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Doomsday

Sorcery

Search your library and graveyard for five cards and exile the rest. Put the chosen cards on top of your library in any order. You lose half your life, rounded up.

CMC
3
Mana cost
{B}{B}{B}
Color identity
B
Rarity
rare
Set
Classic Sixth Edition
Price
$7.87
EDHREC rank
#5682
Buy on TCGplayer
Doomsday card art
Doomsday lets you sculpt a five-card win pile from your entire library — typically ending the game on the spot when Thassa's Oracle resolves with a near-empty deck. The cost is steep: half your life total and a three-mana sorcery that does nothing without the right pile, but in the right shell, that's a price worth paying every time.

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 banned

Doomsday is legal in Legacy, Vintage, and Commander — and banned outright in Oathbreaker, where the low starting life total and compact singleton structure made it too consistent a turn-one kill. Modern and Pioneer never saw it; the card predates those formats and has never been welcomed in. Commander gives it a pass because 40 life cushions the self-damage meaningfully, and the singleton rule means you can't stack redundant copies of your pile pieces — you're assembling a five-card sequence from one-ofs, which creates real execution risk that keeps the card fair-ish at most tables.

Best Commanders

Commanders with the highest synergy

01
Gwenom, Remorseless

Gwenom, Remorseless

28.0% of decks · synergy 0.27

Gwenom, Remorseless generates card advantage and life payment synergies that make Doomsday's life-halving cost functionally irrelevant — the deck is built to win fast, and Doomsday is the fastest way to find that line.

02
Glarb, Calamity's Augur

Glarb, Calamity's Augur

15.1% of decks · synergy 0.14

Glarb, Calamity's Augur cares about casting spells on opponents' turns and digging through the library, which means the five-card pile Doomsday creates can be navigated with surgical efficiency — Glarb essentially turns the pile into a guaranteed sequence over a single round.

03
Gale, Waterdeep ProdigyScion of Halaster

Gale, Waterdeep Prodigy // Scion of Halaster

14.0% of decks · synergy 0.12

The Scion of Halaster half mills cards and puts instants or sorceries into hand, giving Gale, Waterdeep Prodigy // Scion of Halaster a natural way to set up and execute a Doomsday pile without relying solely on draw spells.

04
Grenzo, Dungeon Warden

Grenzo, Dungeon Warden

11.3% of decks · synergy 0.11

Grenzo, Dungeon Warden wins by activating repeatedly to cheat creatures onto the battlefield from the bottom of the library, and Doomsday stacks the bottom of the library with exactly the five creatures needed — turning a slow grinding engine into an immediate win.

Key Combos

Combo lines featuring this card

Budget Alternatives

Cheaper options that do most of the same work

There is no honest budget alternative to Doomsday — the card's power is precisely that it resolves the game by itself with the right five cards, and nothing else at any price point replicates that. If you want a tutor-into-win-condition approach at lower cost, Demonic Consultation and Tainted Pact fill a similar role in Oracle decks, but they're different lines entirely, not substitutes.

Price Context

Current price

$7.87 mid tier

At $7.87, Doomsday sits in mid-tier pricing — expensive enough to feel like a deliberate inclusion, cheap enough that it's not a barrier for anyone building a serious combo list. It's a reprint-resilient card with a dedicated competitive audience, so the floor has historically been stable, but price speculation isn't the point: if your deck wants this effect, $7.87 is simply what it costs.

Explore

Sources

Mentioned

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