Ebony Charm
Instant
Choose one —
• Target opponent loses 1 life and you gain 1 life.
• Exile up to three target cards from a single graveyard.
• Target creature gains fear until end of turn. (It can't be blocked except by artifact creatures and/or black creatures.)
- CMC
- 1
- Mana cost
- Color identity
- B
- Rarity
- common
- Set
- World Championship Decks 1997
- Price
- $1.07
- EDHREC rank
- #18625
Ebony Charm is a one-mana modal spell that either exiles a graveyard, drains an opponent for one life and you gain one, or gives a creature -1/-1 until end of turn — none of those modes is individually impressive, but the flexibility on one black mana is the entire point. It's fringe playable at best, and only in builds that genuinely need cheap graveyard hate on a budget.
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 | legal |
| oathbreaker | legal |
In Commander, Ebony Charm sees occasional play as budget graveyard hate — exiling an opponent's entire graveyard for one mana is real, but Tormod's Crypt does it for free and Rest in Peace does it permanently, so Ebony Charm is a distant third. In Pauper, the modal flexibility has slightly more appeal in a format where every mana matters, though dedicated hate pieces still outclass it for any single axis. Legacy and Vintage have no interest — the card is too low-impact for formats where graveyard hate needs to be immediate and permanent. Across every legal format, Ebony Charm is a fallback option, not a first choice.
Key Combos
Combo lines featuring this card
Price Context
Current price
$1.07 cheap tier
At $1.07, Ebony Charm sits in a frustrating price tier — too expensive to be a throwaway pickup, not powerful enough to justify the slot over free or permanent alternatives. The price is unlikely to move in either direction given its narrow appeal and the abundance of strictly better graveyard hate at comparable or lower cost.
Explore
Sources
Mentioned
Updated . Data from Scryfall, EDHREC, and Commander Spellbook.