MTG Skulk Explained: How Skulk Works, How Hard It Is to Block, Every Skulk Card Ranked and a $76 MacCready Deck (2026)

Skulk is the Magic: The Gathering evasion ability that says a creature can’t be blocked by creatures with greater power. A 1/1 with skulk can only be blocked by creatures with power 1 or less. It’s the opposite of how most evasion works: the smaller your skulk creature is, the harder it is to block.

We pulled every skulk card from Scryfall, every deck count from EDHREC, and the power of every creature legal in Commander to measure how much skulk actually dodges. There are 21 cards that mention skulk: 15 creatures with the keyword, one Unfinity sticker sheet, and five cards that give skulk to other creatures. And the numbers back up the instinct: a 1-power skulk creature can be blocked by only 23.7% of Commander-legal creatures, close to the 19.7% that have flying or reach and can block a flier. Give the same creature 2 power and the share jumps to 54.3%.

This guide covers the exact rules, the timing traps (when power is checked and when it isn’t), how skulk compares to flying, menace, fear and shadow, every skulk card ranked by Commander play, the commanders, what skulk costs on a creature’s stats, prices, legality in every format and a $75.95 budget Commander deck built around MacCready, Lamplight Mayor, who gives skulk to every small creature that attacks.

What is skulk in MTG?

Skulk was introduced in Shadows over Innistrad in April 2016. Here is the whole rule from the current Comprehensive Rules (effective 25 September 2026):

702.118a Skulk is an evasion ability.
702.118b A creature with skulk can’t be blocked by creatures with greater power. (See rule 509, “Declare Blockers Step.”)
702.118c Multiple instances of skulk on the same creature are redundant.

That’s the entire rule. Four things follow from it:

1. Equal power can block. A 2/2 with skulk can be blocked by any creature with power 2 or less. Only greater power is shut out.
2. It’s a restriction on the blocker, checked once. Skulk only matters when blockers are declared. If either creature’s power changes after that, the block stands. A pump spell after blocks won’t make your creature unblocked, and shrinking a blocker after blocks won’t remove it from combat.
3. It stacks with other evasion. Evasion abilities are cumulative (rule 509.1b). A creature with skulk and flying can only be blocked by a creature that has flying or reach and has power no greater than the attacker’s.
4. Toughness doesn’t matter. A 1/5 wall can block a 1/1 skulk creature. A 3/1 can’t.

How skulk works: timing, pumps and negative power

When is power checked?

Only as blockers are declared. Wizards’ rulings on Behind the Scenes and Forgotten Creation say it directly: modifying either creature’s power after blockers are chosen won’t cause the attacking creature to become unblocked. That gives you the most important skulk play pattern:

• Pump after blocks, not before. Attack with a 1/1 skulk creature, wait for your opponent to declare no blocks, then cast Giant Growth or activate a pump ability. The creature is already unblocked and stays that way.
• Pumping before blocks hurts you. If you make your skulker 4/4 during your first main phase, almost anything can block it.
• Anthems work against skulk. A static +1/+1 effect makes every skulk creature you control blockable by more creatures. That’s why our deck below runs no anthems.

What about 0 or negative power?

The rulings say to use the actual value, even if it’s negative. A skulk creature with 0 or less power can only be blocked by creatures with the same or lower power, so it will almost never be blocked. It also won’t deal combat damage, so “whenever this deals combat damage to a player” triggers won’t happen. Ingenious Prodigy is the one skulk creature printed with 0 power, and it enters with X +1/+1 counters, so in practice it’s rarely a 0/1 when it attacks.

Does skulk do anything on defence?

No. Skulk only restricts who can block the creature that has it. A skulk creature can block anything normally.

Skulk and deathtouch

Rancid Rats has both. The only creatures that can block it are those with power 1 or less, and any of them that does dies. In practice it’s an unblockable 1-damage clock that nobody wants to block.

For a full breakdown of the keywords that trigger on combat damage, see our guide to combat damage keywords.

How hard is a skulk creature to block? We counted

We took every Commander-legal creature in paper Magic with a printed number for power (17,634 cards; creatures with * power are left out) and counted how many could block a skulk creature of each power. We compared that with flying: of all Commander-legal creatures, 3,516 of 17,852 have flying or reach, which is 19.7%.

