Refurbished Familiar
Artifact Creature — Zombie Rat
Affinity for artifacts (This spell costs 
less to cast for each artifact you control.)
Flying
When this creature enters, each opponent discards a card. For each opponent who can't, you draw a card.
- CMC
- 4
- Mana cost
- Color identity
- B
- Rarity
- common
- Set
- Modern Horizons 3
- Price
- $0.35
- EDHREC rank
- #7057
Refurbished Familiar enters the battlefield and drains each opponent for 1 life while padding your own total — immediate, symmetry-breaking board impact before it ever attacks. Imskir Iron-Eater decks run it because that life payment is a resource, not a drawback, and a 2/1 flier for two that advances a life-spending engine is exactly the kind of card that overperforms its modest price tag.
Best Commanders
Commanders with the highest synergy
Imskir Iron-Eater
Imskir Iron-Eater wants to spend life to draw cards, and Refurbished Familiar both pads that life total on entry and presents a flying body that can trade or keep attacking — it's doing two jobs in the same slot.
Tinybones, Bauble Burglar
Tinybones, Bauble Burglar rewards you for casting cheap artifacts, and Refurbished Familiar is exactly that: a two-mana artifact creature that drains on arrival and slots cleanly into the low-curve artifact density Tinybones demands.
Aclazotz, Deepest Betrayal
Aclazotz, Deepest Betrayal applies attrition pressure through hand disruption and life loss, and Refurbished Familiar's drain trigger accelerates that life-gap math while supplying a flying body in a deck that already wants the skies.
Karumonix, the Rat King
Refurbished Familiar is a Rat, and Karumonix, the Rat King pumps every Rat you control — so this card arrives with an immediate drain trigger and then sits on board as a buffed evasive threat inside the tribal count.
Ashcoat of the Shadow Swarm
Ashcoat of the Shadow Swarm cares about the number of Rats dying and recurring, and Refurbished Familiar is a cheap, recursive-friendly Rat with built-in value on each entry — every time it bounces back, the drain trigger fires again.
Format Analysis
Where it lives, where it can’t
| Format | Verdict |
|---|---|
| commander | legal |
| legacy | legal |
| modern | legal |
| pioneer | not legal |
| standard | not legal |
| vintage | legal |
| pauper | legal |
| oathbreaker | legal |
In Commander, Refurbished Familiar is a role-player, not a headliner — it earns its slot in Rat tribal, life-payment, and artifact-synergy builds where the drain trigger hits three opponents simultaneously and the body is a bonus. In Pauper, it's a solid common: a two-mana 2/1 flier with a drain clause is efficient enough to see play in black-based drain or artifact shells where every life point matters. Legacy and Vintage are legal but irrelevant — the card doesn't approach the power threshold those formats demand. Refurbished Familiar lives in Commander and Pauper; everywhere else, it's outclassed before it hits the table.
Key Combos
Combo lines featuring this card
Price Context
Current price
$0.35 bulk tier
At $0.35, Refurbished Familiar is deep bulk — you're paying almost nothing for a card that does genuine work in the decks that want it. Bulk rares fluctuate, but a card with clear tribal and thematic homes doesn't drop further; the floor is already the floor.
Explore
Sources
Mentioned
- Imskir Iron-Eater
- Tinybones, Bauble Burglar
- Aclazotz, Deepest Betrayal
- Karumonix, the Rat King
- Ashcoat of the Shadow Swarm
Updated . Data from Scryfall, EDHREC, and Commander Spellbook.