Blood Oath
Instant
Choose a card type. Target opponent reveals their hand. Blood Oath deals 3 damage to that player for each card of the chosen type revealed this way. (Artifact, battle, creature, enchantment, instant, kindred, land, planeswalker, and sorcery are card types.)
- CMC
- 4
- Mana cost
- Color identity
- R
- Rarity
- rare
- Set
- World Championship Decks 2001
- Price
- $0.48
- EDHREC rank
- #27024
Blood Oath names a card type, your opponent reveals their hand, and you deal 3 damage for each card of that type — hit a hand loaded with creatures and you're looking at 9 to 15 damage in a single spell. Four mana for a conditional burn spell is the catch: it's a blank against the wrong hand and a one-sided lightning bolt against the right one.
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 |
Blood Oath is a Commander card through and through — the larger hand sizes, slower pace, and creature-heavy strategies in the format make the "name a type" gamble far more reliable than in any 60-card context. In Legacy and Vintage, where hands are sculpted by turn one and opponents routinely hold one or two cards by the time four mana is even available, Blood Oath rarely connects for enough damage to justify the slot. Commander is where the payoff lives: naming creatures at the table against a known stompy or token deck can close out a player who's already taken combat damage.
Key Combos
Combo lines featuring this card
Price Context
Current price
$0.48 bulk tier
At $0.48, Blood Oath is bulk — easy to pick up and no financial risk to try. Price is unlikely to move unless a prominent Commander deck puts it in the spotlight, which is a long shot for a narrow, format-specific card.
Explore
Sources
Mentioned
Updated . Data from Scryfall, EDHREC, and Commander Spellbook.