Collective Effort
Sorcery
Escalate—Tap an untapped creature you control. (Pay this cost for each mode chosen beyond the first.)
Choose one or more —
• Destroy target creature with power 4 or greater.
• Destroy target enchantment.
• Put a +1/+1 counter on each creature target player controls.
- CMC
- 3
- Mana cost
- Color identity
- W
- Rarity
- rare
- Set
- Shadows over Innistrad Remastered
- Price
- —
- EDHREC rank
- #3266
Collective Effort is a modal sorcery that can simultaneously destroy an enchantment, wipe a board of +1/+1 counters, and pump your team — all three modes available at once if you escalate. The cost is real: escalate requires tapping creatures you control, so you need a wide board to get full value, making this a payoff card rather than an early play. Neyali, Suns' Vanguard decks that go wide with tokens are exactly the shell where Collective Effort earns its slot.
Best Commanders
Commanders with the highest synergy
Neyali, Suns' Vanguard
Neyali, Suns' Vanguard floods the board with attacking tokens, so tapping several creatures to escalate Collective Effort costs almost nothing while netting a pump, an enchantment answer, and a counter wipe all in one card.
Kros, Defense Contractor
Kros, Defense Contractor builds a wide board of creatures with counters on opponents' stuff, and Collective Effort's escalate taps that same wide board to answer enchantments and strip +1/+1 counters from threats Kros doesn't control.
Tidus, Yuna's Guardian
Tidus, Yuna's Guardian rewards you for tapping creatures anyway, so escalating Collective Effort slots naturally into the tap-for-value gameplan without sacrificing combat tempo.
Marneus Calgar
Marneus Calgar draws cards off token creation, and Collective Effort's team-pump mode can trigger that engine by putting +1/+1 counters on your creatures while the escalate modes handle the board state.
Inquisitor Greyfax
Inquisitor Greyfax wants a wide vigilance board, and Collective Effort's team-pump pairs cleanly with that strategy while the escalate modes double as flexible answers without requiring combat creatures to tap.
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 |
In Commander, Collective Effort is a role-player in token-wide white strategies — the escalate modes make it a multi-purpose tool that answers enchantments or strips counters while simultaneously advancing your board, which is exactly the kind of efficiency the format rewards on a sorcery. In competitive 60-card formats like Modern and Legacy, it sees almost no play; paying mana plus tapping your own creatures at sorcery speed is far too slow when dedicated answers like Disenchant or Wear // Tear exist at instant speed for less. Pioneer is the same story — the card was legal but never found a home because the tempo loss from escalating on a proactive board is punishing in a format that punishes stumbles. Oathbreaker shares enough of Commander's wide-board dynamics that it can show up in the same token-focused shells, though the smaller life totals compress games enough that the sorcery speed sometimes hurts.
Key Combos
Combo lines featuring this card
Price Context
Current price
unknown tier
Pricing data for Collective Effort isn't currently available in our system, so check Scryfall or TCGPlayer for the latest figures before picking up copies. Historically it's been a bulk-rare, and given its narrow competitive application, it almost certainly remains an affordable pickup for the Commander tables where it belongs.
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Sources
Updated . Data from Scryfall, EDHREC, and Commander Spellbook.