Exhaustion
Sorcery
Creatures and lands target opponent controls don't untap during their next untap step.
- CMC
- 3
- Mana cost
- Color identity
- U
- Rarity
- rare
- Set
- Portal Second Age
- Price
- $1.27
- EDHREC rank
- #16996
Exhaustion taps all of your opponents' creatures and lands and keeps them tapped through their next untap step — effectively stealing a full turn from every player at the table. Three mana for that kind of tempo swing is the right price, and in a four-player pod the asymmetry is brutal enough to close games or survive otherwise-lethal boards. Run it with Zevlor, Elturel Exile and you copy it to each opponent separately, which means each opponent gets their own instance and the effect stacks.
Best Commanders
Commanders with the highest synergy
Zevlor, Elturel Exile
Zevlor, Elturel Exile copies Exhaustion once for each opponent rather than targeting the table as one event, so each player is hit by a discrete instance — the interaction is redundant in the best way, and it turns a strong tempo play into a near-total lock that buys Zevlor lethal combat math.
Format Analysis
Where it lives, where it can’t
| Format | Verdict |
|---|---|
| commander | legal |
| legacy | legal |
| modern | legal |
| pioneer | not legal |
| standard | not legal |
| vintage | legal |
| pauper | not legal |
| oathbreaker | legal |
In Commander, Exhaustion is a legitimate finisher-enabler: three mana to lock every opponent's mana and attackers out for a full turn is the kind of swing that ends games rather than just slowing them down. Legacy and Vintage both have access to it, but a three-mana sorcery with no permanent upside rarely competes in environments where a single opponent is the target and faster threats dominate. Modern sees the same problem — Exhaustion is legal but too slow and too narrow against one player to earn a slot over cheaper tempo tools. Oathbreaker offers a middle ground closer to Commander's multiplayer context, where the math improves as soon as more opponents are in the room.
Key Combos
Combo lines featuring this card
Price Context
Current price
$1.27 cheap tier
At $1.27, Exhaustion sits comfortably in the cheap tier — low enough that there's no barrier to picking it up for any deck that wants it. Supply is stable and demand is niche enough that the price is unlikely to spike, so this is a safe include without any financial hesitation.
Explore
Sources
Mentioned
- Zevlor, Elturel Exile
Updated . Data from Scryfall, EDHREC, and Commander Spellbook.