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Relic Vial

Artifact

{2}, {T}, Sacrifice a creature: Draw a card.
As long as you control a Cleric, this artifact has "Whenever a creature you control dies, each opponent loses 1 life and you gain 1 life."

CMC
3
Mana cost
{3}
Color identity
C
Rarity
uncommon
Set
Zendikar Rising
Price
$0.29
EDHREC rank
#9980
Buy on TCGplayer
Relic Vial card art
Relic Vial turns every creature death into a life drain — one damage to each opponent, one life gained — and in sacrifice-heavy decks that math compounds fast. Yawgmoth, Thran Physician and Orah, Skyclave Hierophant both churn through creatures at a pace where the Vial quietly closes games that looked like stalemates.

Best Commanders

Commanders with the highest synergy

01
Orah, Skyclave Hierophant

Orah, Skyclave Hierophant

63.8% of decks · synergy 0.62

Orah, Skyclave Hierophant's recursion loop feeds a constant stream of Cleric deaths back onto the battlefield, and Relic Vial converts each trip through the graveyard into direct life drain — making the loop a win condition rather than just an engine.

Format Analysis

Where it lives, where it can’t

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

Relic Vial is a Commander card through and through — its payoff scales with the number of creatures dying, and no format delivers that volume as reliably as a 100-card singleton game with a dedicated sacrifice commander. In competitive formats like Legacy, Modern, and Pioneer it's simply too slow and too narrow: three mana for a conditional drain with no immediate board impact doesn't fit any established archetype. Oathbreaker can support it in the same shells that want it in Commander, but the smaller deck size makes the synergy easier to assemble and easier to disrupt. Play it where creatures die in bulk or don't play it at all.

Key Combos

Combo lines featuring this card

Price Context

Current price

$0.29 bulk tier

At $0.29, Relic Vial is pure bulk — a throw-in at any card shop or a penny-bin find at a GP. Bulk rares with narrow synergy profiles rarely appreciate unless a new commander dramatically spikes demand, so treat it as a cheap include rather than a hold.

Explore

Sources

Mentioned

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