Mesmeric Orb
Artifact
Whenever a permanent becomes untapped, that permanent's controller mills a card.
- CMC
- 2
- Mana cost
- Color identity
- C
- Rarity
- rare
- Set
- Secret Lair Drop
- Price
- $13.67
- EDHREC rank
- #1083
Mesmeric Orb turns every untap trigger on the board into a mill event, making it one of the most passive sources of graveyard fill or library attrition available at two mana. Pair it with Basalt Monolith and you have an instant-win loop; slot it into The Wise Mothman and every milled card becomes a radiation counter engine.
Best Commanders
Commanders with the highest synergy
The Wise Mothman
Mesmeric Orb is nearly mandatory in The Wise Mothman — every card milled from any player's library drops a radiation counter, and the Orb mills continuously as lands untap, turning each opponent's mana base into a counter-generating machine on their own turn.
Bruvac the Grandiloquent
Bruvac the Grandiloquent doubles every mill event, so Mesmeric Orb's per-untap triggers hit for two instead of one — opponents mill their libraries at a pace that makes the Orb feel closer to a four-mana spell.
Syr Konrad, the Grim
Syr Konrad, the Grim deals damage whenever a creature card leaves an opponent's graveyard or hits it, and Mesmeric Orb fills graveyards at the rate of one card per untap, turning the table's mana development into a slow, uninteractive drain engine.
The Capitoline Triad
The Capitoline Triad cares about putting cards into graveyards to generate value, and Mesmeric Orb does that passively every time any permanent untaps — it feeds the engine without requiring a dedicated action each turn.
Grolnok, the Omnivore
Grolnok, the Omnivore exiles cards from the top of your own library and uses them, so Mesmeric Orb accelerates how quickly frogs hit the exile zone while incidentally milling opponents into a losing position.
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 |
Commander is the natural home for Mesmeric Orb — four players untapping lands every turn means the mill rate is roughly four times what it would be in a duel, and the two-mana cost lets it land before the game stabilizes. In Legacy and Vintage, it sees fringe play almost exclusively as the Basalt Monolith combo piece, since dedicated mill strategies have faster, more targeted options and pure combo decks can assemble the loop consistently. Modern has similar dynamics: the Orb shows up in mill sideboards or Basalt-based combo shells, but Hedron Crab and Ruin Crab do more work as standalone mill engines. Oathbreaker functions like a compressed Commander game, so the same passive mill pressure applies, though the smaller starting library count makes the Orb's incremental damage more immediately threatening.
Key Combos
Combo lines featuring this card
Araumi of the Dead TideVizier of Tumbling SandsMesmeric Orb
Infinite self-mill
View on Commander Spellbook ↗
Underworld BreachFrantic SearchMesmeric Orb
Near-infinite draw triggers; Near-infinite looting; Near-infinite magecraft triggers; Near-infinite self-discard triggers; Near-infinite self-mill; Near-infinite storm count
View on Commander Spellbook ↗Budget Alternatives
Cheaper options that do most of the same work
Altar of the Brood hits every permanent entering the battlefield rather than every untap, costing only one mana and sitting under a dollar — it won't combo with Basalt Monolith, but it generates comparable passive mill in token or permanent-heavy builds. Sphinx's Tutelage ties mill to card draw rather than untaps, which is narrower but free-rolls in draw-heavy blue decks; neither option fully replicates Mesmeric Orb's symmetrical, always-on pressure, but both cost a fraction of the price and slot into overlapping strategies.
Price Context
Current price
$13.67 mid tier
At $13.67, Mesmeric Orb sits in the mid tier — expensive enough to feel like a deliberate purchase, reasonable enough that any deck built around mill or the Basalt Monolith combo should simply own one. The price is anchored by the combo demand and steady Commander play across multiple archetypes, so it's unlikely to crater without a reprint.
Explore
Sources
Updated . Data from Scryfall, EDHREC, and Commander Spellbook.