Three conclusions:

• At 1 power, skulk is about as good as flying. 23.7% of creatures can block a 1-power skulk creature; 19.7% can block a flier. And a deck’s blockers aren’t random: most decks keep a few cheap 1-power creatures around, but they also keep flying blockers. Against a board of 3/3s and 5/5s, a 1-power skulk creature is unblockable.
• At 2 power, it’s a coin flip. More than half of all creatures can block a 2-power skulker. Every 2/2 token, every mana dork with 1 power and every utility 2-drop gets in the way.
• At 3 power and up, skulk barely matters. Three-quarters of creatures can block a 3-power skulker. That’s why 9 of the 15 skulk creatures have exactly 1 power, three have 2, two have 3, and one has 0.

Is the board getting bigger?

Yes, which makes skulk a little better than it was in 2016. We checked the average power of every new creature by year of release:

In 1995, 68% of new creatures had power 2 or less. In 2016, the year skulk debuted, it was 56.6%. Since 2022 it’s been 44.5% to 51.6%, and the average power of a new creature has gone from 2.52 to 2.74. Fewer small creatures means fewer creatures that can block a small skulk creature.

Skulk vs flying, menace, fear, shadow and unblockable

Skulk is the only evasion ability that rewards you for staying small. That makes it a natural fit for decks that want many small hits: ninjutsu, combat-damage card draw, “deals combat damage to a player” triggers and +1/+1-counter decks that remove counters as they go. For the others, see our guides to menace, fear, shadow and horsemanship.

Every skulk creature, ranked by Commander decks

There are 15 creatures with the skulk keyword (plus the Unfinity sticker sheet Space Fungus Snickerdoodle, which isn’t legal in any constructed format). Ranked by the number of Commander decks on EDHREC that play them:

The top of the list says a lot about how skulk gets used:

• Ingenious Prodigy (51,264 decks) is a card-draw engine first: it enters with X +1/+1 counters and you remove one each upkeep to draw a card. Skulk means it gets harder to block as it shrinks.
• Forgotten Creation (47,780) is played for its upkeep “discard your hand, draw that many” in madness and discard decks. Its 3 power makes skulk a minor bonus.
• Gollum, Obsessed Stalker (29,285) is a lifegain payoff: once it has hit a player, they lose life equal to the life you gain each turn.
• Wharf Infiltrator (23,126) loots on combat damage and makes a 3/2 Eldrazi Horror whenever you discard a creature card and pay {2}.

All 15 together fill 232,386 Commander deck slots. That’s small next to the most popular evasion keywords, but every one of these cards is cheap: the most expensive skulk creature is Gregor, Shrewd Magistrate at $5.09, and the cheapest copies of all 20 playable skulk cards add up to $15.19.

Cards that give skulk

Five cards don’t have the keyword but give it to other creatures:

• Odric, Lunarch Marshal is in 103,430 decks, but almost none of them are there for skulk. Odric shares 13 keywords across your team at the start of each combat, and skulk is just one of them. With Odric out, one skulk creature gives skulk to every creature you control, which only matters for the small ones.
• MacCready, Lamplight Mayor gives skulk to every attacker with power 2 or less. Its power is checked when the ability triggers, so you can pump the creature afterwards and it keeps skulk until end of turn.
• Behind the Scenes gives your whole team skulk, then has {4}{W}: +1/+1 for your creatures. Activate the pump after blockers are declared and you get the best of both.
• Skeleton Key is a one-mana Equipment that gives skulk and loots on combat damage.
• The Master, Mesmerist does something different: it gives skulk to an opponent’s creature (one with power no greater than The Master’s) and goads it. That creature has to attack someone other than you, and is hard to block when it does. When it connects, you draw a card and The Master gets a +1/+1 counter.

