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Skullsnatcher

Creature — Rat Ninja

Ninjutsu {B} ({B}, Return an unblocked attacker you control to hand: Put this card onto the battlefield from your hand tapped and attacking.)
Whenever this creature deals combat damage to a player, exile up to two target cards from that player's graveyard.

CMC
2
Mana cost
{1}{B}
Color identity
B
Rarity
common
Set
Salvat 2005
Price
—
EDHREC rank
#5919
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Skullsnatcher card art
Skullsnatcher is a two-mana Ninja with ninjutsu that exiles cards from opponents' graveyards on combat damage — free graveyard hate stapled to a body that triggers Yuriko, the Tiger's Shadow. The cost is a low power and toughness that makes it a liability in combat without evasion support, but in the right shell Thousand-Faced Shadow and friends get it through anyway.

Best Commanders

Commanders with the highest synergy

01
Yuriko, the Tiger's Shadow

Yuriko, the Tiger's Shadow

51.7% of decks · synergy 0.47

Yuriko, the Tiger's Shadow runs Skullsnatcher in over half its registered decks because it checks every box the deck wants: cheap ninjutsu to enable the unblocked trigger loop, a Ninja type that plays into the tribe, and incidental graveyard disruption that matters in games that go long.

02
Marrow-Gnawer

Marrow-Gnawer

7.7% of decks · synergy 0.07

Marrow-Gnawer is a Rat tribal commander, not a Ninja commander, so Skullsnatcher's inclusion is purely about having an affordable black Ninja-adjacent body that can slip into an aggressive shell — the synergy score is modest and this is a role-player, not a cornerstone.

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 legal
oathbreaker legal

Commander is where Skullsnatcher actually matters — ninjutsu and graveyard hate are both Commander-scale tools, and the Yuriko, the Tiger's Shadow engine makes it a genuine staple at roughly 52% inclusion in that archetype. In Pauper it's legal and theoretically playable in Ninja tribal builds, but the format's speed and the lack of a Yuriko-style payoff leave it as a fringe option. Legacy and Vintage are formats where Skullsnatcher is technically legal but practically irrelevant — the graveyard hate is too slow compared to dedicated options like Leyline of the Void, and the Ninja synergies don't translate to those formats' dominant strategies.

Key Combos

Combo lines featuring this card

Price Context

Current price

unknown tier

Current pricing data for Skullsnatcher isn't available in this context, so check Scryfall or a retailer for the live number. Given its ~52% inclusion rate in Yuriko, the Tiger's Shadow decks and niche appeal outside that archetype, it typically sits in the low-to-mid bulk range — worth picking up if you're building Ninja tribal, not a card to speculate on broadly.

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Sources

Mentioned

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