Magus of the Tabernacle
Creature — Human Wizard
All creatures have "At the beginning of your upkeep, sacrifice this creature unless you pay 
."
- CMC
- 4
- Mana cost
- Color identity
- W
- Rarity
- rare
- Set
- Planar Chaos
- Price
- $2.24
- EDHREC rank
- #16704
Magus of the Tabernacle puts The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale's tax on every creature at a fraction of the original's price — opponents either drain mana paying upkeep or watch their boards die. The cost is that it's a creature itself, fragile to removal in a way the land never was.
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 | not legal |
| oathbreaker | legal |
In Commander, Magus of the Tabernacle is a staple in stax and tax builds — go-wide creature decks are ubiquitous, and forcing a mana payment on every upkeep warps the game immediately. Legacy and Vintage see it as a budget-accessible proxy for the effect in Workshop-adjacent or prison strategies, though the creature type makes it strictly worse than the original land. Modern theoretically supports it but creature-based prison hasn't found a reliable home there, so it sees virtually no play. Oathbreaker mirrors Commander's logic at a smaller scale, where the stax effect hits harder with fewer players and tighter mana pools.
Key Combos
Combo lines featuring this card
Price Context
Current price
$2.24 cheap tier
At $2.24, Magus of the Tabernacle is cheap for what it does — a persistent, board-warping tax effect at bulk rare prices. It's unlikely to spike without a major reprint of The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale driving renewed interest, and the supply is stable enough that this price floor should hold.
Explore
Sources
Mentioned
Updated . Data from Scryfall, EDHREC, and Commander Spellbook.