All 28 Imprint Cards in Magic Ranked

Last updated on January 30, 2026

Isochron Scepter | Illustration by Mark Harrison

Imprint‘s a funny mechanic in Magic, not because it's hard to understand or does anything obscene in-game, just that it's used way more often than the 28 cards with this ability would suggest. The idea of imprinting is to have a card that can reference another card exiled with its effect, but don't we see that all the time? Is Hama, the Bloodbender a secret imprint card? How about Cemetery Gatekeeper? Is there really a significant difference between Ixalan's Binding and Exclusion Ritual?

The point here is that imprint's not as unique as you'd think, the ability just isn't keyworded on cards that often. That does mean we've got a manageable list of cards to chat about today, so let's rank all the imprint cards in the game. The actual cards with imprint printed on them.

What Are Imprint Cards in MTG?

Phyrexian Ingester | Illustration by Chris Rahn

Imprint is an ability word present on permanents that allows you to exile some number of cards once it's on the battlefield, then references that card for the rest of its ability. Certain imprint cards require you to exile a specific type of card from your graveyard while others want you to exile a designated permanent type from your hand. Most imprint cards are artifacts from various Mirrodin sets, but the mechanic has since been used on different types of cards.

Several imprint permanents can exile cards from any graveyard, and so provide a bit of graveyard hate.

#28. Death-Mask Duplicant

Between its high mana value and specificity of evergreen abilities it interacts with, Death-Mask Duplicant isn’t the best of the imprint cards, but it can be useful in the right scenarios. Fear and landwalk are both close to unblockable against certain opponents, and protection‘s basically necessary to keep this on the field.

#27. Mourner’s Shield

Mourner's Shield is limited to protecting you from a source of damage based on a shared color between the exiled card and the damage source. This artifact would best shine in a 5-color deck where you can exile a card and use the activated ability to prevent damage from just about anything.

#26. Mirror Golem

You should be aiming to exile a multi-typed creature with Mirror Golem, like an artifact creature or enchantment creature. If you’re playing against a control deck, it may be best to exile an instant or sorcery card, shutting off some amount of their targeted removal.

#25. Exclusion Ritual

Exclusion Ritual only makes sense in a Constructed format that allows you to play multiple copies of cards. Rather than exiling a card from your hand or graveyard, Exclusion Ritual is essentially a white removal spell that prevents extra copies of the imprinted permanent from being cast. I wonder if anyone's ever exiled their own permanent to shut off their opponent's copies?

#24. Idris, Soul of the TARDIS

Idris, Soul of the TARDIS is the only imprint card with the vanishing ability. This legendary creature can receive a considerable power and toughness bump if you exile a high mana value artifact card for imprinting. Imagine exiling Blightsteel Colossus for +12/+12! You'll probably want graveyard recursion if this is your commander, since vanishing means it only sticks around for a few turns.

#23. Invader Parasite

Invader Parasite works best if you exile a basic land, especially if you do so against a mono-colored opponent, but you can always nab a non-basic too. This Phyrexian insect is extremely under-statted, but think of it like targeted land destruction that sits around dealing extra damage.

#22. Thought Prison

Thought Prison is a high-cost discard spell that sits around dealing damage after it's exiled a card. It can be especially punishing against a mono-colored deck, but it also affects all players, so you might end up taking damage too. Even if you're not overlapping colors with the imprinted card's controller, Thought Prison deals damage if the mana values line up too.

#21. Spellbinder

Spellbinder looks like an early version of the cipher mechanic. Imprint an instant (not sorcery!), deal combat damage with the equipped creature, and copy the imprinted spell. Copying a counterspell or pump spell is virtually useless due to the timing on this ability, but imprinting a removal spell or draw spell can level the playing field against your opponents.

#20. Clone Shell

As long as you don't miss a creature in the top four cards of your library, Clone Shell is a clever way to sneak a creature onto the battlefield. However, there’s the unfortunate chance that this shapeshifter whiffs, which would make Clone Shell and embarrassing 5-mana play.

