Deadly Brew
Sorcery
Each player sacrifices a creature or planeswalker of their choice. If you sacrificed a permanent this way, you may return another permanent card from your graveyard to your hand.
- CMC
- 2
- Mana cost
- Color identity
- BG
- Rarity
- uncommon
- Set
- Secrets of Strixhaven Commander
- Price
- $0.29
- EDHREC rank
- #5299
Deadly Brew destroys a nonland permanent and replaces itself with a land — two meaningful effects stapled together for two mana. In Golgari sacrifice shells, especially Dina, Essence Brewer, the forced sacrifice is a feature, not a drawback.
Best Commanders
Commanders with the highest synergy
Dina, Essence Brewer
Dina, Essence Brewer drains opponents whenever you gain life, and Deadly Brew's sacrifice-then-fetch loop keeps feeding that engine while also answering threats. Running it in Dina means the self-sacrifice clause is often a free bonus trigger rather than a cost.
Savra, Queen of the Golgari
Savra, Queen of the Golgari punishes opponents whenever a black or green creature dies, so Deadly Brew's sacrifice clause becomes a reliable Savra trigger on demand. The removal plus ramp package is exactly what Savra shells need to keep the board clear while fueling sacrifice payoffs.
Mazirek, Kraul Death Priest
Every sacrifice puts a +1/+1 counter on each creature you control under Mazirek, Kraul Death Priest, and Deadly Brew turns a routine removal spell into a board-wide pump. The land fetch also accelerates toward Mazirek's expensive haymakers.
Dina, Soul Steeper
Dina, Soul Steeper drains for each life gain trigger, and Deadly Brew's sacrifice-plus-fetch loop slides naturally into the life-gain-matters package those decks run. It's removal that doesn't interrupt the drain plan.
Beledros Witherbloom
Beledros Witherbloom rewards life payment and creature death, and Deadly Brew supplies both a creature sacrifice and a land for mana acceleration. It's a utility piece that checks multiple boxes in a deck that wants every card doing double duty.
Format Analysis
Where it lives, where it can’t
| Format | Verdict |
|---|---|
| commander | legal |
| legacy | legal |
| modern | legal |
| pioneer | legal |
| standard | legal |
| vintage | legal |
| pauper | not legal |
| oathbreaker | legal |
Deadly Brew is legal across Commander, Legacy, Modern, Pioneer, Standard, Vintage, and Oathbreaker, but its real home is Commander. In 60-card formats, two mana for a sorcery-speed removal spell that requires a self-sacrifice is too slow and conditional against the redundancy those formats demand. Commander's singleton constraint and slower average pace make the land fetch meaningful — fetching any basic smooths mana across five turns better in a 100-card deck than in a 60-card one. The sacrifice clause goes from a drawback to an asset in any Commander build with sacrifice synergies, which describes a large share of Golgari decks. Outside those synergy shells, Deadly Brew is serviceable but unremarkable; inside them, it overperforms its mana cost.
Key Combos
Combo lines featuring this card
Price Context
Current price
$0.29 bulk tier
At $0.29, Deadly Brew is firmly bulk — easy to pick up and impossible to justify cutting for budget reasons. It won't hold or grow in value, but in any sacrifice-synergy Commander deck that wants it, cost is never the obstacle.
Explore
Sources
Updated . Data from Scryfall, EDHREC, and Commander Spellbook.