Undercity Shade
Creature — Shade
Fear (This creature can't be blocked except by artifact creatures and/or black creatures.)
: This creature gets +1/+1 until end of turn.
- CMC
- 5
- Mana cost
- Color identity
- B
- Rarity
- uncommon
- Set
- Ravnica: City of Guilds
- Price
- $0.09
- EDHREC rank
- #28892
Undercity Shade can become an evasive, pump-able threat that opponents struggle to block, but feeding it swamps costs real mana every turn. The ceiling is a game-ending shadow creature; the floor is a 2/2 that does nothing if you're mana-tight.
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 |
In Commander, Undercity Shade fits narrow mono-black or Swamp-heavy builds where you can reliably funnel excess mana into it late game — Cabal Coffers decks are the obvious home. In Legacy and Vintage it's simply outclassed; those formats move too fast for a five-mana 2/2 that needs additional investment to matter. Modern has enough efficient threats that Undercity Shade never makes the cut competitively. Oathbreaker mirrors Commander's verdict: playable only if your mana base is almost entirely Swamps and your game plan involves going tall with one creature.
Key Combos
Combo lines featuring this card
Price Context
Current price
$0.09 bulk tier
At $0.09, Undercity Shade is pure bulk — you're paying for cardboard, not power. It won't hold or gain value, but the acquisition cost is low enough that slotting it into a themed mono-black build costs nothing meaningful.
Explore
Sources
Mentioned
Updated . Data from Scryfall, EDHREC, and Commander Spellbook.