Mendicant Core, Guidelight card art

Mendicant Core, Guidelight

Legendary Artifact Creature — Robot MV 2

Tracked across real Commander games played through TurnZero HQ.

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What it doesCombosRulingsIn the 99Every version

What it does

Mendicant Core's power is equal to the number of artifacts you control.

Start your engines! (If you have no speed, it starts at 1. It increases once on each of your turns when an opponent loses life. Max speed is 4.)

Max speed — Whenever you cast an artifact spell, you may pay 1. If you do, copy it. (The copy becomes a token.)

Combos with Mendicant Core, Guidelight

The lines this card is part of, what it needs alongside it, and what the cards do together. An infinite result is the one that moves a deck's bracket.

Combo data from Commander Spellbook, the community-maintained database of Magic combos. Mirrored nightly.

Rulings

8 official rulings, in the order Wizards published them.

  • 2025-02-07

    “Max speed — [ability]” means “As long as you have max speed, this object has [ability].” If the granted ability functions in a zone other than the battlefield, the max speed ability does too.

  • 2025-02-07

    If an effect needs to know what a player’s speed is and that player doesn’t have a speed, their speed is considered 0.

  • 2025-02-07

    The copy remembers any decisions that were made for the original spell as it was cast, including values chosen for X in its mana cost and whether any alternative or additional costs were chosen. For example, if the original artifact spell had kicker and its kicker cost was paid, the copy will also be kicked.

  • 2025-02-07

    A resolving copy of a permanent spell becomes a token, so the token isn’t “created.” Effects that care about a token being created won’t interact with a token that enters the battlefield from Mendicant Core’s last ability.

  • 2025-02-07

    A player “has max speed” if their speed is 4.

  • 2025-02-07

    Start your engines! isn’t a triggered ability. Increasing your speed to 1 is something that happens as a state-based action as soon as you control a permanent with the ability. Notably, this includes gaining control of a permanent with the ability that another player controls.

  • 2025-02-07

    Your speed doesn’t change until a spell or ability says so, such as the inherent triggered ability that cares about opponents losing life during your turn. Notably, losing control of permanents with start your engines! doesn’t affect your speed.

  • 2025-02-07

    Each player tracks their speed (or lack thereof) separately. Increasing your speed has no effect on whether another player has speed.

Rulings are Wizards of the Coast's own, mirrored from Scryfall and refreshed nightly.

In the 99

Every deck whose current list includes Mendicant Core, Guidelight, whatever its commander.

Decks running it 1
Games played 0
Win rate — Fewer than 5 completed games, which is not enough to publish a rate yet.
Confirmed on board 0 Games where a board photo caught it actually in play.

Most played under

Commander Decks Games Win rate
Tivit, Seller of Secrets 1 0 —

Colors it shows up in

  • Esper 1 deck

Every version of Mendicant Core, Guidelight

5 printings, newest first. Prices are the market figures Scryfall publishes, refreshed nightly. A printing with no figure shows a dash rather than a zero, because Scryfall publishes none for some of them.

Prices from Scryfall, which tracks the TCGplayer and Cardmarket markets. They move daily and are a guide rather than a quote. Search TCGplayer for Mendicant Core, Guidelight. It runs a name search across every version, which covers the printings TCGplayer publishes no direct link to.

Aggregated from Commander games tracked in TurnZero HQ. Every figure counts decks and games only. No individual deck list, player or playgroup is identified. Win rates are withheld below 5 completed games, where the sample is too small to mean anything.