Shifty Doppelganger
Creature — Shapeshifter
, Exile this creature: You may put a creature card from your hand onto the battlefield. If you do, that creature gains haste until end of turn. At the beginning of the next end step, sacrifice that creature. If you do, return this card to the battlefield.
- CMC
- 3
- Mana cost
- Color identity
- U
- Rarity
- rare
- Set
- Odyssey
- Price
- $0.48
- EDHREC rank
- #27065
Shifty Doppelganger is a free exploit engine disguised as a three-mana do-nothing — you exile it, drop a creature from your hand as a copy of any creature in play, and if that copy dies, Shifty Doppelganger comes back to do it again. The cost is real: you need a hand full of creatures and a worthy target on the battlefield, which makes it dead in the early game and backbreaking in the late one.
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 |
Shifty Doppelganger is legal in Commander, Legacy, Vintage, and Oathbreaker, but Commander is the only format where it's worth thinking about. In Legacy and Vintage, three mana and a full-creature-in-hand requirement is nowhere near competitive — faster, cheaper clone effects and outright better threats crowd it out entirely. Commander is the sweet spot: games go long, boards get threatening, and the recursive loop has space to matter, especially in creature-heavy lists that can guarantee fuel and a copy target in the same turn. Oathbreaker is technically viable if your signature spell puts creatures into hand, but the format's lower consistency ceiling makes the setup harder to assemble.
Key Combos
Combo lines featuring this card
Price Context
Current price
$0.48 bulk tier
At $0.48, Shifty Doppelganger is deep bulk — you're paying for cardboard, not demand. It's a casual Commander piece with a narrow enough use case that the price is unlikely to climb without a reprint or a breakout combo discovery, but at this price there's no reason to hesitate if the effect fits your list.
Explore
Sources
Mentioned
Updated . Data from Scryfall, EDHREC, and Commander Spellbook.