's an easy pickup with essentially no financial risk.

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Sources

Mentioned

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Updated . Data from Scryfall, EDHREC, and Commander Spellbook.