Lightning Coils
Artifact
Whenever a nontoken creature you control dies, put a charge counter on this artifact.
At the beginning of your upkeep, if this artifact has five or more charge counters on it, remove all of them from it and create that many 3/1 red Elemental creature tokens with haste. Exile them at the beginning of the next end step.
- CMC
- 3
- Mana cost
- Color identity
- C
- Rarity
- rare
- Set
- Salvat 2005
- Price
- —
- EDHREC rank
- #18893
Lightning Coils pays off big when your creatures die in bulk — a single sweeper can load it with five or more charge counters, then flood the board with 3/1 haste tokens at end of turn. The setup cost is real: it does nothing the turn you play it, and it needs a critical mass of creature deaths to justify a slot.
Format Analysis
Where it lives, where it can’t
| Format | Verdict |
|---|---|
| commander | legal |
| legacy | legal |
| modern | legal |
| pioneer | not legal |
| standard | not legal |
| vintage | legal |
| pauper | not legal |
| oathbreaker | legal |
Commander is where Lightning Coils earns its keep, specifically in sacrifice or token decks that expect to lose creatures en masse — one opponent's Wrath of God becomes your army. In Legacy and Vintage it's essentially unplayed; the formats move too fast for a payoff that requires board presence to die before it does anything. Modern has the shell for it in theory (aristocrats adjacency), but faster and more consistent payoffs crowd it out. Lightning Coils is a Commander card in practice, even if the legality list runs wider.
Key Combos
Combo lines featuring this card
Price Context
Current price
unknown tier
Pricing data isn't available for Lightning Coils at the moment, so check Scryfall or TCGPlayer for a current number. It's a narrow casual card with a single printing, which tends to keep supply low and price spiky relative to actual play demand — verify before you buy.
Explore
Sources
Mentioned
Updated . Data from Scryfall, EDHREC, and Commander Spellbook.