Desperate Stand
Sorcery
Strive — This spell costs 
more to cast for each target beyond the first.
Any number of target creatures each get +2/+0 and gain first strike and vigilance until end of turn.
- CMC
- 2
- Mana cost
- Color identity
- RW
- Rarity
- uncommon
- Set
- Journey into Nyx
- Price
- $0.06
- EDHREC rank
- #24839
Desperate Stand gives your whole team double strike and vigilance until end of turn — on a board with six or more creatures, that's a potential kill out of nowhere. Four mana at instant speed is the real cost, and it does nothing without an established board, so it lives and dies by the state of the game.
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 | not legal |
| oathbreaker | legal |
Commander is where Desperate Stand has the most plausible home — token strategies and go-wide aggro builds can convert an alpha strike into lethal damage that opponents can't see coming at instant speed. Outside Commander, the card sees essentially no competitive play: Modern and Pioneer have faster, more consistent ways to push damage, and the conditional nature of needing a wide board makes it too fragile for those formats. Legacy and Vintage ignore it entirely. It's a niche finisher in a niche archetype, and Commander is the ceiling.
Key Combos
Combo lines featuring this card
Price Context
Current price
$0.06 bulk tier
At $0.06, Desperate Stand is deep bulk — the kind of card you pull from a box, not a store shelf. That price will hold simply because demand is too low to move it in either direction.
Explore
Sources
Mentioned
Updated . Data from Scryfall, EDHREC, and Commander Spellbook.