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Cauldron of Souls

Artifact

{T}: Choose any number of target creatures. Each of those creatures gains persist until end of turn. (When it dies, if it had no -1/-1 counters on it, return it to the battlefield under its owner's control with a -1/-1 counter on it.)

CMC
5
Mana cost
{5}
Color identity
C
Rarity
rare
Set
Shadowmoor
Price
$8.72
EDHREC rank
#4128
Buy on TCGplayer
Cauldron of Souls card art
Cauldron of Souls gives your entire board a free persist trigger on demand — one activated ability, and everything that dies comes back with a -1/-1 counter. The catch is the five-mana activation and the tap requirement, but commanders like Horobi, Death's Wail exploit both the targeting and the dying in ways that make Dross Scorpion look slow by comparison.

Best Commanders

Commanders with the highest synergy

01
Horobi, Death's Wail

Horobi, Death's Wail

67.8% of decks · synergy 0.66

Horobi, Death's Wail turns every targeting effect into a kill spell, so Cauldron of Souls does double duty: activate it, target your own creatures to kill them, then watch them return via persist ready to be targeted and killed again.

02
The Scorpion God

The Scorpion God

32.0% of decks · synergy 0.31

The Scorpion God wants creatures entering and dying with -1/-1 counters, and Cauldron of Souls manufactures exactly that loop — each persist return draws a card off The Scorpion God's trigger and sets up the next death.

03
Mikaeus, the Unhallowed

Mikaeus, the Unhallowed

20.5% of decks · synergy 0.19

Mikaeus, the Unhallowed already grants undying to non-Humans, and Cauldron of Souls stacks alongside it, giving redundancy to the persist-loop lines that make Mikaeus one of the most combo-dense commanders in the format.

04
Herigast, Erupting Nullkite

Herigast, Erupting Nullkite

18.0% of decks · synergy 0.17

Herigast, Erupting Nullkite gets cheaper each time a creature dies, so Cauldron of Souls converting a single board wipe into a chain of persist deaths dramatically accelerates the cost reduction.

05
Henzie "Toolbox" Torre

Henzie "Toolbox" Torre

17.5% of decks · synergy 0.15

Henzie "Toolbox" Torre blinks big creatures in at reduced cost, and Cauldron of Souls ensures those creatures get a second death trigger — bleed value keeps stacking even when opponents answer the board.

Format Analysis

Where it lives, where it can’t

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

Commander is where Cauldron of Souls earns its keep — the format's slow pace gives you time to set up the five-mana activation, and the multiplayer board states mean a single use can save four or five creatures at once. In Legacy and Vintage it's technically legal but competes with faster, cheaper protection effects and has never carved out meaningful space in either format. Oathbreaker mirrors Commander's environment closely enough that the same value proposition applies, especially in -1/-1 counter or aristocrats shells. Cauldron of Souls is a Commander card through and through; anywhere outside that format it's a curiosity, not a staple.

Key Combos

Combo lines featuring this card

Budget Alternatives

Cheaper options that do most of the same work

Rescue from the Underworld and Haunted Crossroads offer creature recursion at lower price points but require the creatures to already be dead rather than proactively saving them — you lose the emergency-button quality that makes Cauldron of Souls worth the mana. If the persist redundancy is what you're after, Nurturing Peatland into an undying-focused package or simply running Unspeakable Symbol gets counters removed so persist re-triggers, but neither replaces the mass-save effect Cauldron of Souls provides at instant speed.

Price Context

Current price

$8.72 mid tier

At $8.72, Cauldron of Souls sits in the mid tier — expensive enough to feel like a deliberate include, cheap enough that it won't break a focused build. It's a unique enough effect with no true functional reprint that the price is unlikely to crater, making it a reasonable pickup for any commander that wants the effect.

Explore

Sources

Mentioned

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