Lingering Phantom
Creature — Spirit
Whenever you cast a historic spell, you may pay 
. If you do, return this card from your graveyard to your hand. (Artifacts, legendaries, and Sagas are historic.)
- CMC
- 6
- Mana cost
- Color identity
- B
- Rarity
- uncommon
- Set
- Dominaria
- Price
- $0.05
- EDHREC rank
- #27920
Lingering Phantom is a recursive threat that keeps coming back for the cost of paying its mana value at the start of your upkeep — skip the payment and it phases out instead of dying. The recursion is real, but the upkeep tax compounds fast in a long game, making it best in decks that can weaponize the phase-out rather than just tolerating it.
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 |
Commander is where Lingering Phantom does its best work — long games mean more recursion triggers, and decks built around phasing or sacrifice loops can milk the phase-out clause as a feature rather than a drawback. In Legacy, Modern, and Pioneer it competes against a much tighter efficiency bar, and a vanilla recursive beater with an upkeep tax rarely clears that bar when faster threats exist. Vintage is legal but the card is nowhere near the power threshold that format demands. Lingering Phantom is functionally a Commander card.
Key Combos
Combo lines featuring this card
Price Context
Current price
$0.05 bulk tier
At $0.05, Lingering Phantom sits firmly in bulk territory — you're paying for a slot, not the card. Bulk rares with narrow applications rarely climb without a breakout combo or reprint spike, and nothing in Lingering Phantom's text points toward either.
Explore
Sources
Mentioned
Updated . Data from Scryfall, EDHREC, and Commander Spellbook.