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Mercurial Pretender

Creature — Shapeshifter

You may have this creature enter as a copy of a creature you control, except it has "{2}{U}{U}: Return this creature to its owner's hand."

CMC
5
Mana cost
{4}{U}
Color identity
U
Rarity
rare
Set
Magic Online Promos
Price
—
EDHREC rank
#16696
Buy on TCGplayer
Mercurial Pretender card art
Mercurial Pretender copies your own creatures and bounces itself back to hand when a better target shows up — it's a reusable, flexible clone that gets stronger as your board does. The five-mana cost is the ceiling; in slower Commander games that's acceptable, but it makes Mercurial Pretender a liability in faster formats where you need impact immediately.

Format Analysis

Where it lives, where it can’t

FormatVerdict
commander legal
legacy legal
modern legal
pioneer legal
standard not legal
vintage legal
pauper not legal
oathbreaker legal

Mercurial Pretender is a Commander card through and through — the self-bounce mechanic scales with the power of your own board, and the longer a game goes, the more targets worth copying accumulate. In Legacy, Modern, and Pioneer it's legal but essentially absent; five mana for a situational clone that requires you to already have a good creature in play is too slow and too conditional when efficient interaction ends games faster. Vintage has the same problem amplified. Oathbreaker is a reasonable home if your planeswalker generates a board worth copying, but Mercurial Pretender still competes against cheaper clones for that slot.

Key Combos

Combo lines featuring this card

Price Context

Current price

unknown tier

Pricing data for Mercurial Pretender isn't available at the moment — check Scryfall or TCGPlayer for current market prices. Given its narrow competitive applications and Commander-specific role, it typically sits in the budget-to-mid range, but verify before picking up copies.

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Sources

Mentioned

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Updated . Data from Scryfall, EDHREC, and Commander Spellbook.