Eightfold Maze
Instant
Cast this spell only during the declare attackers step and only if you've been attacked this step.
Destroy target attacking creature.
- CMC
- 3
- Mana cost
- Color identity
- W
- Rarity
- rare
- Set
- Portal Three Kingdoms
- Price
- $55.89
- EDHREC rank
- #29722
Eightfold Maze lets a land tap to prevent all combat damage that would be dealt to you by target attacking creature — a repeatable fog stapled to your mana base. The cost is a land slot and a tap, which is steep, but the effect is permanent and requires no hand investment.
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 |
Eightfold Maze is legal in Commander, Legacy, Vintage, and Oathbreaker, and sees essentially no play outside Commander — Legacy and Vintage have no interest in a tap-to-fog land when those formats end games on turns one through three. In Commander, it fits narrowest in defensive pillow-fort and group-slug shells that need to survive long enough to execute their win condition without spending cards to do it. The tap cost means you're choosing between mana and protection each turn, which limits it to decks that either have mana to spare or specifically want to deter attacks without expending resources from hand.
Key Combos
Combo lines featuring this card
Budget Alternatives
Cheaper options that do most of the same work
Eightfold Maze's closest functional parallel is Mystifying Maze, which instead temporarily exiles the attacker rather than preventing damage — a meaningfully different effect that can strand a creature with an enters-the-battlefield trigger. Maze of Ith is the canonical comparison at roughly the same price point, doing the same job more efficiently by untapping the creature and removing it from combat without tapping for mana, which is why Eightfold Maze lives in its shadow.
Price Context
Current price
$55.89 premium tier
At $55.89, Eightfold Maze sits in premium territory driven almost entirely by scarcity — it's an old card with limited printings and a narrow audience, not a powerhouse with widespread demand. That price-to-impact ratio is hard to justify when Maze of Ith exists at a similar price and outperforms it in every meaningful way.
Explore
Sources
Mentioned
Updated . Data from Scryfall, EDHREC, and Commander Spellbook.