First printed in Dominaria United (2022)
Legendary Artifact
Karn's Sylex enters tapped.
Players can't pay life to cast spells or to activate abilities that aren't mana abilities.
, 
, Exile Karn's Sylex: Destroy each nonland permanent with mana value X or less. Activate only as a sorcery.
- Illustrated by
- Adam Paquette
Legality
- Legal in
- Pioneer, Modern, Legacy, Vintage, Historic, Timeless, Gladiator, Commander, Duel Commander, Tiny Leaders, Oathbreaker, Brawl, Competitive Brawl
- Not legal in
- Standard, Pauper, Future Standard, Alchemy, Penny Dreadful, Premodern, Old School 93/94, Pauper Commander, PreDH, Standard Brawl
Rulings (5)
- If a spell or an activated ability that isn’t a mana ability has a cost that requires a player to pay life, that spell or ability can’t be cast or activated.
- Other things may still cause players to pay life, such as a resolving spell or ability.
- Players may always pay 0 life, even if an effect says they can’t pay life.
- Activated abilities contain a colon. They’re generally written “[Cost]: [Effect].” Some keyword abilities are activated abilities (such as cycling) and will have colons in their reminder text.
- An activated mana ability is one that produces mana as it resolves, not one that costs mana to activate.
Prices
MTGO price: 0.06 TIX, the cheapest non-foil print (average sell price on GoatBots, 30 Oct 2026).
In Limited on MTG Arena
Win rates in Arena drafts and sealed, retrieved from 17Lands (CC BY 4.0).
| Set | GIH WR | vs set | IWD | Games |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Dominaria United (DMU), Premier Draft | 57.1% | +0.7 | +3.1 | 5535 |
| Dominaria United (DMU), Sealed | 58.4% | +2.3 | +5.4 | 652 |
- GIH WR
- win rate of the games in which the card was in the opening hand or drawn
- vs set
- points above or below the average win rate of all decks in the set
- IWD
- improvement when drawn: GIH WR minus the win rate when the card stayed in the library
- Games
- games in which the card was seen
