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Tarrian's Soulcleaver

Legendary Artifact — Equipment

Equipped creature has vigilance.
Whenever another artifact or creature is put into a graveyard from the battlefield, put a +1/+1 counter on equipped creature.
Equip {2}

CMC
1
Mana cost
{1}
Color identity
C
Rarity
rare
Set
The Lost Caverns of Ixalan Promos
Price
—
EDHREC rank
#1140
Buy on TCGplayer
Tarrian's Soulcleaver card art
Tarrian's Soulcleaver turns every creature death into a +1/+1 counter accumulation engine, and those counters snowball fast when you have any counter-doubling or token-generation loop in play. Pair it with Animation Module and a free sac outlet and you're looking at an arbitrarily large threat in a single turn; Evereth, Viceroy of Plunder decks in particular treat it as a core piece rather than a support card.

Best Commanders

Commanders with the highest synergy

01
Evereth, Viceroy of Plunder

Evereth, Viceroy of Plunder

73.5% of decks · synergy 0.70

Evereth, Viceroy of Plunder's sacrifice-and-plunder gameplan generates a constant stream of creature deaths, feeding Tarrian's Soulcleaver counters every combat step and turning each raid trigger into accelerating board presence — 73% inclusion rate across Evereth lists reflects just how load-bearing the Soulcleaver is in that shell.

02
Lara Croft, Tomb Raider

Lara Croft, Tomb Raider

61.2% of decks · synergy 0.60

Lara Croft, Tomb Raider cares about artifacts entering and leaving play, and Tarrian's Soulcleaver slots in as both a payoff and an enabler — the counters it accumulates turn Lara's smaller explorers into legitimate threats without requiring dedicated pump spells.

03
Aloy, Savior of Meridian

Aloy, Savior of Meridian

59.4% of decks · synergy 0.57

Aloy, Savior of Meridian builds around machine creature tokens that are designed to be sacrificed or traded in combat, so Tarrian's Soulcleaver converts each wave of token deaths directly into a growing finisher that opponents have to answer separately from the token engine.

04
Syr Ginger, the Meal Ender

Syr Ginger, the Meal Ender

61.4% of decks · synergy 0.57

Syr Ginger, the Meal Ender wants artifact creatures dying as frequently as possible, and Tarrian's Soulcleaver rewards exactly that behavior by stacking counters on itself — Syr Ginger decks can close games with a single oversized swing once the counter total climbs past five or six.

05
Jaws, Relentless Predator

Jaws, Relentless Predator

52.2% of decks · synergy 0.49

Jaws, Relentless Predator is built to attack and eat opposing creatures, and Tarrian's Soulcleaver grows larger with each combat kill, creating a natural feedback loop where the more Jaws threatens, the more lethal the Soulcleaver becomes as a secondary threat.

Format Analysis

Where it lives, where it can’t

FormatVerdict
commander legal
legacy legal
modern legal
pioneer legal
standard legal
vintage legal
pauper not legal
oathbreaker legal

Commander is where Tarrian's Soulcleaver earns its reputation — multiplayer tables generate enough creature deaths to load it with counters inside two or three turns, and the payoff scales with the number of opponents running creature-based strategies. In competitive 60-card formats like Modern and Pioneer it's legal but rarely sees play, since those formats demand immediate impact and a three-mana equipment that grows over time can't compete with proactive threats at that speed. Legacy and Vintage have the same problem amplified: the power level of the field makes slow-accumulation payoffs a liability. Standard is where it might find occasional niche play in aristocrats-adjacent shells, though the lack of a broad sacrifice support suite in any given Standard format limits its ceiling. Stick to Commander.

Key Combos

Combo lines featuring this card

Price Context

Current price

unknown tier

Current pricing data for Tarrian's Soulcleaver isn't available in this snapshot, so check your preferred retailer for the live number. Given its 70%+ inclusion rate in Evereth lists and strong showings across several other popular commanders, expect it to price like a sought-after uncommon or low-rare — if you find it under $3, picking up a copy is straightforward value.

Explore

Sources

Mentioned

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Updated . Data from Scryfall, EDHREC, and Commander Spellbook.