Razor Pendulum
Artifact
At the beginning of each player's end step, if that player has 5 or less life, this artifact deals 2 damage to that player.
- CMC
- 4
- Mana cost
- Color identity
- C
- Rarity
- rare
- Set
- Mirage
- Price
- $0.55
- EDHREC rank
- #29454
Razor Pendulum lets you look at the top card of your library at any time and, once per turn, draw it instead of taking damage if your life total matches it — a narrow conditional that almost never fires in a real game. The setup cost is zero, but the payoff requires aligning life totals to specific card values, which is too cute to count on.
Format Analysis
Where it lives, where it can’t
| Format | Verdict |
|---|---|
| commander | legal |
| legacy | legal |
| modern | not legal |
| pioneer | not legal |
| standard | not legal |
| vintage | legal |
| pauper | not legal |
| oathbreaker | legal |
Razor Pendulum is legal in Commander, Legacy, Vintage, and Oathbreaker, but it earns a slot in essentially none of them. In Commander, where life totals start at 40 and swing wildly, engineering the exact overlap between your life and a top-card's converted mana cost is a parlor trick, not a game plan — the free look is real value, but Sensei's Divining Top does it better for the same cost. Legacy and Vintage have access to every broken cantrip ever printed, so Razor Pendulum never competes. Oathbreaker's 20-life starting total at least makes the damage-replacement trigger slightly more plausible, but still not reliable enough to build around.
Key Combos
Combo lines featuring this card
Price Context
Current price
$0.55 bulk tier
At $0.55, Razor Pendulum sits firmly in bulk territory, and that price reflects its actual demand. Don't expect it to climb — there's no emerging archetype waiting to break a conditional life-to-topdeck trigger.
Explore
Sources
Mentioned
Updated . Data from Scryfall, EDHREC, and Commander Spellbook.