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Nick Valentine, Private Eye

Legendary Artifact Creature — Synth Detective

Nick Valentine can't be blocked except by artifact creatures.
Whenever Nick Valentine or another artifact creature you control dies, you may investigate. (To investigate, create a Clue token. It's an artifact with "{2}, Sacrifice this token: Draw a card.")

CMC
3
Mana cost
{2}{U}
Color identity
U
Rarity
rare
Set
Fallout
Price
—
EDHREC rank
#10478
Buy on TCGplayer
Nick Valentine, Private Eye card art
Nick Valentine, Private Eye generates a Stridehangar Automaton token whenever you crack an artifact, turning incremental resource use into a board presence that compounds over a long game. The cost is real — you need a steady stream of expendable artifacts to keep the engine running — but in the right shell, Dr. Madison Li being the obvious home, the tokens arrive often enough to matter.

Best Commanders

Commanders with the highest synergy

01
Dr. Madison Li

Dr. Madison Li

21.4% of decks · synergy 0.20

Dr. Madison Li's artifact-sacrifice loops feed Nick Valentine, Private Eye a constant stream of triggers, making the Stridehangar Automaton tokens a natural byproduct of doing everything the deck already wants to do.

02
Liberty Prime, Recharged

Liberty Prime, Recharged

19.8% of decks · synergy 0.19

Liberty Prime, Recharged runs enough artifact fodder to keep Nick Valentine, Private Eye triggering consistently, and the tokens slot directly into the wide board Liberty Prime rewards.

Format Analysis

Where it lives, where it can’t

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

Commander is where Nick Valentine, Private Eye belongs — the 100-card singleton format gives artifact-sacrifice strategies the redundancy they need, and a token-generating value engine fits cleanly into the midrange grind of most EDH games. Legacy and Vintage legality is technically there, but the card is too slow and too conditional for either format's competitive context; no one is jamming this in a real Legacy list. Oathbreaker could work in an artifact-heavy build, though the compressed game length makes the incremental token plan harder to cash in.

Key Combos

Combo lines featuring this card

Price Context

Current price

unknown tier

Pricing data for Nick Valentine, Private Eye isn't currently available, so check Scryfall or TCGPlayer for a live figure before buying. Given its niche role as a Fallout Universes Beyond card with a specific artifact-sacrifice requirement, expect demand to stay tied closely to Dr. Madison Li and Liberty Prime, Recharged Commander deck interest.

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Sources

Mentioned

← All cards

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