Novice Occultist
Creature — Human Wizard
When this creature dies, you draw a card and you lose 1 life.
- CMC
- 2
- Mana cost
- Color identity
- B
- Rarity
- common
- Set
- Innistrad: Midnight Hunt
- Price
- $0.14
- EDHREC rank
- #11571
Novice Occultist gives you a 1/1 body and a loot effect stapled to a sacrifice trigger — cheap, self-replacing, and exactly what aristocrats engines want. In Shirei, Shizo's Caretaker it loops every turn, turning a single mana investment into a permanent card-selection engine.
Best Commanders
Commanders with the highest synergy
Shirei, Shizo's Caretaker
Novice Occultist has exactly 1 power, so Shirei, Shizo's Caretaker returns it at end of turn after any sacrifice — every trip through the bin loot-filters your hand and rebuilds your board presence for free.
Format Analysis
Where it lives, where it can’t
| Format | Verdict |
|---|---|
| commander | legal |
| legacy | legal |
| modern | legal |
| pioneer | legal |
| standard | not legal |
| vintage | legal |
| pauper | legal |
| oathbreaker | legal |
Novice Occultist is a Commander card through and through — the looting trigger rewards repeated sacrifice loops that only really exist at 100-card singleton speed. In Pauper it's legal but competes with a deep pool of commons that do more for the same mana, so it rarely makes the cut outside dedicated graveyard builds. Modern and Pioneer have faster, more powerful discard-and-recur options that push it out of contention. Legacy and Vintage don't want a 1/1 loot body at any cost.
Key Combos
Combo lines featuring this card
Price Context
Current price
$0.14 bulk tier
At $0.14, Novice Occultist sits firmly in bulk territory — pickup cost is negligible for any Shirei or aristocrats build. Bulk commons with narrow applications tend to stay cheap, so don't expect movement.
Explore
Sources
Mentioned
Updated . Data from Scryfall, EDHREC, and Commander Spellbook.