Chaos Warp
Instant
The owner of target permanent shuffles it into their library, then reveals the top card of their library. If it's a permanent card, they put it onto the battlefield.
- CMC
- 3
- Mana cost
- Color identity
- R
- Rarity
- rare
- Set
- The List
- Price
- $0.94
- EDHREC rank
- #30
Chaos Warp is red's answer to the permanents it otherwise can't touch — enchantments, planeswalkers, problematic commanders — and at three mana it's a staple in nearly every red Commander deck for exactly that reason. The one real trade-off is the random flip: you're exiling the threat but potentially replacing it with something worse, which matters more in a Dogmeat, Ever Loyal graveyard shell where your opponent's library is stacked with value.
Where It Shines
Where the extra mana on turn one matters most
Big-mana shells like Isshin, Two Heavens as One
Isshin, Two Heavens as One runs red as a core color and needs flexible interaction that doesn't care about card type — Chaos Warp fills the slot no other red spell can, handling the enchantments and planeswalkers that would otherwise stall a combat-focused gameplan.
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 the natural home for Chaos Warp — it's one of the format's most-played red cards specifically because red has almost no other way to permanently answer enchantments, and hitting any permanent type for three mana is an outsized rate in a singleton format. In Legacy and Vintage it's legal but sees virtually no play, because those formats have access to better universal interaction and the random flip is too unreliable in a context where games are decided on precision. Oathbreaker offers the same logic as Commander: if you're in red and an opponent's static enchantment is locking you out, Chaos Warp is your answer.
Key Combos
Combo lines featuring this card
Price Context
Current price
$0.94 bulk tier
At $0.94, Chaos Warp sits in bulk territory despite being a near-universal red staple, which means there's no reason to hunt for a cheaper version — just pick up a copy. Heavy reprint history has kept the price flat and it's unlikely to spike, so grab it whenever you're building red.
Explore
Sources
Updated . Data from Scryfall, EDHREC, and Commander Spellbook.