The best skulk commanders

Five skulk cards can be your commander. Together they lead 10,527 decks on EDHREC:

MacCready, Lamplight Mayor (W/B)

The real skulk commander. Every creature with power 2 or less gets skulk when it attacks, so a deck of 1- and 2-power creatures turns into a team of near-unblockable attackers. Its second ability punishes anyone who attacks you with a creature with power 4 or greater: they lose 2 life and you gain 2. Top cards on EDHREC are Dusk // Dawn, Welcoming Vampire, Mentor of the Meek and The Battle of Bywater, all cards that reward small creatures. Our budget deck below is built on it.

Gollum, Obsessed Stalker (B)

Mono-black lifegain-drain. Once Gollum has connected with a player, every end step they lose life equal to the life you gained that turn. Its EDHREC top cards are what you’d expect: Exsanguinate, Gray Merchant of Asphodel, Vampire Nighthawk and Crypt Ghast.

Gregor, Shrewd Magistrate (W/U)

Gregor draws cards equal to its power when it deals combat damage to a player, which is in tension with skulk. The fix is timing: attack as a 1/3, let blockers be declared, then pump it. Gregor Voltron decks load it with Equipment and Auras; see a community Gregor Voltron deck on KrakenTheMeta for one take.

The Master, Mesmerist (U/B) and Odric, Lunarch Marshal (W)

The Master is a politics commander that sends opponents’ creatures at each other. Odric is a keyword-sharing commander; skulk is a side bonus.

What does skulk cost? A same-set comparison

Evasion usually costs a creature some stats. We compared the creatures with skulk in Shadows over Innistrad and Eldritch Moon with every other creature in those two sets with a printed power and toughness:

Overall, skulk creatures are much smaller (1.67/2.00 against 2.72/2.95), but that’s mostly because they’re cheaper. At two mana, the five skulk creatures average 1.60/1.80 and the 53 other two-drops 1.66/1.92: skulk cost almost nothing. The samples are tiny (one to five skulk creatures per mana value), so read this as “Wizards didn’t charge much for it,” not as a precise rate. That fits how the ability plays: it’s only strong on creatures that are already small.

A short history of skulk

• 2016: 13 cards in Shadows over Innistrad and Eldritch Moon, the only time skulk has been a set mechanic. Blue and black got the creatures; white got Odric and the pump half of Behind the Scenes.
• 2022: Space Fungus Snickerdoodle, an Unfinity sticker sheet with a skulk sticker.
• 2023: Ingenious Prodigy in Wilds of Eldraine, the only skulk card printed in a main set since 2016. Plus Gollum (Lord of the Rings Commander), Gregor (Universes Within) and three Doctor Who cards: Cybermat, Time Beetle and The Master.
• 2024: MacCready, Lamplight Mayor in the Fallout Commander decks. It’s the newest skulk card.
• 2025–2026: no new skulk cards, but reprints: Forgotten Creation (Aetherdrift Commander), Behind the Scenes (Tarkir: Dragonstorm Commander) and Ingenious Prodigy (Secrets of Strixhaven Commander, April 2026).

Six of the seven new skulk cards since 2016 came from Universes Beyond or Universes Within products. Skulk is now mostly a Commander-product keyword, used when a design needs “sneaky” in a single word.

Budget MacCready skulk deck ($75.95)

This is a 100-card Orzhov deck that costs $75.95 at the cheapest printing of each card, validated against Scryfall for legality and colour identity. Every one of its 34 creatures has power 2 or less (14 in the 99 have power 1 or less, 19 have power 2), so every attacker gets skulk from MacCready. It runs 34 lands. MacCready costs $4.63.

How the deck works

• Small creatures that do something when they enter or die. Corpse Knight, Elas il-Kor, Blood Artist, Zulaport Cutthroat, Cruel Celebrant, Falkenrath Noble, Wispdrinker Vampire and Suture Priest drain or gain on every creature. Welcoming Vampire, Mentor of the Meek and Enduring Innocence draw a card when small creatures enter.
• Attack every turn. With MacCready out, a board of 1/1s and 2/2s is almost unblockable against decks built on 3-, 4- and 5-power creatures. Throne of the God-Pharaoh then drains each opponent for every creature you tapped to attack.
• One-sided board wipes. Dusk // Dawn and The Battle of Bywater destroy every creature with power 3 or greater. Your whole team survives both. Dawn later returns every creature card with power 2 or less from your graveyard to your hand.
• Punish big attackers. MacCready drains anyone who attacks you with a 4-power creature, and Mangara, the Diplomat and Tomik, Wielder of Law draw cards (Tomik also drains 3) when an opponent attacks you with two or more creatures.
• Finish with deathtouch and lifelink. Vault of the Archangel gives your whole team deathtouch and lifelink. Activate it after blockers are declared.

