Damping Field
Enchantment
Players can't untap more than one artifact during their untap steps.
- CMC
- 3
- Mana cost
- Color identity
- W
- Rarity
- uncommon
- Set
- Antiquities
- Price
- $8.75
- EDHREC rank
- #26506
Damping Field locks every player to one mana ability per turn — no stacking Llanowar Elves into Sol Ring into Arcane Signet, no chaining mana dorks, no untapping Gaea's Cradle twice. It's a surgical stax piece that punishes mana-dense boards without touching land drops, which makes it far narrower than it looks.
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 |
Damping Field is legal in Commander, Legacy, Vintage, and Oathbreaker, but Commander is the only format where it earns a slot. In Legacy and Vintage, the mana-ability restriction is so trivially played around by fast mana and broken spell chains that Damping Field barely registers as a speed bump. Commander is its home: four-player games reward symmetrical stax pieces precisely because you're taxing three opponents at once, and the mana-rock-heavy environment the card punishes most is endemic to the format. In Oathbreaker it's technically playable but the smaller deck size and faster goldfish pace mean you need hate that closes games, not slows them.
Key Combos
Combo lines featuring this card
Budget Alternatives
Cheaper options that do most of the same work
Thorn of Amethyst and Sphere of Resistance both cost under $2 and slow spell-based mana acceleration in ways that overlap with Damping Field's role — they don't restrict mana abilities directly, but they tax the early-game spell chains that follow mana-rock dumps. If the specific goal is shutting down mana dork stacking, neither replicates Damping Field exactly; you trade precision for price and broader application.
Price Context
Current price
$8.75 mid tier
At $8.75, Damping Field sits in mid-tier pricing for a niche stax enchantment with a small but dedicated audience. It's a narrow card with no spike potential, so the price reflects collector demand and low reprint exposure more than competitive saturation — don't expect it to climb, but it's not going to crater either.
Explore
Sources
Mentioned
Updated . Data from Scryfall, EDHREC, and Commander Spellbook.