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Lion's Eye Diamond

Artifact

Discard your hand, Sacrifice this artifact: Add three mana of any one color. Activate only as an instant.

CMC
0
Mana cost
{0}
Color identity
C
Rarity
rare
Set
Magic Online Promos
Price
—
EDHREC rank
#727
Buy on TCGplayer
Lion's Eye Diamond card art
Lion's Eye Diamond is one of the most powerful mana artifacts ever printed — tap it mid-combo to generate three mana of any color, discard your hand as a cost you've already planned to pay, and close the game. The catch is real: that hand-discard is not optional and happens as part of the activation, which means Lion's Eye Diamond is nearly useless in fair contexts and nearly broken in engines like Underworld Breach or the Rograkh, Son of Rohgahh // Silas Renn, Seeker Adept storm shell where the graveyard is the hand anyway.

Format Analysis

Where it lives, where it can’t

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

Lion's Eye Diamond carries two restrictions that shape where it sees play: it can only be activated at instant speed (specifically, as a special action before anything else on the stack), and the hand discard is a cost, not an effect, making it impossible to respond to or manipulate. Vintage restricts it to one copy because in that format's storm and reanimator shells it generates mana faster than almost anything else legal. Oathbreaker bans it outright — the format's lower card counts and faster clock make Lion's Eye Diamond's burst mana too warping. Commander gives it a pass because 100-card singleton dilutes the consistency needed to abuse it in a vacuum, and it demands specific graveyard or storm infrastructure to be worthwhile rather than actively harmful.

Best Commanders

Commanders with the highest synergy

01
Rograkh, Son of RohgahhSilas Renn, Seeker Adept

Rograkh, Son of Rohgahh // Silas Renn, Seeker Adept

86.8% of decks · synergy 0.81

Rograkh, Son of Rohgahh // Silas Renn, Seeker Adept is the canonical home for Lion's Eye Diamond — Silas Renn's combat trigger recurs artifacts from the graveyard, turning the discard cost into a resource and enabling the kind of recursive storm loops that end games on the spot.

02
Dargo, the ShipwreckerTymna the Weaver

Dargo, the Shipwrecker // Tymna the Weaver

81.8% of decks · synergy 0.79

Dargo, the Shipwrecker reduces its own cost for each artifact sacrificed, so Lion's Eye Diamond becomes both a cost reducer and a mana source in the same action, letting the Dargo, the Shipwrecker // Tymna the Weaver shell chain into a lethal turn with minimal setup.

03
Malcolm, Keen-Eyed NavigatorVial Smasher the Fierce

Malcolm, Keen-Eyed Navigator // Vial Smasher the Fierce

64.0% of decks · synergy 0.58

Malcolm, Keen-Eyed Navigator // Vial Smasher the Fierce runs Lion's Eye Diamond as a storm piece — each activation counts toward spell chains that trigger Vial Smasher damage and funnel treasure generation from Malcolm into a closing sequence.

04

Ral, Monsoon Mage

38.4% of decks · synergy 0.33

Ral, Monsoon Mage wants to cast and copy spells in rapid succession, and Lion's Eye Diamond supplies the burst mana needed to chain instants through a single turn, with Ral's transformation trigger converting that chain into direct damage.

05

Etali, Primal Conqueror

29.6% of decks · synergy 0.28

Etali, Primal Conqueror costs eight mana, and Lion's Eye Diamond's three-mana burst helps ramp into that number faster — particularly in reanimator lines where the discard cost feeds the graveyard that puts Etali into play without ever casting it.

Key Combos

Combo lines featuring this card

6,964 decks
Lion's Eye DiamondAuriok Salvagers

Lion's Eye DiamondAuriok Salvagers

Infinite colored mana; Infinite storm count; Return some artifact cards from your graveyard to your hand

View on Commander Spellbook ↗
1,247 decks
Saw in HalfEternal WitnessLion's Eye Diamond

Saw in HalfEternal WitnessLion's Eye Diamond

Infinite creature tokens; Infinite death triggers; Infinite ETB; Infinite LTB; Infinite magecraft triggers; Infinite sacrifice triggers; Infinite storm count

View combo details →

Price Context

Current price

unknown tier

Lion's Eye Diamond doesn't have current pricing available in this data set, so check Scryfall or TCGPlayer for a live number before buying. Historically it has sat in the high-value Reserved List range — expect to pay a significant premium over typical Commander staples, and factor that into whether the combo shells it enables are worth the entry price for your specific build.

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Sources

Mentioned

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