Taborax, Hope's Demise
Legendary Creature — Demon Cleric
Flying
Taborax has lifelink as long as it has five or more +1/+1 counters on it.
Whenever another nontoken creature you control dies, put a +1/+1 counter on Taborax. If that creature was a Cleric, you may draw a card. If you do, you lose 1 life.
- CMC
- 3
- Mana cost
- Color identity
- B
- Rarity
- rare
- Set
- Zendikar Rising Promos
- Price
- —
- EDHREC rank
- #6634
Taborax, Hope's Demise grows into a legitimate threat on its own — each non-token Cleric dying adds a +1/+1 counter, and at five or more counters it draws a card on every one of those deaths. The cost is that it asks you to build around a specific creature type, and outside of dedicated Cleric shells like Orah, Skyclave Hierophant it rarely reaches critical mass.
Best Commanders
Commanders with the highest synergy
Orah, Skyclave Hierophant
Orah, Skyclave Hierophant turns every Cleric death into a recursive loop, and Taborax, Hope's Demise sitting in that loop converts each sacrifice into counters and cards — the two cards do exactly the same work and stack cleanly.
Athreos, God of Passage
Athreos, God of Passage runs a wide Cleric and life-drain gameplan where creatures die and recur constantly, giving Taborax, Hope's Demise a steady stream of death triggers to accumulate counters and generate card advantage.
Ardyn, the Usurper
Ardyn, the Usurper cares about creatures dying in volume, and Taborax, Hope's Demise slots in as a payoff that snowballs alongside Ardyn's own sacrifice synergies — the overlap is real but less focused than dedicated Cleric commanders.
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 |
Commander is the natural home for Taborax, Hope's Demise — the 100-card singleton format gives it enough Cleric density to reliably hit five counters, and the longer game means its card-draw mode actually fires. In Legacy and Vintage it's legal but irrelevant; a three-mana 1/1 that needs setup competes with a format full of two-mana interaction and zero-cost threats. Modern and Pioneer are the same story — Taborax asks for patience the format doesn't offer, and Orzhov Clerics has better engines at the same cost. Oathbreaker is the one other format worth considering if you're running a Cleric-adjacent signature spell, but even there Commander remains the format where it actually pays off.
Key Combos
Combo lines featuring this card
Price Context
Current price
unknown tier
Current pricing data for Taborax, Hope's Demise isn't available in the system right now, so check Scryfall or TCGPlayer for a live number. Given its narrow build-around nature and near-exclusive Commander relevance, it tends to stay affordable — this is a role-player, not a crossover staple driving external demand.
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Sources
Updated . Data from Scryfall, EDHREC, and Commander Spellbook.