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Cabal Stronghold

Land

{T}: Add {C}.
{3}, {T}: Add {B} for each basic Swamp you control.

CMC
0
Mana cost
Color identity
B
Rarity
rare
Set
Dominaria Promos
Price
—
EDHREC rank
#971
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Cabal Stronghold card art
Cabal Stronghold turns a mono-black basic-land-heavy manabase into a late-game mana engine, tapping for one colorless and then generating one black mana per basic Swamp you control — the more Swamps, the more it outpaces any other utility land. The cost is real: it's a dead card until you have four or five Swamps in play, and doubling its activation with Rings of Brighthearth is the kind of ceiling that makes Toshiro Umezawa builds salivate.

Best Commanders

Commanders with the highest synergy

01
Toshiro Umezawa

Toshiro Umezawa

57.7% of decks · synergy 0.23

Toshiro Umezawa runs mono-black and wants to chain instants at the end of opponents' turns, which means having mana available at all times — Cabal Stronghold gives Toshiro Umezawa the big mana needed to hold up expensive interaction without tapping out on his own turn.

03
Ardyn, the Usurper

Ardyn, the Usurper

48.9% of decks · synergy 0.14

Ardyn, the Usurper runs a Swamp-dense black base and demands large amounts of mana to grind through a long game; Cabal Stronghold scales directly with that basic-land count and helps Ardyn, the Usurper convert a stalled board into a mana surplus.

Format Analysis

Where it lives, where it can’t

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

Cabal Stronghold is legal in Commander, Legacy, Modern, Pioneer, Vintage, and Oathbreaker, but its practical home is Commander by a wide margin. In Commander, the singleton rule and longer game length let Cabal Stronghold reach the Swamp count where it actually generates mana advantage — you're looking at five or more basics before it outpaces a basic Swamp, and 100-card mono-black decks get there reliably. In competitive Legacy or Modern, the manabase constraints and faster clock make it nearly unplayable; decks in those formats can't afford colorless-entering lands when they're trying to cast spells on turns one and two. Pioneer is closer but still hostile — monocolor black midrange decks exist, but the games don't go long enough often enough to justify it over a basic Swamp. Stick to Commander, specifically mono-black lists with 30-plus basic Swamps.

Key Combos

Combo lines featuring this card

Price Context

Current price

unknown tier

Cabal Stronghold pricing isn't currently available in our data, so check Scryfall or your preferred retailer for a live quote. Historically it has sat in the budget-to-mid range for utility lands, making it an accessible pickup for any mono-black Commander build that qualifies.

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Sources

Mentioned

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