Scythe Specter
Creature — Specter
Flying
Whenever this creature deals combat damage to a player, each opponent discards a card. Each player who discarded a card with the greatest mana value among cards discarded this way loses life equal to that mana value.
- CMC
- 6
- Mana cost
- Color identity
- B
- Rarity
- rare
- Set
- Commander 2011
- Price
- $0.73
- EDHREC rank
- #13099
Scythe Specter hits the table and immediately threatens to strip each opponent's hand down to their worst card — every combat step. Six mana is a real ask, but Aclazotz, Deepest Betrayal decks recoup that cost fast when every discard trigger becomes a 1/1 bat token.
Best Commanders
Commanders with the highest synergy
Aclazotz, Deepest Betrayal
Aclazotz, Deepest Betrayal converts every Scythe Specter trigger into a body — opponents discard their worst card, you get a bat, and the engine compounds across three players per swing.
Tinybones, Bauble Burglar
Tinybones, Bauble Burglar cares about opponents discarding cards of different mana values, and Scythe Specter guarantees at least one forced discard per attack, feeding Tinybones's draw and drain triggers reliably.
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 |
Scythe Specter is a Commander card through and through — the forced discard scales with the number of opponents, making a three-player table strip up to three cards per attack. In a 1v1 format like Legacy or Vintage, the trigger hits once and a 4/4 flying beater for six competes poorly against what those formats are doing on turns four and five. Commander is the only venue where the card justifies its cost, particularly in dedicated discard builds where each opponent losing their best card creates a cascading card-quality gap across the game.
Key Combos
Combo lines featuring this card
Price Context
Current price
$0.73 bulk tier
At $0.73, Scythe Specter sits firmly in bulk territory, which is accurate for a niche Commander piece that sees meaningful play in only a handful of decks. The price is stable — there's no crossover appeal into higher-demand formats to push it up, so expect it to stay in this range.
Explore
Sources
Mentioned
- Aclazotz, Deepest Betrayal
- Tinybones, Bauble Burglar
Updated . Data from Scryfall, EDHREC, and Commander Spellbook.