Cruel Bargain
Sorcery
Draw four cards. You lose half your life, rounded up.
- CMC
- 3
- Mana cost
- Color identity
- B
- Rarity
- rare
- Set
- Vintage Masters
- Price
- —
- EDHREC rank
- #21991
Cruel Bargain puts four cards in your hand for one black mana — the cost is dropping to 4 life, which is irrelevant in most black strategies and catastrophic in none. In K'rrik, Son of Yawgmoth decks especially, where life is a second resource you're already spending aggressively, this is a strict upgrade over Ambition's Cost and peers at the same slot.
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 |
In Commander, Cruel Bargain is a legitimate role-player in mono-black and black-heavy life-payment shells — four cards for one mana is an exceptional rate at any point in the game, and 4 life is a rounding error in a 40-life format. Legacy and Vintage have access to it, but those formats' draw spells set a brutal bar: Brainstorm, Ancestral Recall, and Necropotence make Cruel Bargain redundant in competitive lists. It's legal in Oathbreaker, where the 20-life starting total makes the 4-life cost more meaningful but still usually manageable in the right shell.
Key Combos
Combo lines featuring this card
K'rrik, Son of YawgmothDoomsdayAphotic WispsCruel BargainSacrificeMikaeus, the UnhallowedWalking BallistaViscera Seer
Infinite damage; Infinite death triggers; Infinite ETB; Infinite LTB; Infinite sacrifice triggers; Infinite scry 1
View on Commander Spellbook ↗Price Context
Current price
unknown tier
Pricing data for Cruel Bargain isn't currently available, so check Scryfall or TCGPlayer for the current market rate before picking up copies. Given its narrow competitive footprint — Commander and casual Legacy at best — it tends to be inexpensive, but printings and demand spikes can shift that quickly.
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Sources
Updated . Data from Scryfall, EDHREC, and Commander Spellbook.