Lightning Talons
Enchantment — Aura
Enchant creature
Enchanted creature gets +3/+0 and has first strike. (It deals combat damage before creatures without first strike.)
- CMC
- 3
- Mana cost
- Color identity
- R
- Rarity
- common
- Set
- The List
- Price
- $0.13
- EDHREC rank
- #21009
Lightning Talons gives a creature +3/+0 and first strike for three mana — a fine rate on paper, but it's an aura, which means it trades down to any removal spell and leaves you with nothing. Run it only if your deck specifically rewards enchanting creatures or needs the first strike keyword for a combo; otherwise it's outclassed by equipment that survives a board wipe.
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 | legal |
| oathbreaker | legal |
Lightning Talons is legal across Commander, Legacy, Modern, Pioneer, Vintage, Pauper, and Oathbreaker, but the format where it sees the most play is Pauper, where the common-only card pool makes a three-mana +3/+0 and first strike aura genuinely competitive in aggressive enchantress or voltron shells. In Commander, Lightning Talons is too fragile — three mana for an aura that disappears the moment your creature is removed is a steep price when equipment like Swiftfoot Boots protects itself. In eternal formats like Legacy and Vintage, the power ceiling is simply too high for it to matter.
Key Combos
Combo lines featuring this card
Price Context
Current price
$0.13 bulk tier
At $0.13, Lightning Talons is deep bulk — you'll find it in any common box or draft chaff pile without looking hard. There's no price floor to speak of, and it won't hold value, but that also means the cost of experimenting with it is essentially zero.
Explore
Sources
Mentioned
Updated . Data from Scryfall, EDHREC, and Commander Spellbook.