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The Animus

Legendary Artifact

At the beginning of your end step, exile up to one target legendary creature card from a graveyard with a memory counter on it.
{T}: Until your next turn, target legendary creature you control becomes a copy of target creature card in exile with a memory counter on it. Activate only as a sorcery.

CMC
2
Mana cost
{2}
Color identity
C
Rarity
rare
Set
Assassin's Creed
Price
$0.32
EDHREC rank
#8032
Buy on TCGplayer
The Animus card art
The Animus is the engine Altaïr Ibn-La'Ahad decks are built around — it turns assassin kills into a snowballing counter engine that scales every creature on board. The cost is real: you're running a three-mana artifact that does nothing without Altaïr Ibn-La'Ahad already in play and creatures dying to his trigger, so it's a liability in opening hands before your commander lands.

Best Commanders

Commanders with the highest synergy

01
Altaïr Ibn-La'Ahad

Altaïr Ibn-La'Ahad

77.7% of decks · synergy 0.76

The Animus is in 78% of Altaïr Ibn-La'Ahad decks for good reason — it converts every assassin kill Altaïr generates into +1/+1 counters distributed across your board, turning a slow attrition commander into a wide threat that closes games.

02
Ezio Auditore da Firenze

Ezio Auditore da Firenze

35.4% of decks · synergy 0.34

Ezio Auditore da Firenze runs The Animus in about 35% of builds because his own kill triggers layer onto the counter distribution, but the synergy is shallower than with Altaïr — Ezio's gameplan doesn't depend on The Animus the way Altaïr's does.

Format Analysis

Where it lives, where it can’t

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

The Animus is a Commander card through and through — its value is entirely tied to a specific Assassin-tribal loop that only reaches critical mass in a 100-card singleton format with a commander that enables it repeatedly. In Legacy and Vintage it's technically legal but functionally unplayable; there's no competitive shell that wants a three-mana do-nothing artifact dependent on creature combat triggers. Commander is where The Animus lives, and even there its home is narrow: outside of Altaïr Ibn-La'Ahad and fringe Ezio Auditore da Firenze builds, it rarely earns a slot.

Key Combos

Combo lines featuring this card

Price Context

Current price

$0.32 bulk tier

At $0.32, The Animus is bulk, and that price reflects how narrowly it slots outside of dedicated Altaïr Ibn-La'Ahad builds. It's a safe pickup at this price if you're building the deck — don't expect the value to move much given how commander-specific the demand is.

Explore

Sources

Mentioned

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