Palace Familiar
Creature — Bird
Flying
When this creature dies, draw a card.
- CMC
- 2
- Mana cost
- Color identity
- U
- Rarity
- common
- Set
- Dragons of Tarkir
- Price
- $0.05
- EDHREC rank
- #18897
Palace Familiar is a one-mana 1/1 flier that replaces itself with a card draw trigger when it dies — the floor is a free card, the ceiling is an engine piece in aristocrats and blink shells. It's a bulk common, but the effect is real.
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 |
In Commander, Palace Familiar earns its slot in any aristocrats or flicker shell that wants cheap, recursive fodder — the death trigger stacks every time you sacrifice or blink it, and at one mana it fits under almost any curve. Pauper is where Palace Familiar sees its most competitive play, slotting into white-based flicker lists alongside Ephemerate and Glimmerbell loops that generate repeatable card advantage. In Legacy, Modern, and Pioneer it's technically legal but nowhere near the power threshold — the draw trigger isn't enough to compete with those formats' threats and interaction. Oathbreaker mirrors the Commander read: niche but functional in the right sacrifice strategy.
Key Combos
Combo lines featuring this card
Price Context
Current price
$0.05 bulk tier
At $0.05, Palace Familiar is firmly bulk — you're picking it up as an afterthought in a order or out of a common box. Bulk commons with repeatable draw triggers tend to hold at the floor indefinitely unless a breakout Pauper list adopts them, so don't expect movement.
Explore
Sources
Mentioned
Updated . Data from Scryfall, EDHREC, and Commander Spellbook.