Dark Nourishment
Instant
Dark Nourishment deals 3 damage to any target. You gain 3 life.
- CMC
- 5
- Mana cost
- Color identity
- B
- Rarity
- uncommon
- Set
- Ixalan
- Price
- $0.14
- EDHREC rank
- #26718
Dark Nourishment drains a target for 4 life at instant speed — a meaningful life swing in a format where starting totals are 40 — but five mana for a one-shot, non-repeatable effect is a steep ask when most black removal ends games for two or three. It's a fine pick in life-total-matters builds; everywhere else, better options exist.
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 |
Commander is where Dark Nourishment finds its best home, specifically in decks that care about life totals as a resource — Vampire tribal, Oloro lifegain, or drain-and-gain aristocrat shells. The five-mana cost is a real barrier in competitive pods where interaction needs to be cheap and efficient, but casual tables running slower games will feel the 4-life swing. In Legacy, Modern, and Pioneer it's outclassed by cheaper removal and drain effects at every point on the curve; legal in all three, but never played. Oathbreaker shares Commander's multiplayer math, so the same niche applies there at reduced scale.
Key Combos
Combo lines featuring this card
Price Context
Current price
$0.14 bulk tier
At $0.14, Dark Nourishment is deep bulk — the kind of card you pull from a draft chaff pile rather than buy individually. Bulk rares and uncommons at this tier rarely move unless a new commander pushes a very specific archetype, and nothing on the horizon makes that likely here.
Explore
Sources
Mentioned
Updated . Data from Scryfall, EDHREC, and Commander Spellbook.