Steel Exemplar
Artifact Creature — Wizard
Trample
This creature enters with two +1/+1 counters on it unless two or more colors of mana were spent to cast it.
- CMC
- 5
- Mana cost
- Color identity
- C
- Rarity
- uncommon
- Set
- The Brothers' War
- Price
- $0.09
- EDHREC rank
- #20808
Steel Exemplar drops as a 4/4 flyer for three mana — one of the most efficient bodies in colorless — as long as you're running a mono-colored or colorless deck. That condition is the whole story: meet it and this card overperforms at every price point; miss it and it's unplayable.
Format Analysis
Where it lives, where it can’t
| Format | Verdict |
|---|---|
| commander | legal |
| legacy | legal |
| modern | legal |
| pioneer | legal |
| standard | not legal |
| vintage | legal |
| pauper | not legal |
| oathbreaker | legal |
Steel Exemplar is a Commander card first and almost exclusively. The mono-colored or colorless restriction maps perfectly onto dedicated colorless artifact commanders and mono-color builds that want cheap, evasive threats. In Modern and Pioneer, the competition for three-mana creatures is steep enough that a conditional 4/4 flyer rarely makes the cut outside of very specific artifact shells. Legacy and Vintage have access to so much broken acceleration that Steel Exemplar never gets a serious look. Commander is where the condition stops being a drawback — colorless artifact decks are an entire archetype, and a 4/4 flyer for three is a legitimately above-rate threat in that context.
Key Combos
Combo lines featuring this card
Price Context
Current price
$0.09 bulk tier
At $0.09, Steel Exemplar is deep bulk — you're paying for cardboard and shipping, not the card. That price is stable; there's no pressure driving it up, but a colorless-staple reprint or spike in artifact-commander popularity could move it marginally.
Explore
Sources
Mentioned
Updated . Data from Scryfall, EDHREC, and Commander Spellbook.