Tar Fiend
Creature — Elemental
Devour 2 (As this creature enters, you may sacrifice any number of creatures. It enters with twice that many +1/+1 counters on it.)
When this creature enters, target player discards a card for each creature it devoured.
- CMC
- 6
- Mana cost
- Color identity
- B
- Rarity
- rare
- Set
- Shards of Alara
- Price
- $0.31
- EDHREC rank
- #24326
Tar Fiend enters and forces an opponent to discard cards equal to the number of Swamps you control — in a mono-black deck with 20+ Swamps, that's a game-warping hand-dump stapled to a 5/4 body. Eight mana is a real cost, but the effect scales hard enough that Tar Fiend earns its slot in dedicated black discard builds.
Format Analysis
Where it lives, where it can’t
| Format | Verdict |
|---|---|
| commander | legal |
| legacy | legal |
| modern | legal |
| pioneer | not legal |
| standard | not legal |
| vintage | legal |
| pauper | not legal |
| oathbreaker | legal |
Commander is where Tar Fiend has any real home — the format's singleton rule and multiplayer politics mean stripping five or six cards from a single opponent's hand can flip a game state, and black devotion or Swamp-heavy builds hit that threshold reliably. In Legacy and Vintage, eight mana is a non-starter; those formats end before Tar Fiend ever hits the table. Modern is legal but practically irrelevant — the card sees zero competitive play there. Oathbreaker is theoretically viable if you're running a black discard shell, though the 20-life starting total compresses games enough that the payoff rarely materializes.
Key Combos
Combo lines featuring this card
Price Context
Current price
$0.31 bulk tier
At $0.31, Tar Fiend is firmly bulk — you're paying for cardboard, not demand. It's unlikely to climb in value given its narrow application and absence from competitive formats, but at this price it's a zero-risk pickup for anyone building a Swamp-heavy discard Commander deck.
Explore
Sources
Mentioned
Updated . Data from Scryfall, EDHREC, and Commander Spellbook.