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Semblance Anvil

Artifact

Imprint — When this artifact enters, you may exile a nonland card from your hand.
Spells you cast that share a card type with the exiled card cost {2} less to cast.

CMC
3
Mana cost
{3}
Color identity
C
Rarity
rare
Set
The Brothers' War Retro Artifacts
Price
$4.93
EDHREC rank
#2160
Buy on TCGplayer
Semblance Anvil card art
Semblance Anvil cuts the cost of every spell sharing a type with its imprinted card by two generic mana — a permanent, on-board discount that snowballs across an entire game. The cost is real: you exile the imprinted card, so jamming Sensei's Divining Top or a similarly irreplaceable piece under it is usually wrong, but in artifact-dense or creature-flood strategies like Acererak the Archlich, the card you sacrifice is just fuel for a much bigger engine.

Best Commanders

Commanders with the highest synergy

01
Acererak the Archlich

Acererak the Archlich

39.6% of decks · synergy 0.39

Acererak the Archlich builds its win condition around bouncing and replaying Acererak the Archlich through incomplete dungeons, and Semblance Anvil imprinted on a Zombie makes each recasting dramatically cheaper — turning a mana-intensive loop into something that runs on fumes.

02
Jhoira, Weatherlight Captain

Jhoira, Weatherlight Captain

35.3% of decks · synergy 0.34

Jhoira, Weatherlight Captain draws a card for every historic spell cast, so Semblance Anvil imprinted on an artifact turns the entire deck into a cheap, self-refueling draw engine that can chain spells through a single turn.

03
Gandalf the White

Gandalf the White

28.2% of decks · synergy 0.26

Gandalf the White triggers off instants and sorceries cast, and Semblance Anvil imprinted on either type lets you chain spells in sequence for less mana, accelerating the trigger count and making wide, explosive turns far more achievable.

04
Karn, Legacy Reforged

Karn, Legacy Reforged

30.2% of decks · synergy 0.17

Karn, Legacy Reforged runs an all-artifact shell where every permanent contributes to Karn's mana generation, and Semblance Anvil imprinted on an artifact compounds that by shaving two mana off every subsequent artifact — effectively doubling down on the deck's central resource strategy.

Format Analysis

Where it lives, where it can’t

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

Commander is where Semblance Anvil earns its reputation — artifact-heavy decks run it as a permanent Medallion effect, and the single-card setup cost is easily absorbed in a 100-card singleton format built around a specific type. In Legacy and Vintage it sees fringe play in artifact combo shells, mostly as a redundant cost-reducer alongside more powerful options, but it rarely takes a central role because those formats have faster, more resilient ways to cheat mana. Modern could theoretically support it in artifact storm, but the competition for three-mana artifacts that don't immediately impact the board is steep. Semblance Anvil is at its best in Commander, full stop — the longer the game, the more value the discount accumulates.

Key Combos

Combo lines featuring this card

Price Context

Current price

$4.93 cheap tier

At $4.93, Semblance Anvil sits in a comfortable budget tier — cheap enough to include on spec in any artifact deck without agonizing over the slot. It sees enough Commander play across Acererak, Jhoira, and Karn builds to stay relevant, so the price is unlikely to crater.

Explore

Sources

Mentioned

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