Samite Elder
Creature — Human Cleric
: Creatures you control gain protection from the colors of target permanent you control until end of turn.
- CMC
- 3
- Mana cost
- Color identity
- W
- Rarity
- rare
- Set
- Planeshift
- Price
- $0.65
- EDHREC rank
- #22925
Samite Elder lets you redirect damage and switch creature types mid-combat, giving white decks a repeatable tool to protect key pieces or blank an opponent's tribal synergies. The cost is real — it's a three-mana creature that does nothing without mana investment and a target — but in the right shell it earns that ask.
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 |
Commander is where Samite Elder has any meaningful home — the 100-card singleton format rewards niche utility creatures, and the long game gives you time to activate it repeatedly. In tribal decks, the type-switching ability ranges from useful (protecting your own creatures from type-specific removal) to genuinely disruptive (stripping an opponent's creature out of their lord's bonus). Legacy and Vintage are legal formats but Samite Elder sees no play there; the effect is too slow and too narrow to compete. Outside Commander, treat it as unplayable.
Key Combos
Combo lines featuring this card
Price Context
Current price
$0.65 bulk tier
At $0.65, Samite Elder sits in bulk territory — cheap enough to slot in on a whim, not cheap enough to be a throw-in. Demand is too niche for the price to move much in either direction.
Explore
Sources
Mentioned
Updated . Data from Scryfall, EDHREC, and Commander Spellbook.