Is Donate good in Commander?

Donate in Commander — Combos, Decks & Price

Donate hands any permanent you control to an opponent for three mana — and that's the whole game when you're holding Demonic Pact with three modes already spent. Zedruu the Greathearted runs it as a core piece precisely because it makes the gift-giving engine lethal rather than just political.

Best Commanders

Commanders with the highest synergy

01

Zedruu the Greathearted

18.8% of decks · synergy 0.18

Zedruu the Greathearted's draw-and-life engine rewards giving away permanents you own, and Donate is the fastest way to move a Demonic Pact — or any other cursed gift — across the table at instant speed for three mana.

Format Analysis

Where it lives, where it can’t

Format	Verdict
commander	legal
legacy	legal
modern	not legal
pioneer	not legal
standard	not legal
vintage	legal
pauper	not legal
oathbreaker	legal

Donate is legal in Commander, Legacy, Vintage, and Oathbreaker, and that's where it lives. In Commander it's a staple in gift-based strategies, primarily as the delivery mechanism for Demonic Pact combo kills. Legacy sees occasional fringe play in Illusions-Donate combo shells, where it pairs with Illusions of Grandeur to drain an opponent out, but the deck has never been a top-tier threat. Vintage is technically legal but the format's power ceiling makes a three-mana sorcery a hard sell outside dedicated combo. Oathbreaker is the sleeper format for Donate — the 60-card singleton structure makes assembling two-card combos faster, and the format's lower interaction density lets the setup stick.

Key Combos

Combo lines featuring this card

1,155 decks

Demonic PactDonate

Target opponent loses the game at the beginning of their next upkeep

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321 decks

Nine LivesDonateAustere Command

Target opponent loses the game

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146 decks

Nine LivesDonateCleansing Nova

Target opponent loses the game

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108 decks

Archfiend of the Dross Heartless ActDonate

Target opponent loses the game at the beginning of their next upkeep

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63 decks

Knowledge PoolModerationDonate

Exile all spells target opponent casts from their hand; Target opponent can only cast one spell per turn; Lock

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Budget Alternatives

Cheaper options that do most of the same work

Zedruu the Greathearted provides a repeatable version of what Donate does, but that's a commander slot, not a spell. For decks that just need a one-shot transfer effect, Harmless Offering fills the same role at a fraction of the price — same three-mana cost, same targeting restriction, identical function. The only thing Donate has over Harmless Offering is that it's blue, which matters if your deck runs Pact lines through a mono-blue or Azorius shell rather than a Mardu or Gruul one.

Price Context

Current price

$15.84 mid tier

At $15.84, Donate sits in mid-tier pricing territory — expensive enough to sting as a pickup, not so expensive it's out of reach. It holds that price because Harmless Offering is a near-functional reprint and Zedruu players often want both, keeping demand steady without a ceiling card's speculative volatility.