Lurking Evil
Enchantment
Pay half your life, rounded up: This enchantment becomes a 4/4 Phyrexian Horror creature with flying.
- CMC
- 3
- Mana cost
- Color identity
- B
- Rarity
- rare
- Set
- Urza's Saga
- Price
- $0.45
- EDHREC rank
- #27576
Lurking Evil converts half your life total into a 4/4 flying body at instant speed — the effect is real, the cost is steep. It earns a slot only in decks that treat life as a resource rather than a total to protect.
Format Analysis
Where it lives, where it can’t
| Format | Verdict |
|---|---|
| commander | legal |
| legacy | legal |
| modern | not legal |
| pioneer | not legal |
| standard | not legal |
| vintage | legal |
| pauper | not legal |
| oathbreaker | legal |
In Commander, Lurking Evil is a fringe include in life-payment shells — Ayli, Eternal Pilgrim, K'rrik, Son of Yawgmoth, or any black lifegain engine that rebuilds the lost total quickly. Starting at 40 life softens the blow considerably compared to 60-card formats, which is the strongest argument for running it here. In Legacy and Vintage, paying half your life for a 4/4 flier is simply too slow and too dangerous against fast combo and efficient interaction — there are better threats for less cost. Lurking Evil sees essentially no competitive play in those formats, and its absence from Modern and Pioneer keeps its ceiling low.
Key Combos
Combo lines featuring this card
Price Context
Current price
$0.45 bulk tier
At $0.45, Lurking Evil is bulk — it costs almost nothing to try and almost nothing to move on from. Price stability at this tier is driven by low demand rather than supply, so don't expect movement in either direction.
Explore
Sources
Mentioned
Updated . Data from Scryfall, EDHREC, and Commander Spellbook.