Volunteer Reserves
Creature — Human Soldier
Banding (Any creatures with banding, and up to one without, can attack in a band. Bands are blocked as a group. If any creatures with banding you control are blocking or being blocked by a creature, you divide that creature's combat damage, not its controller, among any of the creatures it's being blocked by or is blocking.)
Cumulative upkeep 
(At the beginning of your upkeep, put an age counter on this permanent, then sacrifice it unless you pay its upkeep cost for each age counter on it.)
- CMC
- 2
- Mana cost
- Color identity
- W
- Rarity
- uncommon
- Set
- The List
- Price
- $0.15
- EDHREC rank
- #28374
Volunteer Reserves is a 4/3 for three mana — above-rate stats — with a cumulative upkeep that hands opponents Mountains until you stop paying. The free body is real; the downside is a clock that gets worse every turn you keep it in play.
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 |
Volunteer Reserves is legal in Commander, Legacy, Vintage, and Oathbreaker, and banned from everything else by virtue of never being printed in a modern-legal set. In Commander, the cumulative upkeep is punishing — giving three or more opponents basic Mountains over several turns fuels red decks and rarely affects monocolored or artifact-heavy players the way you'd hope. Legacy and Vintage have efficient three-drops that don't gift opponents resources, so Volunteer Reserves sees essentially zero competitive play there. It's a bulk curiosity in every legal format.
Key Combos
Combo lines featuring this card
Price Context
Current price
$0.15 bulk tier
At $0.15, Volunteer Reserves sits firmly in bulk territory and is unlikely to move — demand is low and supply from older print runs is plentiful. Pick it up if a specific deck wants it, but don't expect the price to go anywhere.
Explore
Sources
Mentioned
Updated . Data from Scryfall, EDHREC, and Commander Spellbook.