The Scarab God
Legendary Creature — God
At the beginning of your upkeep, each opponent loses X life and you scry X, where X is the number of Zombies you control.
: Exile target creature card from a graveyard. Create a token that's a copy of it, except it's a 4/4 black Zombie.
When The Scarab God dies, return it to its owner's hand at the beginning of the next end step.
- CMC
- 5
- Mana cost
- Color identity
- BU
- Rarity
- mythic
- Set
- Double Masters
- Price
- $6.71
- EDHREC rank
- #1714
The Scarab God hits the table and immediately taxes every opponent's upkeep while threatening to reanimate any creature that's ever touched a graveyard as a 4/4 Zombie with your name on it — and when it dies, it comes back to your hand at end of turn. At five mana in Dimir, that combination of passive drain, graveyard recursion, and near-indestructibility makes it one of the strongest value engines in the format, and commanders like Temmet, Naktamun's Will and graveyard-mill packages built around Mirror-Mad Phantasm are happy to exploit it.
Best Commanders
Commanders with the highest synergy
Temmet, Naktamun's Will
Temmet, Naktamun's Will wants The Scarab God because every Zombie token it exiles and reanimates enters as a 4/4 with Temmet's buff on top, turning opponents' own creatures into an unblockable beatdown engine. The synergy score of 0.78 and 85% inclusion rate aren't accidents — these two are a natural pairing.
Varina, Lich Queen
Varina, Lich Queen runs The Scarab God as a graveyard-fueled threat multiplier: Varina fills the bin through combat looting, and The Scarab God converts whatever lands there into Zombies that feed Varina's own draw engine. It's a self-reinforcing loop that's present in over half of all Varina lists.
Wilhelt, the Rotcleaver
Wilhelt, the Rotcleaver cares about Zombies dying and leaving behind Decayed tokens, and The Scarab God keeps the supply line stocked by reanimating fresh bodies from any graveyard each turn. Nearly half of all Wilhelt decks include it specifically because it converts a board wipe from a setback into a restock.
Hashaton, Scarab's Fist
Hashaton, Scarab's Fist leans into the Scarab creature type and artifact synergies, and The Scarab God's ability to pump out Zombie tokens from exile gives Hashaton a steady flow of bodies to power its own combat triggers. Over 42% inclusion reflects how naturally The Scarab God slots into that shell.
Teval, the Balanced Scale
Teval, the Balanced Scale cares about creatures entering and leaving the battlefield, and The Scarab God's reanimation trigger fires on your upkeep every turn without requiring a spell, which means Teval's enter-and-die payoffs tick up on a reliable clock. Showing up in 37% of Teval lists, it's not the first pick but it earns its slot.
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 where The Scarab God is built to live — a five-mana threat that generates value every upkeep, steals from every graveyard at the table, and returns to hand on death is exactly the kind of card that scales with the multiplayer environment. In Legacy and Vintage it's legal but rarely sees play; those formats move too fast for a five-mana do-nothing-the-turn-it-enters creature to compete with the format's broken openers. Pioneer is similarly legal, but the format's creature density and speed don't give The Scarab God enough time to take over the game the way it does across three opponents. Oathbreaker could theoretically support it as a planeswalker companion, but the format's smaller deck size and lower life totals make it fringe. The Scarab God is a Commander card through and through.
Key Combos
Combo lines featuring this card
Budget Alternatives
Cheaper options that do most of the same work
If The Scarab God is out of reach, Gisa and Geralf cover the graveyard-reanimation angle at a fraction of the price — you lose the drain trigger and the hand-return clause, but you still get a repeatable Zombie recursion engine in Dimir colors. For the scry-and-drain effect specifically, Undead Augur and similar incidental draw pieces can fill some of the gap, though nothing in budget range fully replicates the combination of passive life loss, reanimation, and self-returning resilience that makes The Scarab God uniquely oppressive.
Price Context
Current price
$6.71 mid tier
At $6.71, The Scarab God sits in the mid tier — expensive enough to feel like a deliberate inclusion but cheap enough that it shouldn't be the reason you don't run it in a Zombie or graveyard deck. The price has stabilized well below its peak and reflects a card with consistent demand across a wide range of archetypes, so it's a reasonable buy at current levels.
Explore
Sources
Mentioned
Updated . Data from Scryfall, EDHREC, and Commander Spellbook.