Darksteel Monolith
Artifact
Indestructible
Once each turn, you may pay 
rather than pay the mana cost for a colorless spell you cast from your hand.
- CMC
- 8
- Mana cost
- Color identity
- C
- Rarity
- rare
- Set
- Commander Masters
- Price
- $22.17
- EDHREC rank
- #2322
Darksteel Monolith costs eleven mana, is indestructible, and makes everything you cast cost eight less — in the right shell, that's a one-card game-ender stapled to a permanent that can't be Shattered. Zhulodok, Void Gorger is the canonical home: cascade twice off every spell you cast for free, and suddenly eleven mana is the whole game.
Best Commanders
Commanders with the highest synergy
Zhulodok, Void Gorger
Darksteel Monolith is an 89% inclusion in Zhulodok, Void Gorger decks because it converts the commander's cascade triggers into free spells — once the Monolith is down, nearly everything in a Zhulodok list cascades twice for zero mana.
Ulalek, Fused Atrocity
Ulalek, Fused Atrocity wants to copy every triggered ability from its Eldrazi, and Darksteel Monolith makes casting those Eldrazi free after the first, meaning one resolved threat can chain into a full board with all triggers copying simultaneously.
Leonardo da Vinci
Leonardo da Vinci creates artifact tokens scaled to the spells you cast, so Darksteel Monolith pulling the cost floor to zero lets you flood the board with constructs off spells you were already planning to resolve.
Iron Man, Titan of Innovation
Iron Man, Titan of Innovation rewards casting expensive artifacts, and Darksteel Monolith is both an expensive artifact that triggers his ability and the cost reducer that makes the next expensive artifact free.
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 |
Darksteel Monolith is Commander's card through and through — the eleven-mana entry cost only makes sense in a 100-card singleton format where games go long and indestructible permanents survive the board wipes that reset everything else. In Legacy and Vintage it's legal but irrelevant; those formats end before you can ever untap with it, and neither has the ramp infrastructure to cheat it into play reliably. Oathbreaker is theoretically legal but the shorter game clock makes it a near-dead draw. If you're playing Darksteel Monolith, you're playing Commander.
Key Combos
Combo lines featuring this card
Budget Alternatives
Cheaper options that do most of the same work
Semblance Anvil hits a similar cost-reduction role for under a dollar, though it exiles a card to get there and only reduces one card type rather than everything. Ugin's Nexus and Forsaken Monument cover narrower niches; if the goal is pure cost reduction for colorless or artifact spells, Foundry Inspector and Etherium Sculptor together cost less than a dollar and get you most of the way there — they just die to removal, which is the one thing Darksteel Monolith never has to worry about.
Price Context
Current price
$22.17 premium tier
At $22.17, Darksteel Monolith sits in premium artifact territory — expensive enough that it belongs in decks where it genuinely wins games, not as a flex inclusion. It's a narrow card with a narrow audience, so demand stays tied almost entirely to Zhulodok and Eldrazi Commander builds; price stability follows that demand.
Explore
Sources
Updated . Data from Scryfall, EDHREC, and Commander Spellbook.