Spiritual Guardian
Creature — Spirit
When this creature enters, you gain 4 life.
- CMC
- 5
- Mana cost
- Color identity
- W
- Rarity
- rare
- Set
- Portal
- Price
- $2.70
- EDHREC rank
- #30173
Spiritual Guardian is a five-mana 3/4 that gains you life equal to the toughness of any creature that dies — a reasonable body with a passive lifegain trigger, but five mana for a 3/4 with no immediate board impact is a steep ask in most powered tables. Run it only if your deck has a specific reason to care about incremental lifegain.
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 |
Spiritual Guardian is legal in Commander, Legacy, Vintage, and Oathbreaker, but competitive Legacy and Vintage don't have room for a five-mana vanilla-adjacent creature. In Commander, it finds its most plausible home in lifegain-matters decks where every point of life gained triggers payoffs — think Aetherflux Reservoir or Oloro, Ageless Ascetic strategies. Even there, Spiritual Guardian competes with cheaper, more reliable lifegain engines and rarely makes the cut at powered tables. Oathbreaker is similar: it's legal, but the format's compressed game length makes a five-drop with no immediate effect a liability.
Key Combos
Combo lines featuring this card
Price Context
Current price
$2.70 cheap tier
At $2.70, Spiritual Guardian sits in the cheap tier, which is about right for a card with narrow Commander applications and no competitive presence. Don't expect the price to move — supply is stable and demand is low outside dedicated lifegain builds.
Explore
Sources
Mentioned
Updated . Data from Scryfall, EDHREC, and Commander Spellbook.