Desert's Due
Instant
Target creature gets -2/-2 until end of turn. It gets an additional -1/-1 until end of turn for each Desert you control.
- CMC
- 2
- Mana cost
- Color identity
- B
- Rarity
- common
- Set
- Outlaws of Thunder Junction
- Price
- $0.12
- EDHREC rank
- #22750
Desert's Due exiles a nonland permanent and leaves behind a tapped Waste — a clean two-for-one that strips a threat and seeds your mana base simultaneously. Five mana at sorcery speed is the real cost, but the exile clause and the land rider make it pull above its weight in any deck that can use colorless mana.
Format Analysis
Where it lives, where it can’t
| Format | Verdict |
|---|---|
| commander | legal |
| legacy | legal |
| modern | legal |
| pioneer | legal |
| standard | legal |
| vintage | legal |
| pauper | legal |
| oathbreaker | legal |
In Commander, Desert's Due earns its slot in decks that care about Wastes or colorless mana — Kozilek builds, Eldrazi-tribal shells, and any commander that taxes colorless sources will happily take a removal spell that doubles as ramp setup. Outside Commander, five mana at sorcery speed is a steep ask: Pioneer and Modern have cheaper, faster answers, and the Waste rider rarely matters enough to justify the tempo loss. Pauper is where Desert's Due is most interesting as a commons-legal unconditional exile effect, though the format's aggro-heavy meta punishes sorcery-speed five-drops hard. Legacy and Vintage simply ignore it.
Key Combos
Combo lines featuring this card
Price Context
Current price
$0.12 bulk tier
At $0.12, Desert's Due is deep bulk — pick it up in any common-bin sweep without a second thought. Bulk removal rarely spikes unless it finds a combo home, and nothing about this card suggests that's coming.
Explore
Sources
Mentioned
Updated . Data from Scryfall, EDHREC, and Commander Spellbook.