Notorious Assassin
Creature — Human Spellshaper Assassin
, 
, Discard a card: Destroy target nonblack creature. It can't be regenerated.
- CMC
- 4
- Mana cost
- Color identity
- B
- Rarity
- rare
- Set
- Mercadian Masques
- Price
- $0.81
- EDHREC rank
- #24080
Notorious Assassin threatens to destroy any attacking creature without regeneration for just one mana and a tap — but the shadow requirement means it only ever trades with the other dedicated shadow deck at the table, which in Commander is essentially no one. A narrow body with a near-dead activated ability in the format.
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 |
Notorious Assassin is legal in Commander, Legacy, Vintage, and Oathbreaker, but shadow as a mechanic appears so rarely across all of them that the card's defensive utility is functionally zero in most games. In Legacy and Vintage it's unplayable — those formats have shadow decks in theory, but Notorious Assassin offers nothing to those strategies and nothing against anything else. Commander is where it hurts most to run it: three players' worth of threats will almost never share the shadow keyword, leaving you with a 1/1 that taps for no effect until the game ends.
Key Combos
Combo lines featuring this card
Price Context
Current price
$0.81 bulk tier
At $0.81, Notorious Assassin sits at the high end of bulk — more expensive than its playability warrants. The price reflects age and scarcity of an old printing more than demand, so don't expect it to move.
Explore
Sources
Mentioned
Updated . Data from Scryfall, EDHREC, and Commander Spellbook.