Tethered Skirge
Creature — Phyrexian Imp
Flying
Whenever this creature becomes the target of a spell or ability, you lose 1 life.
- CMC
- 3
- Mana cost
- Color identity
- B
- Rarity
- uncommon
- Set
- Urza's Legacy
- Price
- $0.18
- EDHREC rank
- #30909
Tethered Skirge gives you a 1/3 flyer with lifelink for two mana — the catch is that your opponent controls it until you lose life from a source other than combat damage. In any deck that plans to pay life aggressively, that trigger fires immediately and you reclaim it for free, making the drawback functionally irrelevant.
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 |
Commander is the natural home for Tethered Skirge — formats built around Aetherflux Reservoir, Ad Nauseam, or commanders like Oloro, Ageless Ascetic that drain life as a resource trigger the reclaim condition almost incidentally. In Legacy and Vintage, where it's legal, a two-mana 1/3 flyer with conditional lifelink simply can't compete with the raw efficiency of the card pool. Oathbreaker shares Commander's life-payment density, so the same aristocrats and storm-life shells that want it there want it here too.
Key Combos
Combo lines featuring this card
Price Context
Current price
$0.18 bulk tier
At $0.18, Tethered Skirge is deep bulk — you're paying for cardboard, not scarcity. That price is stable by default; there's no competitive demand to push it, and it only moves if a breakout Commander build puts it on a buylist.
Explore
Sources
Mentioned
Updated . Data from Scryfall, EDHREC, and Commander Spellbook.