Sand Strangler
Creature — Beast
When this creature enters, if you control a Desert or there is a Desert card in your graveyard, you may have this creature deal 3 damage to target creature.
- CMC
- 4
- Mana cost
- Color identity
- R
- Rarity
- uncommon
- Set
- Hour of Devastation
- Price
- $0.05
- EDHREC rank
- #26230
Sand Strangler kills a Desert on entry to destroy a target creature — a two-for-one stapled to a 3/3 body for five mana. The payoff is real, but it lives and dies by whether your deck runs Deserts.
Format Analysis
Where it lives, where it can’t
| Format | Verdict |
|---|---|
| commander | legal |
| legacy | legal |
| modern | legal |
| pioneer | legal |
| standard | not legal |
| vintage | legal |
| pauper | not legal |
| oathbreaker | legal |
In Commander, Sand Strangler is a niche role-player — it earns its slot only in Desert-matters decks like Hazezon, Shaper of Sand, where the destroy trigger is essentially free value on a curve play. In Modern and Pioneer it's too slow and too conditional to see competitive play; five mana for a 3/3 with a conditional removal clause doesn't clear the bar when cheaper, unconditional options exist. Legacy and Vintage are non-starters for the same reason. Sand Strangler is a Commander-only card in practice, and even there it belongs in exactly one archetype.
Key Combos
Combo lines featuring this card
Price Context
Current price
$0.05 bulk tier
At $0.05, Sand Strangler is deep bulk — easy to pick up as a throw-in with any order. Don't expect the price to move; the card's narrow condition keeps demand low outside Desert Commander builds.
Explore
Sources
Mentioned
Updated . Data from Scryfall, EDHREC, and Commander Spellbook.