Exploding Barrel
Artifact
: Add one mana of any color. Put a pressure counter on this artifact.
, , Sacrifice this artifact: It deals 20 damage to target creature. This ability costs 
less to activate for each pressure counter on this artifact. Activate only as a sorcery.
- CMC
- 3
- Mana cost
- Color identity
- C
- Rarity
- rare
- Set
- Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Eternal
- Price
- $0.28
- EDHREC rank
- #12958
Exploding Barrel trades two mana and a tap to deal 2 damage to a player — a negligible threat that barely registers at a four-player table. Leonardo, the Balance // Michelangelo, the Heart is the one shell that gives it a pulse, but even there, it's scraping the bottom of the artifact barrel.
Best Commanders
Commanders with the highest synergy
Leonardo, the Balance // Michelangelo, the Heart
Leonardo, the Balance // Michelangelo, the Heart cares about artifacts entering and leaving the battlefield, so Exploding Barrel slots in as a cheap, repeatable sacrifice target that fuels that engine — the damage it deals is almost beside the point.
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 |
Exploding Barrel is legal in Commander, Legacy, Vintage, and Oathbreaker, but legal and playable are different things. In Commander, 2 damage to one player across four opponents is nearly irrelevant — the only reason to run it is as a named artifact for synergy commanders like Leonardo, the Balance // Michelangelo, the Heart. Legacy and Vintage have no use for it; those formats move faster and demand far more from two-mana slots. Oathbreaker's smaller life totals don't change the math enough to matter.
Key Combos
Combo lines featuring this card
Price Context
Current price
$0.28 bulk tier
At $0.28, Exploding Barrel sits firmly in bulk territory. Demand is narrow enough that the price isn't going anywhere — pick it up for a synergy build without a second thought, but don't expect it to have trade value.
Explore
Sources
Mentioned
- Leonardo, the Balance // Michelangelo, the Heart
Updated . Data from Scryfall, EDHREC, and Commander Spellbook.