Nine-Fingers Keene
Legendary Creature — Human Rogue
Menace
Ward—Pay 9 life.
Whenever Nine-Fingers Keene deals combat damage to a player, look at the top nine cards of your library. You may put a Gate card from among them onto the battlefield. Then if you control nine or more Gates, put the rest into your hand. Otherwise, put the rest on the bottom of your library in a random order.
- CMC
- 4
- Mana cost
- Color identity
- BGU
- Rarity
- rare
- Set
- Commander Legends: Battle for Baldur's Gate
- Price
- $0.25
- EDHREC rank
- #7573
Nine-Fingers Keene enters and immediately taps all permanents your opponents control — a one-sided pseudo-Time Walk stapled to a 4/3 for five mana. That effect is strong enough that Archelos, Lagoon Mystic decks, which traffic in tapped-permanent manipulation, include it at a 13% rate.
Best Commanders
Commanders with the highest synergy
Archelos, Lagoon Mystic
Archelos, Lagoon Mystic wants permanents entering tapped and staying that way, and Nine-Fingers Keene delivers a full board tap on arrival — locking opponents out while Archelos turns that tapped state into a one-sided advantage engine.
Format Analysis
Where it lives, where it can’t
| Format | Verdict |
|---|---|
| commander | legal |
| legacy | legal |
| modern | not legal |
| pioneer | not legal |
| standard | not legal |
| vintage | legal |
| pauper | not legal |
| oathbreaker | legal |
Nine-Fingers Keene is legal in Commander, Legacy, Vintage, and Oathbreaker, but Commander is the only format where it sees meaningful play. In Legacy and Vintage, a five-mana 4/3 with a tap effect is too slow against the format's threat density and available interaction. Commander is where the effect shines: tapping all opponent-controlled permanents at instant speed via a well-timed cast can stall an entire table, and a Sultai shell gives Keene access to tutors, ramp, and recursion to maximize the ETB.
Key Combos
Combo lines featuring this card
Price Context
Current price
$0.25 bulk tier
At $0.25, Nine-Fingers Keene is firmly bulk — a high-impact effect at throwaway price. Bulk rares with niche Commander applications tend to stay flat unless a competitive deck breaks them, and nothing in Keene's current home formats is pushing demand upward.
Explore
Sources
Mentioned
Updated . Data from Scryfall, EDHREC, and Commander Spellbook.