#19. Spellweaver Helix

Spellweaver Helix is the only imprint card that naturally exiles two different cards. Much like Exclusion Ritual, this doesn't make much sense in Commander where you can only have one copy of any given card. Unfortunately (or fortunately, maybe), this does not create an infinite loop with double copies of Dragon's Approach, Slime Against Humanity, or anything like that. Helix only triggers when you cast a card, and the copies aren't cards.

#18. Summoner’s Egg

Summoner's Egg is trying to do the same thing as Clone Shell, but you have a little bit more control over what it hits, and whether it hits at all. You have to find to sacrifice the egg, or just lose it in combat, after which you might be placing something like a Craterhoof Behemoth or Blightsteel Colossus into play for free. You'd be excused for not knowing this was an egg creature, since the only copy of the card doesn't have a creature type printed on it.

#17. Soul Foundry

Soul Foundry works well in a token deck with token doubler cards on the field like Anointed Procession and Mondrak, Glory Dominus. However, the presence of this card in a deck usually signals a potential infinite token combo.

Panharmonicon, Peregrine Drake, and Corridor Monitor is one such infinite token combo. Panharmonicon would allow you to imprint both Peregrine Drake and Corridor Monitor. When you create tokens of the two creatures (which would require 7 total mana for the activation), the Peregrine Drake token allows you to untap five lands while the Corridor Monitor copy untaps Soul Foundry to keep making more tokens.

#16. Phyrexian Ingester

Phyrexian Ingester is basically a giant Nekrataal with extra steps, and the extremely rare use of a Y variable in the rules text. Seven mana's still a fortune for this sort of effect, but permanent creature exile on an ETB isn't something blue cards get to do often.

#15. Dermotaxi

Dermotaxi is both graveyard hate and graveyard recursion, if you squint hard enough. While the only drawback is that you have to tap two other creatures to “crew” this vehicle, it’s a small price to pay to keep a key piece of a creature-based deck up and running.

#14. Dino DNA

Jurassic World Collection gives us a targeted imprint effect on Dino DNA. While most popularly used in dinosaur typal decks, any deck with big stompy creatures could benefit from this artifact. However, mana for an activated ability is pretty steep, so running cards that reduce this cost like Zirda, the Dawnwaker and Heartstone are beneficial.

#13. River Song’s Diary

River Song's Diary provides a little bit of spell-based graveyard hate, then plays a little [river] song and dance once it's exiled enough instants and sorceries. You'll eventually get some random spells for free, but note that casting one of the imprinted spells removes it from exile and returns it to its owner's graveyard when it resolves, so you'll need to tuck away another spell before the Diary triggers again.

#12. Prototype Portal

Prototype Portal is like Soul Foundry except you’re exiling an artifact card for imprinting rather than a creature card. You can copy a mana rock like Sol Ring or Arcane Signet if you need more ramp. Copying equipment cards like Commander's Plate or Sword of Feast and Famine is great for Voltron decks. Extra turn artifacts like Gonti's Aether Heart and Ugin's Nexus are the danger cards here.

#11. Strata Scythe

It’s best to exile a basic land card with Strata Scythe, and best to run this in a mono-colored deck. Fit those parameters and you could be looking at an equipment that gives +10/+10 or greater, eventually.

#10. Knowledge Pool

Knowledge Pool has a symmetrical effect on the game, or at least it's supposed to. This chaos card was designed to have spells constantly tagging out between players, but the only time you really see it is alongside Drannith Magistrate or similar cards, which essentially locks your opponents out of casting spells for the rest of the game.

#9. Myr Welder

Myr Welder is an indirect way to add artifact recursion to your deck, so long as the artifacts you're targeting have activated abilities. Myr Welder on the battlefield with Sol Ring and Staff of Domination imprinted on it can start a combo where you can get infinite card draw, infinite colorless mana, and even infinite lifegain.

