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Descent into Avernus

Enchantment

At the beginning of your upkeep, put two descent counters on this enchantment. Then each player creates X Treasure tokens and this enchantment deals X damage to each player, where X is the number of descent counters on this enchantment.

CMC
3
Mana cost
{2}{R}
Color identity
R
Rarity
rare
Set
Commander Legends: Battle for Baldur's Gate
Price
$13.11
EDHREC rank
#884
Buy on TCGplayer
Descent into Avernus card art
Descent into Avernus accelerates everyone's mana while draining everyone's life — at its floor it's a Treasure-generating group-slug enchantment, and at its ceiling it's a combo piece that ends the game. The catch is that it genuinely helps opponents too, so you need a plan to exploit the Treasures faster than they can, whether that's Time Sieve looping extra turns or Jaws, Relentless Predator converting damage into a board that kills before the scales tip.

Best Commanders

Commanders with the highest synergy

01
Jaws, Relentless Predator

Jaws, Relentless Predator

88.6% of decks · synergy 0.78

Jaws, Relentless Predator turns the life-loss clause of Descent into Avernus into a direct damage engine — every point opponents lose is progress toward the commander's triggered kills, and the Treasures fund the mana-hungry top end of a Gruul midrange deck that wants to move fast.

02
Auntie Blyte, Bad Influence

Auntie Blyte, Bad Influence

77.3% of decks · synergy 0.67

Auntie Blyte, Bad Influence cares about losing life in chunks, and Descent into Avernus delivers a reliable source of that damage every upkeep while simultaneously stocking the Treasures needed to activate Blyte's pump abilities and go wide.

03
Vazi, Keen Negotiator

Vazi, Keen Negotiator

70.2% of decks · synergy 0.66

Vazi, Keen Negotiator runs a political engine that rewards handing out resources, and Descent into Avernus fits neatly as a shared-Treasure distributor that keeps opponents invested in not attacking Vazi's controller while quietly escalating the slug damage.

04
Vihaan, Goldwaker

Vihaan, Goldwaker

44.3% of decks · synergy 0.41

Vihaan, Goldwaker animates Treasures into attacking creatures, so Descent into Avernus isn't just ramp — it's a repeating token generator that feeds directly into Vihaan's combat-based win condition every single turn.

05
Abaddon the Despoiler

Abaddon the Despoiler

43.1% of decks · synergy 0.40

Abaddon the Despoiler counts cascade triggers off spells cast, and Descent into Avernus hitting each upkeep keeps the life totals low enough that the drain damage alone can close games while the Treasures accelerate the high-mana cascade payoffs.

Format Analysis

Where it lives, where it can’t

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

Commander is the only format where Descent into Avernus is genuinely powerful — four opponents means four separate life-loss triggers and four Treasures entering the battlefield each turn cycle, which turns the enchantment's symmetry into a massive net positive for the player who built around it. In Legacy and Vintage it's technically legal but effectively unplayed; those formats move too fast and too interactively for a four-mana enchantment that helps opponents before it helps you. Oathbreaker is the one non-Commander format where Descent into Avernus has a real home, particularly in aggressive Rakdos or Gruul shells that can close out the smaller life totals before the cumulative damage bites back.

Key Combos

Combo lines featuring this card

Budget Alternatives

Cheaper options that do most of the same work

If Descent into Avernus is out of reach, Mana Flare and Dictate of Karametra replicate the group-ramp half at a fraction of the price, though you lose the slug damage and the Treasure production entirely — they're pure acceleration with no built-in payoff. Heartbeat of Spring is even cheaper and functions similarly, but none of these replacements give you the closing pressure; they're ramp tools, not win conditions dressed as ramp tools.

Price Context

Current price

$13.11 mid tier

At $13.11, Descent into Avernus sits in mid-tier pricing that's earned by its unique combination of ramp, slug damage, and combo potential rather than raw scarcity. It's a fair price for a card that's a near-auto-include in several popular archetypes, and there's no functional reprint currently in print that would push it lower.

Explore

Sources

Mentioned

← All cards

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