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Debt to the Deathless

Sorcery

Each opponent loses two times X life. You gain life equal to the life lost this way.

CMC
4
Mana cost
{X}{W}{W}{B}{B}
Color identity
BW
Rarity
uncommon
Set
Ravnica Remastered
Price
$0.42
EDHREC rank
#2508
Buy on TCGplayer
Debt to the Deathless card art
Debt to the Deathless hits every opponent simultaneously — at X=5 in a four-player game, that's 10 life drained and 30 gained, which ends games on the spot. The cost is real: it needs six mana plus X to cast, so it belongs in shells that either generate enormous mana or cheat the cost down, like Will, Scion of Peace or Silverquill, the Disputant builds that can reduce it.

Best Commanders

Commanders with the highest synergy

01
Silverquill, the Disputant

Silverquill, the Disputant

51.2% of decks · synergy 0.41

Silverquill, the Disputant is the single most natural home for Debt to the Deathless — cost-reduction effects from the Silverquill side make the X investment go further, and the drain-and-gain pattern feeds directly into the commander's life-based payoffs.

02
Astarion, the Decadent

Astarion, the Decadent

45.3% of decks · synergy 0.35

Astarion, the Decadent rewards life gain aggressively, and Debt to the Deathless can dump an enormous swing of life into that engine in a single cast — high-X casts effectively turbocharge whatever Astarion is building toward.

03

Sorin of House Markov

44.6% of decks · synergy 0.34

Sorin of House Markov leans into a vampire life-drain gameplan where Debt to the Deathless acts as a scalable finisher, converting a mana advantage into a lethal drain across the table.

04
Kambal, Consul of Allocation

Kambal, Consul of Allocation

42.5% of decks · synergy 0.32

Kambal, Consul of Allocation chips opponents down through incidental life loss all game, and Debt to the Deathless closes the gap — once the table is already pressured, even a modest X is often enough to end things.

05
Licia, Sanguine Tribune

Licia, Sanguine Tribune

30.1% of decks · synergy 0.29

Licia, Sanguine Tribune cares deeply about gaining life in large bursts, and Debt to the Deathless delivers exactly that while also threatening lethal — a single spell can both reduce Licia's commander tax and kill an opponent.

Format Analysis

Where it lives, where it can’t

FormatVerdict
commander legal
legacy legal
modern legal
pioneer legal
standard not legal
vintage legal
pauper not legal
oathbreaker legal

Debt to the Deathless is legal in Commander, Legacy, Modern, Pioneer, Vintage, and Oathbreaker, but its competitive home is essentially nowhere outside Commander. In Legacy, Modern, and Pioneer, the mana investment required to make it threatening is far too slow against the pace of those formats — X-spells that cost six-plus to be meaningful don't compete. Commander is where it lives: multiplayer math turns a single spell into a table-wide swing, and the format's slower clock gives you time to accumulate the mana needed. In Oathbreaker it's technically playable, but the smaller life totals and two-player feel make it less spectacular than in a four-player pod.

Key Combos

Combo lines featuring this card

Price Context

Current price

$0.42 bulk tier

At $0.42, Debt to the Deathless is bulk — easy to pick up without a second thought. Bulk rares with meaningful combo potential tend to hold around this floor, so there's no urgency to stockpile copies.

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Sources

Mentioned

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Updated . Data from Scryfall, EDHREC, and Commander Spellbook.