Mindshrieker
Creature — Spirit Bird
Flying
: Target player mills a card. This creature gets +X/+X until end of turn, where X is the milled card's mana value.
- CMC
- 2
- Mana cost
- Color identity
- U
- Rarity
- rare
- Set
- Innistrad
- Price
- $0.60
- EDHREC rank
- #15477
Mindshrieker turns your opponents' library into a damage source — the bigger the spell on top, the bigger the hit — but paying two mana per activation to mill one card and hope for a high converted mana cost is too slow and too random for most tables. It earns a slot only in dedicated mill or self-mill shells where you can stack the top of a library.
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 |
Mindshrieker is a Commander card almost exclusively — the format's longer games and multiplayer table give it time to activate repeatedly and enough opponents to fish for high-CMC hits. In Legacy and Vintage, a 1/1 flier with an expensive activated ability doesn't come close to competing with the format's threats and answers, and the randomness of milling one card at a time is disqualifying at that power level. Modern has enough redundancy in dedicated mill strategies that Mindshrieker gets cut before it makes any serious list. Commander is where it lives, and even there it needs the right shell — mill-focused or top-of-library manipulation — to justify the slot.
Key Combos
Combo lines featuring this card
Price Context
Current price
$0.60 bulk tier
At $0.60, Mindshrieker is bulk, and the price reflects its narrow appeal accurately. It's not a card likely to spike — demand stays confined to a specific Commander archetype — so there's no urgency to acquire it, but it's cheap enough to throw in a Phenax or Bruvac build without a second thought.
Explore
Sources
Mentioned
Updated . Data from Scryfall, EDHREC, and Commander Spellbook.