Is Relic of Progenitus good in Commander?

Relic of Progenitus in Commander — Combos, Decks & Price

Relic of Progenitus answers graveyard strategies on a one-mana artifact that replaces itself when you're done with it — the draw clause alone makes it worth the slot. Ketramose, the New Dawn aside, this is the format's most efficient colorless hate piece, and virtually every deck can run it.

Best Commanders

Commanders with the highest synergy

01

Ketramose, the New Dawn

64.2% of decks · synergy 0.62

Ketramose, the New Dawn draws a card each time you exile a card from any graveyard, which means every activation of Relic of Progenitus is both hate and card advantage at the same time — the synergy is mechanical, not incidental.

02

Umbris, Fear Manifest

23.3% of decks · synergy 0.22

Umbris, Fear Manifest grows by exiling opponent cards, and Relic of Progenitus stocks that engine turn after turn, each activation ticking up Umbris's power while stripping reanimation targets from opposing yards.

03

Gisa, the Hellraiser

14.2% of decks · synergy 0.14

Gisa, the Hellraiser wants clean graveyards to stop opponents from recycling their own threats, and Relic of Progenitus handles the surgical removal one card at a time before cashing out as a draw when the job is done.

04

Marchesa, Dealer of Death

10.6% of decks · synergy 0.10

Marchesa, Dealer of Death rewards interacting with opponents, and Relic of Progenitus slots in as cheap, repeatable disruption that keeps recursive threats off the board while thinning into the next piece.

05

Bruvac the Grandiloquent

6.9% of decks · synergy 0.06

Bruvac the Grandiloquent mills opponents aggressively, and Relic of Progenitus ensures those milled cards can't be weaponized — cracking it mid-game exiles an entire graveyard and cantrips before opponents get to untap.

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, Relic of Progenitus is a staple — one mana buys repeatable surgical exile, and the cantrip ensures you're never trading a card for it. Modern and Legacy both run it as sideboard tech because it hits every graveyard simultaneously on the final activation, which stops Dredge and Reanimator strategies cold while replacing itself. Pauper players lean on it heavily given the narrow card pool of colorless graveyard hate at common. Pioneer and Standard have never seen it.

Key Combos

Combo lines featuring this card

Budget Alternatives

Cheaper options that do most of the same work

Nihil Spellbomb does the same job for one mana and also cantrips, though it only exiles a single graveyard on demand rather than picking cards incrementally — run it if you need the full-yard wipe more often than the surgical option. Soul-Guide Lantern is another one-mana artifact with similar exile reach and a draw mode, and it costs under a dollar; the trade-off versus Relic of Progenitus is that it can't pick apart a yard one card at a time over multiple turns.

Price Context

Current price

$6.01 mid tier

At $6.01, Relic of Progenitus sits in the mid tier — expensive enough to notice, cheap enough to justify in any deck that cares about graveyards. It's been reprinted often enough that the price is unlikely to spike, and for a card that fits 99 percent of Commander decks, six dollars is easy to defend.