Grell Philosopher

Grell Philosopher card image

Grell Philosopher: Creature - Horror Wizard, Commander Legends: Battle for Baldur's Gate. Printings, market prices, rulings, and format legality on Mana Grove.

Mana cost
{2}{U}
Mana value
3
Type
Creature - Horror Wizard
Colour identity
Blue (U)
Power / toughness
1/4
Rarity
Rare
Set
Commander Legends: Battle for Baldur's Gate (CLB)
Released
2022-06-10
Collector number
666
Artist
David Astruga
Commander rank
8,427 (by how often it appears in Commander decks)
Keywords
Aberrant Tinkering

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About Grell Philosopher

Grell Philosopher is a Magic: The Gathering card, a rare blue creature from Commander Legends: Battle for Baldur's Gate (CLB), a draft-focused set released in June 2022. It is collector number 666 in that set, with art by David Astruga. It costs {2}{U} (two generic and one blue mana) to cast, for a mana value of 3. It is a 1/4 creature. Its colour identity is blue. It is legal in Legacy, Vintage, Commander, Duel Commander and Oathbreaker. Commander Legends: Battle for Baldur's Gate is its only printing so far. The latest aggregated market price for this printing is $0.56 (normal finish, as of 2026-11-11).

Card text

Aberrant Tinkering - When this creature enters and at the beginning of your upkeep, each Horror you control gains all activated abilities of target artifact an opponent controls until end of turn. You may spend blue mana as though it were mana of any color to activate those abilities.

Market price

Latest aggregated market price for the normal finish of this printing: $0.56 (as of 2026-11-11).

The figure covers this printing only; other printings carry their own price on their own page.

Format legality

Legality of Grell Philosopher by format. Formats in which it is not legal are not listed.

LegacyLegal
VintageLegal
CommanderLegal
Duel CommanderLegal
OathbreakerLegal

Other printings of Grell Philosopher

The other printings are listed newest first, with the rarity and release year of each.

PrintingRarityYear
Commander Legends: Battle for Baldur's Gate (CLB) #616Rare2022

Official rulings

Three official rulings apply to Grell Philosopher, newest first.

  • Grell Philosopher causes Horrors to gain only activated abilities. They don't gain keyword abilities (unless those keyword abilities are activated), triggered abilities, or static abilities.
  • Activated abilities contain a colon. They're generally written “[Cost]: [Effect].” Some keywords are activated abilities and will have colons in their reminder text.
  • The granted abilities effectively use “this permanent” rather than “[that card's name],” so you treat the abilities as if they were printed on the creature that gained the ability. For example, say the artifact was Universal Solvent, which has the ability “{7}, {T}, Sacrifice Universal Solvent: Destroy target permanent.” If Grell Philosopher gained that ability, you'd treat it as though it said “{7}, {T}, Sacrifice Grell Philosopher: Destroy target permanent.”

Similar cards

Other creature cards with a blue colour identity, ranked by how often they appear in Commander decks.

In these precons

Grell Philosopher is in the decklist of these preconstructed Commander decks.

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