Barl's Cage
Artifact
: Target creature doesn't untap during its controller's next untap step.
- CMC
- 4
- Mana cost
- Color identity
- C
- Rarity
- rare
- Set
- Masters Edition III
- Price
- —
- EDHREC rank
- #26392
Barl's Cage taxes every non-artifact creature your opponents control by making them pay three colorless to untap — a repeatable soft-lock that compounds fast at a multiplayer table. The three-mana artifact cost is easy to hit, but the four-mana activation to deploy it means turns four and five feel slow, so it earns its seat only in decks that want the lockout more than they want tempo.
Format Analysis
Where it lives, where it can’t
| Format | Verdict |
|---|---|
| commander | legal |
| legacy | legal |
| modern | not legal |
| pioneer | not legal |
| standard | not legal |
| vintage | legal |
| pauper | not legal |
| oathbreaker | legal |
Commander is where Barl's Cage does its best work — three or four opponents means the cumulative untap tax scales into genuine disruption, and artifact-matters shells like Breya or Urza treat it as cheap fodder that also happens to slow the table down. In Legacy and Vintage it's a relic: three mana for a static penalty that doesn't interact with the stack and doesn't stop spells is simply too slow against formats that win on turns one through three. Oathbreaker is legal but the two-player dynamic shrinks the tax's impact considerably, making it a niche include at best.
Key Combos
Combo lines featuring this card
Price Context
Current price
unknown tier
Pricing data isn't currently available for Barl's Cage, so check Scryfall or TCGPlayer for a live number before buying. As an obscure artifact from an early set with limited reprint history, copies can spike in price without warning — grab it if you see it reasonably priced rather than waiting.
Explore
Sources
Mentioned
Updated . Data from Scryfall, EDHREC, and Commander Spellbook.