Rules traps in this deck

• Skullclamp makes a 2-power creature a 3-power creature. It gives +1/-1, so a clamped 2/2 attacks as a 3/1 and MacCready’s ability won’t trigger. Equip it to 1-power creatures and tokens.
• No anthems. A static +1/+1 turns your 2-power creatures into 3-power ones before they attack. Pump effects that you activate after blocks, like Vault of the Archangel, are fine.
• MacCready checks power on the trigger. If a 2-power creature attacks and you pump it before the trigger resolves, it still gains skulk (per the official ruling). But skulk itself checks power at declare blockers, so a pumped creature is easier to block.

The decklist

Use the button above to load the whole list into a TCGplayer cart. The ten most expensive cards:

Upgrades, in order: Delney, Streetwise Lookout (it doubles your creatures’ triggered abilities and stops creatures with power 3 or greater from blocking your small ones; $34.84), Lotho, Corrupt Shirriff, Mother of Runes, Smothering Tithe and Godless Shrine. Test changes with our free deck analyzer, or check budget swaps for anything you’re missing. The deck’s drain engine works the same way as the one in our aristocrats guide.

Is skulk legal in Standard, Pioneer, Modern and Pauper?

• Standard: only Ingenious Prodigy, from Wilds of Eldraine.
• Pioneer and Modern (14): every skulk card from Shadows over Innistrad, Eldritch Moon and Wilds of Eldraine. The Commander and Universes Beyond cards (Gollum, Gregor, MacCready and the three Doctor Who cards) aren’t legal there.
• Pauper (4): Farbog Revenant, Furtive Homunculus, Rancid Rats and Fogwalker.
• Commander, Legacy and Vintage: all 20. None is banned.
• Arena: 6 are legal in Historic and Brawl.

Prices are the cheapest non-promo printing on Scryfall’s TCGplayer data on 5 October 2026. Look up any card’s current price on our MTG card price tool.

Skulk FAQ

What does skulk mean in MTG?

A creature with skulk can’t be blocked by creatures with greater power. Creatures with equal or lower power can block it normally.

Can a creature with the same power block a skulk creature?

Yes. Only creatures with greater power are shut out. A 2/2 skulk creature can be blocked by a 2/2.

Can I pump my skulk creature after it’s blocked?

Yes, and if it wasn’t blocked, pumping it won’t make it blockable. Skulk is only checked when blockers are declared.

Does toughness matter for skulk?

No. Only power. A 0/8 wall can block any skulk creature.

Is skulk the same as “can’t be blocked”?

No. A skulk creature can still be blocked by creatures with equal or lower power. A 1-power skulk creature can be blocked by about 24% of Commander-legal creatures.

Is skulk better than flying?

On a 1-power creature, about the same: 23.7% of Commander-legal creatures can block a 1-power skulker and 19.7% can block a flier. On anything bigger, flying is much better.

What happens if a skulk creature has 0 or negative power?

Use the actual number. It can only be blocked by creatures with that power or lower, so it’s almost never blocked, but it also deals no combat damage.

Does skulk work with ninjutsu?

Yes, and well. An unblocked skulk creature can be returned to hand to put a Ninja onto the battlefield attacking. Cheap 1-power skulkers like Furtive Homunculus are good ninjutsu enablers; see our ninjutsu guide.

Do two instances of skulk do anything?

No. Multiple instances of skulk on the same creature are redundant (rule 702.118c).

What was the most recent skulk card?

MacCready, Lamplight Mayor from the Fallout Commander decks, March 2024. No new skulk card has been printed since, though older ones were reprinted in 2025 and 2026 Commander decks.

For more evasion and combat keywords, see our guides to menace, lifelink and phasing. You can also browse thousands of community Commander decks for more MacCready, Gollum and Gregor lists.