Death's Approach
Enchantment — Aura
Enchant creature
Enchanted creature gets -X/-X, where X is the number of creature cards in its controller's graveyard.
- CMC
- 1
- Mana cost
- Color identity
- B
- Rarity
- common
- Set
- Jumpstart
- Price
- $0.14
- EDHREC rank
- #20313
Death's Approach is a one-mana enchantment removal spell that shrinks a creature's toughness by the number of creature cards in your graveyard — cheap to cast, but the payoff is entirely dependent on how many bodies you've already put in the bin. In graveyard-heavy black shells it can kill almost anything for a single black mana; in any other context, it's a conditional -0/-X that may never resolve a threat.
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 | legal |
| oathbreaker | legal |
In Commander, Death's Approach sits at the bottom of the removal pile — the format's slower pace means graveyards fill up eventually, but sorcery-speed enchantment removal that requires setup is a tough sell when Doom Blade and Infernal Grasp cost the same or less and ask no questions. Pauper is where Death's Approach actually earns its slot: dedicated black graveyard strategies can consistently fuel it by the midgame, and at common the card pool for removal is genuinely narrower. In Legacy and Vintage the competition is too fierce to justify the setup cost. Modern and Pioneer have enough cheap unconditional removal that there's no reason to run a conditional -X/-X enchantment.
Key Combos
Combo lines featuring this card
Price Context
Current price
$0.14 bulk tier
At $0.14, Death's Approach is pure bulk — you're buying it out of a dollar-rare bin or ordering a playset for the cost of a pack of gum. That price is stable in the way that unplayed commons are stable: there's no demand pressure to push it up, and no reason it should ever spike.
Explore
Sources
Mentioned
Updated . Data from Scryfall, EDHREC, and Commander Spellbook.