Aggressive Mining
Enchantment
You can't play lands.
Sacrifice a land: Draw two cards. Activate only once each turn.
- CMC
- 4
- Mana cost
- Color identity
- R
- Rarity
- rare
- Set
- Magic 2015
- Price
- $0.56
- EDHREC rank
- #8566
Aggressive Mining hands you two cards whenever you sacrifice a land — raw draw at a scale red rarely touches — but it locks you out of playing lands for the rest of the game, which means the turn you cast it, your mana base is frozen in place. In any deck that wants to donate it to an opponent, most obviously Blim, Comedic Genius, that downside becomes the entire point.
Best Commanders
Commanders with the highest synergy
Blim, Comedic Genius
Blim, Comedic Genius is the natural home: donating Aggressive Mining to an opponent via Blim's combat trigger hands them a land-play lock they didn't ask for while you retain none of the downside, and decks built around Blim are already stocked with punishing enchantments that make this a first-pick include at over 62% inclusion.
Iroh, Tea Master
Iroh, Tea Master rewards you for drawing cards, so Aggressive Mining's two-cards-per-land-sacrifice output feeds Iroh's triggers efficiently — nearly half of all Iroh decks run it because the draw density justifies accepting a capped land count in a deck that wants to be casting spells, not making drops.
Zedruu the Greathearted
Zedruu the Greathearted gifts permanents to opponents and draws cards for each one donated, so Aggressive Mining does double work: pass it across the table to lock an opponent's lands while Zedruu's upkeep trigger pads your hand, a combination present in roughly 46% of Zedruu lists.
Toph, Hardheaded Teacher
Toph, Hardheaded Teacher cares about lands entering play and resource denial, so Aggressive Mining fits as a way to convert surplus lands into cards while leaning into the land-disruption theme — about 15% of Toph decks include it, making it a solid role-player rather than a centerpiece.
Format Analysis
Where it lives, where it can’t
| Format | Verdict |
|---|---|
| commander | legal |
| legacy | legal |
| modern | legal |
| pioneer | legal |
| standard | not legal |
| vintage | legal |
| pauper | not legal |
| oathbreaker | legal |
In Commander, Aggressive Mining occupies a narrow but reliable niche: donate-your-problems decks run it as a weapon, and high-draw red builds run it as fuel, accepting the land lock because their curve is already low enough to function on five or six mana. In Legacy and Vintage, the card sees virtually no play — those formats move too fast and too interactively for a four-mana enchantment that requires board setup to pay off. Modern and Pioneer are similarly inhospitable; the land lock is a steep ask in formats where hitting your drops every turn is non-negotiable. Aggressive Mining is fundamentally a Commander card: the multiplayer table and the gift-permanent archetype are the conditions that make its downside a feature rather than a fatal flaw.
Key Combos
Combo lines featuring this card
Price Context
Current price
$0.56 bulk tier
At $0.56, Aggressive Mining is bulk — you're paying essentially nothing for a card with a focused but real niche in Commander. Bulk status is stable here; it's not the kind of card that spikes, but it also won't get cheaper, so picking up copies whenever you need them is straightforward.
Explore
Sources
Mentioned
- Blim, Comedic Genius
- Iroh, Tea Master
- Zedruu the Greathearted
- Toph, Hardheaded Teacher
Updated . Data from Scryfall, EDHREC, and Commander Spellbook.