Battlefield Butcher
Creature — Human Soldier
, 
: Each opponent loses 2 life. This ability costs 
less to activate for each creature card in your graveyard.
- CMC
- 3
- Mana cost
- Color identity
- B
- Rarity
- uncommon
- Set
- The Brothers' War
- Price
- $0.06
- EDHREC rank
- #22892
Battlefield Butcher enters with a +1/+1 counter whenever an opponent sacrifices a creature, turning any forced-sacrifice engine into a reliable clock. The two-mana body is easy to slot in, but the payoff only materializes if the deck is already pressuring sacrifice — it does nothing in a vacuum.
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 |
Battlefield Butcher is a Commander card — full stop. In 1v1 formats like Modern or Legacy, two mana for a creature that only grows when opponents sacrifice is far too conditional against opponents not running sacrifice synergies of their own. Commander is where the math works: three opponents running their own engines, plus staples like Grave Pact and Dictate of Erebos that force sacrifice across the table, mean Battlefield Butcher accumulates counters from sources you don't even control. In Oathbreaker it's playable in the same aristocrats shells but the smaller table shrinks the trigger count. Outside Commander, leave it on the shelf.
Key Combos
Combo lines featuring this card
Price Context
Current price
$0.06 bulk tier
At $0.06, Battlefield Butcher is deep bulk — grab a playset for the cost of a sleeve. Bulk rares rarely appreciate unless a format breaks them, and nothing on the competitive horizon does that here, so treat it as a cheap pickup for the Commander cube or a budget aristocrats build rather than a spec.
Explore
Sources
Mentioned
Updated . Data from Scryfall, EDHREC, and Commander Spellbook.