Oko, Thief of Crowns
Legendary Planeswalker — Oko
+2: Create a Food token. (It's an artifact with "
, 
, Sacrifice this token: You gain 3 life.")
+1: Target artifact or creature loses all abilities and becomes a green Elk creature with base power and toughness 3/3.
−5: Exchange control of target artifact or creature you control and target creature an opponent controls with power 3 or less.
- CMC
- 3
- Mana cost
- Color identity
- GU
- Rarity
- mythic
- Set
- Breaking News
- Price
- —
- EDHREC rank
- #1917
Oko, Thief of Crowns enters at three mana, immediately ticks up to five loyalty, and starts converting your opponents' threats into 3/3 Elk — that combination of passive loyalty gain and permanent-blanking is why it got banned everywhere it touched a 60-card format. In Commander, the political chaos it generates and the raw card-quality advantage it provides alongside value engines like The Goose Mother make it one of the most oppressive three-mana planeswalkers legal in the format. If you're in Simic and you can get a copy, you run it.
Format Analysis
Where it lives, where it can’t
| Format | Verdict |
|---|---|
| commander | legal |
| legacy | banned |
| modern | banned |
| pioneer | banned |
| standard | not legal |
| vintage | legal |
| pauper | not legal |
| oathbreaker | legal |
Oko, Thief of Crowns is banned in Legacy, Modern, and Pioneer — the three restrictions are its absurd loyalty floor on turn three, the +1 that generates Food without any cost, and the +1 that turns any permanent into a vanilla 3/3, stripping equipment, abilities, and threats alike with no mana investment beyond the initial cast. In 60-card formats, those three abilities stack into a resource engine that takes over a game before opponents can answer it. Commander gives it a pass for two structural reasons: you're one player against three, so the Elk conversion and Food generation are diluted across a larger threat density, and the four-player politics mean the table can gang up on the Oko player in a way that a 1v1 opponent simply can't.
Best Commanders
Commanders with the highest synergy
The Goose Mother
The Goose Mother generates Food tokens on entry and attack, and Oko, Thief of Crowns turns those Food into a steady +1 loyalty engine while the commander keeps pace on board — the two cards create a self-reinforcing loop of tokens, loyalty, and card advantage that the deck is essentially built to exploit.
Loot, the Key to Everything
Loot, the Key to Everything rewards you for playing high-quality, unconditional cards across multiple card types, and Oko, Thief of Crowns is exactly that — a planeswalker that generates Food, converts permanents, and never stops being relevant regardless of board state.
Jenny Flint // Madame Vastra
Jenny Flint // Madame Vastra cares about clue and investigation synergies, and Oko, Thief of Crowns slots in as a Food generator and permanent-blanker that keeps the board clean while the commander assembles its own engine.
Tamiyo, Inquisitive Student
Tamiyo, Inquisitive Student decks want the game to go long and the board to stay manageable, and Oko, Thief of Crowns does exactly that — converting dangerous permanents into 3/3 Elk while generating incremental loyalty advantage across the same turns Tamiyo needs to flip.
Uro, Titan of Nature's Wrath
Uro, Titan of Nature's Wrath shells run dense packages of high-value Simic permanents, and Oko, Thief of Crowns contributes both a removal-adjacent answer to problem artifacts or creatures and a Food engine that keeps life totals and card counts climbing alongside Uro.
Key Combos
Combo lines featuring this card
Time SieveMyr BattlesphereTeleportation CircleOko, Thief of Crowns
Infinite turns; Lock
View on Commander Spellbook ↗Price Context
Current price
unknown tier
Oko, Thief of Crowns doesn't have reliable current pricing in our data, so check Scryfall or TCGPlayer directly before buying — copies have historically swung based on reprint availability. Given its ban status across Legacy, Modern, and Pioneer, demand is concentrated almost entirely in Commander and Vintage, which keeps floor prices higher than most planeswalkers with comparable power.
Explore
Sources
Mentioned
- Time Sieve
- The Goose Mother
- Loot, the Key to Everything
- Jenny Flint // Madame Vastra
- Tamiyo, Inquisitive Student
- Uro, Titan of Nature's Wrath
- Myr Battlesphere
- Teleportation Circle
Updated . Data from Scryfall, EDHREC, and Commander Spellbook.