Prickly Pair
Creature — Plant Mercenary
When this creature enters, create a 1/1 red Mercenary creature token with "
: Target creature you control gets +1/+0 until end of turn. Activate only as a sorcery."
- CMC
- 3
- Mana cost
- Color identity
- R
- Rarity
- common
- Set
- Outlaws of Thunder Junction
- Price
- $0.03
- EDHREC rank
- #15041
Prickly Pair puts two bodies on the board for three mana — a 1/1 Human and a 1/1 Cactus — which is the whole point: token count matters more than stats here. In sacrifice and reanimator shells like Nim Deathmantle loops or Laughing Jasper Flint's punishment engine, two disposable creatures for one card is a clean rate.
Best Commanders
Commanders with the highest synergy
Laughing Jasper Flint
Laughing Jasper Flint's ability fires when opponents take damage, and Prickly Pair seeds the board with two expendable bodies to sacrifice, block, or pressure — exactly the fodder the engine wants to keep the damage triggers rolling.
Kirri, Talented Sprout
Kirri, Talented Sprout cares about casting spells with the same name and about +1/+1 counters stacking up, and Prickly Pair's two-token output gives Kirri immediate board presence while keeping the creature count high for go-wide synergies.
Format Analysis
Where it lives, where it can’t
| Format | Verdict |
|---|---|
| commander | legal |
| legacy | legal |
| modern | legal |
| pioneer | legal |
| standard | legal |
| vintage | legal |
| pauper | legal |
| oathbreaker | legal |
In Commander, Prickly Pair is a role-player in token-doubler, aristocrats, and sacrifice shells — anywhere two bodies for three mana pulls weight that a single creature wouldn't. Pauper is where it has the most legitimate competitive footing, since the format is starved for efficient multi-token producers at common and the Human and Cactus types both have tribal hooks to exploit. In Standard, Modern, and Pioneer, Prickly Pair is too low-impact to see serious play outside of very specific synergy shells that need the quantity of tokens rather than their quality.
Key Combos
Combo lines featuring this card
Nim DeathmantleAshnod's AltarPrickly Pair
Infinite ETB; Infinite LTB; Infinite death triggers; Infinite sacrifice triggers
View on Commander Spellbook ↗Price Context
Current price
$0.03 bulk tier
At $0.03, Prickly Pair is deep bulk — you're paying for a sleeve, not the card. That price is stable by definition; bulk commons don't move unless a combo or tournament deck breaks them out, and nothing on the horizon makes Prickly Pair that card.
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Sources
Updated . Data from Scryfall, EDHREC, and Commander Spellbook.