Dangerous Wager
Instant
Discard your hand, then draw two cards.
- CMC
- 2
- Mana cost
- Color identity
- R
- Rarity
- common
- Set
- Avacyn Restored
- Price
- $0.16
- EDHREC rank
- #14646
Dangerous Wager refills your hand at instant speed — discard your hand, draw two — and costs only two mana, making it one of the cheapest ways to convert an empty grip into cards mid-combat or at end of turn. The catch is symmetry with your own hand: cast it with one or zero cards and you're ahead; cast it with three and you've wasted resources. Rielle, the Everwise breaks this asymmetry entirely, turning the discard into additional draws and making Dangerous Wager a net-positive engine piece rather than a break-even gamble.
Best Commanders
Commanders with the highest synergy
Rielle, the Everwise
Rielle, the Everwise converts each discard from Dangerous Wager into an additional draw, meaning Wager effectively reads 'draw four' at minimum — and more if you already hold cards when you cast it. That's the engine: Dangerous Wager stops being a hand-reset and becomes one of the most mana-efficient draw spells in the deck.
Format Analysis
Where it lives, where it can’t
| Format | Verdict |
|---|---|
| commander | legal |
| legacy | legal |
| modern | legal |
| pioneer | not legal |
| standard | not legal |
| vintage | legal |
| pauper | legal |
| oathbreaker | legal |
In Commander, Dangerous Wager earns its slot almost exclusively in discard-synergy builds — outside of those, it's outclassed by draw spells that don't demand an empty hand. In Pauper, where card advantage at common is genuinely scarce, it sees occasional play in red-based shells that want to loot or chain spells quickly. Legacy and Vintage have access to so much broken draw that Dangerous Wager never competes seriously there. The card's home is Commander, specifically in the narrow band of decks where discarding is a feature, not a bug.
Key Combos
Combo lines featuring this card
Price Context
Current price
$0.16 bulk tier
At $0.16, Dangerous Wager is bulk — the kind of card you pick out of a dollar box or trade binder without thinking twice. Bulk commons with niche synergy profiles like this rarely move in price, so there's no urgency and no risk: it's cheap because the demand ceiling is low outside of dedicated discard decks.
Explore
Sources
Mentioned
Updated . Data from Scryfall, EDHREC, and Commander Spellbook.