Skeletal Scrying
Instant
As an additional cost to cast this spell, exile X cards from your graveyard.
You draw X cards and you lose X life.
- CMC
- 1
- Mana cost
- Color identity
- B
- Rarity
- uncommon
- Set
- Commander 2014
- Price
- $0.24
- EDHREC rank
- #12233
Skeletal Scrying turns your graveyard into card advantage at instant speed — exile X cards, draw X cards, pay X life, done. The life payment is real, but in Commander the graveyard is deep enough that this regularly draws four or five cards for four or five life, which is a trade most black decks make without blinking.
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 Skeletal Scrying earns its slot: 40 life gives you headroom to pay aggressively, and a graveyard stuffed by fetchlands, self-mill, and cycling turns this into a five-card draw for five life without breaking a sweat. The instant speed matters enormously — you can fire it off at end of turn, hold up mana, or respond to a draw-denial effect. In Legacy and Vintage it's legal but competes with Brainstorm and Ancestral Recall, so it never sees play there. Outside those formats and Commander, it's simply not available.
Key Combos
Combo lines featuring this card
Price Context
Current price
$0.24 bulk tier
At $0.24, Skeletal Scrying is pure bulk — one of the cheapest pieces of meaningful card draw black can run. That price is unlikely to move; it's not a chase rare and sees no competitive play, so you're buying it for a quarter and playing it forever.
Explore
Sources
Mentioned
Updated . Data from Scryfall, EDHREC, and Commander Spellbook.