Strongarm Thug
Creature — Human Mercenary
When this creature enters, you may return target Mercenary card from your graveyard to your hand.
- CMC
- 3
- Mana cost
- Color identity
- B
- Rarity
- uncommon
- Set
- Mercadian Masques
- Price
- $0.20
- EDHREC rank
- #27707
Strongarm Thug enters the battlefield and forces each opponent to sacrifice a non-Zombie creature or discard a card — meaningful board disruption stapled to a 3/2 body for three mana. In Commander, that's a trigger landing at three targets simultaneously, which makes it punch well above bulk-rare expectations.
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 |
Strongarm Thug is a Commander card through and through — the sacrifice-or-discard trigger scales directly with opponent count, so the three-player minimum of a typical pod means three simultaneous disruption hits on entry. In Legacy and Vintage it's legal but never played; three-mana 3/2s with no immediate board impact in a duel context can't compete with those formats' efficiency benchmarks. Oathbreaker shares enough of Commander's multiplayer texture that Strongarm Thug is playable there too, particularly in black-based hand-attack strategies.
Key Combos
Combo lines featuring this card
Price Context
Current price
$0.20 bulk tier
At $0.20, Strongarm Thug sits firmly in bulk territory — easy to acquire as a throw-in or bulk-bin pickup. The price reflects low constructed demand, not a weak effect, so it's unlikely to climb unless a high-profile Commander deck puts it on the radar.
Explore
Sources
Mentioned
Updated . Data from Scryfall, EDHREC, and Commander Spellbook.