Mai, Scornful Striker
Legendary Creature — Human Noble Ally
First strike
Whenever a player casts a noncreature spell, they lose 2 life.
- CMC
- 2
- Mana cost
- Color identity
- B
- Rarity
- rare
- Set
- Avatar: The Last Airbender Promos
- Price
- —
- EDHREC rank
- #6232
Mai, Scornful Striker deals consistent life-loss to every opponent on each attack, and that pressure compounds fast in a multiplayer game. Liesa, Shroud of Dusk already punishes opponents for casting spells; Mai stacks a second drain clock on top of it, and the two together close games without needing combat damage to connect.
Best Commanders
Commanders with the highest synergy
Liesa, Shroud of Dusk
Liesa, Shroud of Dusk taxes spells with life payment, and Mai, Scornful Striker adds an attack-trigger drain that hits all opponents simultaneously — two parallel bleed engines that don't require the same resources to operate.
Valgavoth, Harrower of Souls
Valgavoth, Harrower of Souls grows off opponents losing life, so every trigger from Mai, Scornful Striker is feeding the commander's clock directly.
Kambal, Consul of Allocation
Kambal, Consul of Allocation bleeds opponents on noncreature spells; Mai, Scornful Striker extends that pressure into the combat step, ensuring there's no phase of the game where the life-loss engine goes dormant.
Sygg, River Cutthroat
Sygg, River Cutthroat draws a card whenever any opponent loses three or more life in a turn, and Mai, Scornful Striker's attack trigger routinely clears that threshold — especially in a three- or four-player pod.
Cecil, Dark Knight
Cecil, Dark Knight cares about dealing damage to opponents outside combat, and Mai, Scornful Striker's triggered life-loss feeds that condition reliably on every attack step.
Format Analysis
Where it lives, where it can’t
| Format | Verdict |
|---|---|
| commander | legal |
| legacy | legal |
| modern | legal |
| pioneer | legal |
| standard | legal |
| vintage | legal |
| pauper | not legal |
| oathbreaker | legal |
In Commander, Mai, Scornful Striker is doing exactly what the format rewards: incremental life-loss that scales with the number of opponents, turning every attack into a three-way drain. In 1v1 formats like Modern, Pioneer, and Legacy it's a two-mana body with a conditional trigger that only fires when attacking, which puts it well below the rate those formats demand. Standard is legal but the effect is too slow and too dependent on synergy to see serious play there. Oathbreaker shares the multiplayer math that makes Mai shine in Commander, so it translates cleanly to that format as well.
Key Combos
Combo lines featuring this card
Price Context
Current price
unknown tier
Pricing data for Mai, Scornful Striker isn't available yet, which suggests it's either a recent release or hasn't been widely catalogued. Check Scryfall or TCGPlayer for current market price before picking up copies.
Explore
Sources
Mentioned
- Liesa, Shroud of Dusk
- Valgavoth, Harrower of Souls
- Kambal, Consul of Allocation
- Sygg, River Cutthroat
- Cecil, Dark Knight
Updated . Data from Scryfall, EDHREC, and Commander Spellbook.