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Pili-Pala

Artifact Creature — Scarecrow

Flying
{2}, {Q}: Add one mana of any color. ({Q} is the untap symbol.)

CMC
2
Mana cost
{2}
Color identity
C
Rarity
common
Set
The List
Price
$3.23
EDHREC rank
#5480
Buy on TCGplayer
Pili-Pala card art
Pili-Pala does nothing on its own — the payoff is entirely in the combo, and the combo is game-ending. Pair it with Grand Architect and you have infinite mana of any color; Trazyn the Infinite can copy that ability from the graveyard, which tells you everything about how broken the ceiling is.

Best Commanders

Commanders with the highest synergy

01
Trazyn the Infinite

Trazyn the Infinite

80.5% of decks · synergy 0.80

Trazyn the Infinite runs Pili-Pala in over 80% of builds because Trazyn can activate Pili-Pala's ability from the graveyard, letting the Grand Architect infinite-mana engine operate even after removal clears the board.

03
Memnarch

Memnarch

28.0% of decks · synergy 0.26

Memnarch needs enormous amounts of blue mana to steal permanents repeatedly, and the Pili-Pala plus Grand Architect engine supplies exactly that — infinite blue means Memnarch can take the whole table in a single turn.

Format Analysis

Where it lives, where it can’t

FormatVerdict
commander legal
legacy legal
modern legal
pioneer not legal
standard not legal
vintage legal
pauper legal
oathbreaker legal

Commander is where Pili-Pala lives — the format's singleton structure means you need the Grand Architect line anyway, and the payoff of infinite mana is devastating enough to justify the two-card dependency. In Pauper, Pili-Pala sees real play as a combo piece in dedicated builds, where the lower power ceiling makes infinite mana more format-warping than in higher-power formats. Legacy and Vintage both have faster, more consistent infinite-mana options, so Pili-Pala rarely appears there outside of highly specific brews. It's legal in Modern but essentially absent — the format moves too fast for a two-card, two-piece setup that requires both pieces in play simultaneously. Pioneer and Standard never got it.

Key Combos

Combo lines featuring this card

Price Context

Current price

$3.23 cheap tier

At $3.23, Pili-Pala sits in the cheap tier but punches well above its price — it's the linchpin of a genuine infinite-mana combo and sees enough Commander and Pauper demand to keep it from dropping further. Don't expect this to get meaningfully cheaper; its role in multiple combo decks gives it a stable floor.

Explore

Sources

Mentioned

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Updated . Data from Scryfall, EDHREC, and Commander Spellbook.