Lurking Informant

In Commander, Lurking Informant fits a narrow band of self-mill or opponent-mill strategies — think Phenax, God of Deception shells or decks that want to set up their own draws — but the one-card-at-a-time throughput rarely justifies the slot when stronger options exist at similar price points. In Pauper, where card quality is constrained by rarity, it has a slightly more credible case as incremental library manipulation in blue control or graveyard-based builds, though it still competes with more efficient commons. Legacy and Vintage are non-starters: the effect is irrelevant at those power levels. Lurking Informant is strictly a niche role-player, and even in the formats where it's legal and remotely playable, it demands a deck built to justify it.