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Sparring Construct

Artifact Creature — Construct

When this creature dies, put a +1/+1 counter on target creature you control.

CMC
1
Mana cost
{1}
Color identity
C
Rarity
common
Set
Dominaria
Price
$0.13
EDHREC rank
#17186
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Sparring Construct card art
Sparring Construct enters as a 1/1 and leaves a +1/+1 counter on any creature you control when it dies — a small but persistent effect that compounds fast in the right shell. It's not Evolution Witness-level recursion value, but at one mana it asks almost nothing in return.

Format Analysis

Where it lives, where it can’t

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

Sparring Construct is a bulk role-player in Commander, showing up almost exclusively in decks that care about +1/+1 counters or sacrifice synergies — think Ozolith loops or aristocrats builds that need cheap fodder with upside. In Pauper it's legal but competes with more efficient commons and rarely makes the cut outside narrow combo contexts. Modern, Pioneer, and Legacy have no meaningful home for it; the effect is too small and the body too fragile to matter in those formats. Commander is where Sparring Construct earns its slot, and even there it's a build-around piece rather than a staple.

Key Combos

Combo lines featuring this card

Price Context

Current price

$0.13 bulk tier

At $0.13, Sparring Construct is deep bulk — you'll find it in a common box before you'd bother ordering it. The price is stable because demand is narrow and supply is abundant; don't expect movement in either direction.

Explore

Sources

Mentioned

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