#8. Semblance Anvil

Semblance Anvil helps with accelerating out spells of a specific type, which is great for themed decks. If you exile an enchantment card from your hand, your other enchantments are now less to cast. The sweet spot is exiling an artifact creature, which reduces the cost of both creature spells and artifact spells at the same time.

#7. Extraplanar Lens

Extraplanar Lens benefits the whole table depending on the color identity of their decks. If you imprint an Island, everyone's basic Islands tap for double mana. You'll usually see this in decks with snow-covered basics, since that'll cut off the benefit to your opponents if they're not also running the same snow-covered lands.

#6. Duplicant

Duplicant is like a better Phyrexian Ingester, not only because it's cheaper, but also because being colorless just means it goes in more decks. It won't be as big as Gorger, but it can give creature removal to decks that don't have tons of it. Unlike some imprint cards, doubling the ETB trigger on Duplicant won't compile the stats of the exiled cards, since the text here specifically mentions the “last creature card exiled with Duplicant.”

#5. Ugin’s Labyrinth

Modern Horizons 3 gave us Ugin's Labyrinth, a powerful colorless land with the imprint ability that can provide mana ramp as long as you imprint a colorless card with mana value 7 or higher. That means you're going down a card for early-game acceleration, but you can use the Labyrinth's last ability to add the card back to your hand when you're ready to cast it. Even better, you can hide away a pivotal wincon, where it'll be safe from discard effects.

#4. Mimic Vat

Mimic Vat is a highly popular imprint card that has seen many reprints in Commander sets since its original printing in Scars of Mirrodin. It’s like a rotating wheel of benefits based on the game state and how you want to respond to it. If you want to save a better creature that just died, you can return the original exiled card to its owner's graveyard and swap them out. The goal is to grab a creature with a powerful ETB or death trigger and create a temporary copy of it every turn.

#3. Isochron Scepter

Isochron Scepter is trivially easy to go infinite with. It's part of the infamous “Dramatic Scepter” combo, which involves imprinting Dramatic Reversal, which will untap the Scepter and a few mana rocks to generate infinite mana. Even if you're not imprinting a combo piece, it's still annoying enough if you just exile a Counterspell or removal spell beneath it.

#2. Chrome Mox

Chrome Mox is a 0-cost mana rock, which is usually enough to make a card completely broken. Most decks don't care about the color of mana Chrome Mox is producing, just the fact that it puts them ahead on mana as early as turn 1.

#1. Panoptic Mirror

Powerful enough to have been banned in Commander, Panoptic Mirror allows you to imprint any instant or sorcery by paying its mana cost and tapping Panoptic Mirror. Exile an extra turn spell and untap and… oops! You just won the game!

Best Imprint Payoffs

While there aren't any cards that specifically reward you for playing imprint cards, you can get creative with them depending on the type of deck you're playing.

Clone Shell and Summoner's Egg have some synergy in sacrifice decks and stompy decks, even if they're more cute than good.

Most imprint cards are artifacts or interact with artifacts, so there's room for those in an artifact-matters Commander deck.

Ulamog, the Defiler, Ketramose, the New Dawn, and Bell Borca, Spectral Sergeant are rare instances of commanders that care about what cards you exile, so maybe there's something cheeky you can do there. Maybe imprint a Draco and swing for lethal commander damage?

Wrap Up

Panoptic Mirror | Illustration by Glen Angus

Imprint cards tend to be a little janky, and very wordy, so they don't show up too often. The ones that do are the ones with basic effects, like Duplicant and Phyrexian Ingester. It must not be an internally popular mechanic either, because it's rarely used in the rules text of cards, even when it could be.

If you're looking for more cards with different keyword abilities like imprint, we encourage you to explore the Draftsim blog to learn more! Keep updated on the latest blog postings by following the Draftsim Facebook page or joining the Draftsim Discord.

Thanks for reading, and we'll see you in the next one!