Looming Shade
Creature — Shade
: This creature gets +1/+1 until end of turn.
- CMC
- 3
- Mana cost
- Color identity
- B
- Rarity
- common
- Set
- Seventh Edition
- Price
- —
- EDHREC rank
- #27421
Looming Shade is a vanilla 1/1 for 3 mana that can sink additional black mana into a temporary pump — a rate that was marginal in 1993 and is outclassed by a decade of superior options today. Run it only if you're deep in a nostalgia build or intentionally restricted to a specific card pool.
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 | legal |
| oathbreaker | legal |
Looming Shade is legal in Commander, Legacy, Modern, Vintage, Pauper, and Oathbreaker, but legality is not endorsement. In Commander, where the baseline for a three-mana black creature is Phyrexian Rager or worse, Looming Shade competes with threats that either replace themselves, generate value, or close games on their own — it does none of those things. In Pauper, where the common card pool is surprisingly powerful, black has access to Vault Skirge, Cuombajj Witches, and other commons that do more for less. Legacy and Vintage don't want it at any mana cost.
Key Combos
Combo lines featuring this card
Price Context
Current price
unknown tier
Pricing data isn't available in our index for Looming Shade, but as a decades-old common it almost certainly sits at bulk — under $0.25 in most bins. There's no competitive demand driving the price up, so if you need one for a cube or a nostalgia build, a bulk bin is the right place to look.
Explore
Sources
Mentioned
Updated . Data from Scryfall, EDHREC, and Commander Spellbook.