Mendicant Core, Guidelight
- Mana cost
- {W}{U}
- Type
- Legendary Artifact Creature — Robot
- Power / toughness
- * / 3
- Set
- Aetherdrift #485 (rare)
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.)
Mendicant Core, Guidelight has 5 printings, first in Aetherdrift (2025). EDHREC ranks it #3,232 among Commander cards. It appears most in Urza, Chief Artificer decks (2,910 on EDHREC). It has 8 official rulings.
Legality
- commander: legal
- legacy: legal
- vintage: legal
- pauper: not legal
- modern: legal
- pioneer: legal
- standard: legal
- brawl: legal
Commanders that run Mendicant Core, Guidelight most
Deck counts from EDHREC.
- Urza, Chief Artificer: 2,910 decks
- Noctis, Prince of Lucis: 2,306 decks
- Miles "Tails" Prower: 1,694 decks
- Kilo, Apogee Mind: 1,443 decks
- Kotori, Pilot Prodigy: 775 decks
- Sydri, Galvanic Genius: 636 decks
- Cayth, Famed Mechanist: 607 decks
- Urza, Lord Protector: 572 decks
Often played with Mendicant Core, Guidelight
Cards that show up in the same decks on EDHREC.
- Pyrewood Gearhulk
- Coalstoke Gearhulk
- Sledge-Class Seedship
- Ultra Magnus, Tactician
- Larval Scoutlander
- Interceptor Mechan
- Biomechan Engineer
- Blaster, Combat DJ
- Atmospheric Greenhouse
- Dyadrine, Synthesis Amalgam
Rulings
- : “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.
- : 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.
- : 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.
- : 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.
- : A player “has max speed” if their speed is 4.
- : 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.
- : 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.
- : Each player tracks their speed (or lack thereof) separately. Increasing your speed has no effect on whether another player has speed.