Enervate
Instant
Tap target artifact, creature, or land.
Draw a card at the beginning of the next turn's upkeep.
- CMC
- 2
- Mana cost
- Color identity
- U
- Rarity
- common
- Set
- Ice Age
- Price
- $0.18
- EDHREC rank
- #14654
Enervate taps a creature and gives it -1/-0 until end of turn — cheap enough at one blue mana to slot into spell-matters engines without eating your whole turn. Outside of Orvar, the All-Form shells where it cantrips into a token, the effect is too narrow to justify a card slot.
Best Commanders
Commanders with the highest synergy
Orvar, the All-Form
Enervate is a one-mana spell that targets one of your own permanents, which is all Orvar, the All-Form needs to trigger and make a free token copy — the tap-and-debuff effect is almost irrelevant next to that payoff.
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, Enervate is a niche inclusion that earns its slot almost exclusively in Orvar, the All-Form decks, where cheap instants that target your own permanents are currency. In Pauper, the format where commons actually see competitive play, it doesn't have a home — the effect is too situational to compete with removal or card draw at the same cost. Legacy and Vintage are legal but uninterested; Enervate doesn't affect the board in any way those formats care about. It's a card with one real job across all formats, and it does that job narrowly.
Key Combos
Combo lines featuring this card
Price Context
Current price
$0.18 bulk tier
At $0.18, Enervate is deep bulk — you're buying it for pennies at any local game store or picking it up in a commons box. There's no reason to expect that to change; the demand ceiling is a single niche Commander application.
Explore
Sources
Mentioned
Updated . Data from Scryfall, EDHREC, and Commander Spellbook.