North Star
Artifact
, 
: For one spell this turn, you may spend mana as though it were mana of any type to pay that spell's mana cost. (Additional costs are still paid normally.)
- CMC
- 4
- Mana cost
- Color identity
- C
- Rarity
- rare
- Set
- Legends
- Price
- $27.04
- EDHREC rank
- #30552
North Star lets you spend mana of any color to pay for colored mana symbols in any spell or ability's cost — a four-mana artifact that dissolves color restrictions entirely for any deck willing to run it. The activation is cheap, the effect is permanent until answered, and in a format full of five-color goodstuff, that's a real axis of advantage.
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 |
Commander is where North Star actually matters. Five-color commanders and greedy three-to-four color piles use it to smooth mana without relying on a perfect land base, and it scales well into the late game when you're floating excess mana of the wrong color. Legacy and Vintage are both legal but irrelevant — the speed of those formats makes a four-mana artifact that does nothing the turn it enters a non-starter. Oathbreaker is legal and has the same logic as Commander at a smaller scale, though the 20-life clock makes the setup cost harder to justify.
Key Combos
Combo lines featuring this card
Budget Alternatives
Cheaper options that do most of the same work
North Star has no true functional reprint — nothing else in Magic lets you universally redirect any color of mana to any other at will. Chromatic Lantern comes closest for Commander, fixing your lands rather than your spells, and it costs a fraction of the price; the trade-off is that Lantern doesn't help you cast spells from outside your color identity the way North Star technically enables in fringe edge cases.
Price Context
Current price
$27.04 premium tier
At $27.04, North Star sits in premium territory for a card with a narrow home and no reprint in decades. That price is mostly scarcity and novelty — it's a unique effect on an old card with low supply, not a staple you'll see in every deck.
Explore
Sources
Mentioned
Updated . Data from Scryfall, EDHREC, and Commander Spellbook.