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Archfiend of Despair

Creature — Demon

Flying
Your opponents can't gain life.
At the beginning of each end step, each opponent loses life equal to the life that player lost this turn. (Damage causes loss of life.)

CMC
8
Mana cost
{6}{B}{B}
Color identity
B
Rarity
mythic
Set
Battlebond
Price
$21.46
EDHREC rank
#2737
Buy on TCGplayer
Archfiend of Despair card art
Archfiend of Despair doubles all life loss your opponents suffer each end step — a passive halving of every life total that compounds faster than most tables expect. Eight mana is steep, but Be'lakor, the Dark Master and other Demon-tribal shells cheat it into play early enough that the cost rarely matters, and Unstoppable Slasher turns the end-step trigger into a kill condition on its own.

Best Commanders

Commanders with the highest synergy

01
Be'lakor, the Dark Master

Be'lakor, the Dark Master

41.0% of decks · synergy 0.39

Be'lakor, the Dark Master draws a card every time a Demon enters the battlefield, so Archfiend of Despair is both a payoff and a card — the doubled end-step life loss closes games that Be'lakor's incidental drain has already whittled down.

02
Ardyn, the Usurper

Ardyn, the Usurper

37.0% of decks · synergy 0.34

Ardyn, the Usurper cares about opponents losing life through multiple vectors, and Archfiend of Despair turns every point of damage dealt anywhere on the board into two points of life loss at end step, synergizing directly with Ardyn's accumulating counters engine.

03
Rakdos, Lord of Riots

Rakdos, Lord of Riots

32.9% of decks · synergy 0.30

Rakdos, Lord of Riots needs opponents to have lost life before it can attack, and Archfiend of Despair guarantees a minimum life-loss trigger at the end of every turn — making Rakdos reliably cheap to cast even when combat hasn't happened yet.

04
Kaalia of the Vast

Kaalia of the Vast

32.8% of decks · synergy 0.29

Kaalia of the Vast puts Archfiend of Despair into play attacking on the turn it enters, bypassing the eight-mana cost entirely and immediately threatening the doubled end-step damage before opponents can untap.

05
Athreos, God of Passage

Athreos, God of Passage

22.5% of decks · synergy 0.21

Athreos, God of Passage builds around the tension of opponents paying three life to deny recursion, and Archfiend of Despair doubles that repeated three-life bleed into six per end step — pressure that stacks fast in a slow, grindy gameplan.

Format Analysis

Where it lives, where it can’t

FormatVerdict
commander legal
legacy legal
modern not legal
pioneer not legal
standard not legal
vintage legal
pauper not legal
oathbreaker legal

Commander is where Archfiend of Despair lives — three opponents means three separate end-step doublings, and the multiplayer life totals make the attrition clock forgiving enough that eight mana is actually playable. In Legacy and Vintage it's technically legal but never sees play; fair eight-drops don't compete in formats where the game is often decided by turn two. Oathbreaker shares the multiplayer math that makes Archfiend dangerous, though the 20-life starting total means the doubled triggers close games faster than in Commander.

Key Combos

Combo lines featuring this card

Budget Alternatives

Cheaper options that do most of the same work

Wound Reflection does almost exactly what Archfiend of Despair does for roughly a third of the price — the doubling effect is identical, and the enchantment type makes it harder to remove with creature removal. The trade-off is that Archfiend brings a 6/6 flying body that can attack and block, while Wound Reflection is a purely passive effect; if your deck needs a threat stapled to the effect, the Archfiend earns its premium.

Price Context

Current price

$21.46 premium tier

At $21.46, Archfiend of Despair sits in premium territory — justified by a unique effect that has no direct creature-type reprint and consistent demand across Demon-tribal, life-drain, and group-slug builds. It's held this price band steadily, and with no reprint in a widely-opened product in recent memory, there's little reason to expect a sudden floor drop.

Explore

Sources

Mentioned

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Updated . Data from Scryfall, EDHREC, and Commander Spellbook.