Urborg Syphon-Mage
Creature — Human Spellshaper
, 
, Discard a card: Each other player loses 2 life. You gain life equal to the life lost this way.
- CMC
- 3
- Mana cost
- Color identity
- B
- Rarity
- common
- Set
- Dominaria Remastered
- Price
- $0.06
- EDHREC rank
- #20455
Urborg Syphon-Mage turns any three creatures your opponents control into a repeatable drain effect — 2 life lost per opponent, 2 life gained for you, every turn you can pay four mana and tap it. The cost is steep enough that it rarely goes infinite without dedicated untap support, but in the right shell it's a political weapon and a life buffer in one body.
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 | legal |
| oathbreaker | legal |
In Commander, Urborg Syphon-Mage is a niche role-player rather than a staple — the activation costs four mana and a tap, which is a real investment in a 40-life, four-player format where the drain-two payoff only matters if you have recursive untap support or life-doubling effects. In Pauper it's legal but too slow for a format that demands efficiency at common rarity; decks that want this effect have better options. Legacy and Vintage are simply too fast for a four-mana tap ability to matter, so Urborg Syphon-Mage stays on the shelf in those formats. Its realistic home is Commander, specifically in life-gain-matters or aristocrats builds that can exploit the repeatable trigger across multiple opponents per turn cycle.
Key Combos
Combo lines featuring this card
Price Context
Current price
$0.06 bulk tier
At $0.06, Urborg Syphon-Mage is deep bulk — there's no financial reason to hesitate picking one up, and no expectation that price moves in either direction. It's a zero-risk inclusion test: if the card underperforms, you've lost nothing.
Explore
Sources
Mentioned
Updated . Data from Scryfall, EDHREC, and Commander Spellbook.