Eye Gouge
Instant
Target creature gets -1/-1 until end of turn. If it's a Cyclops, destroy it.
- CMC
- 1
- Mana cost
- Color identity
- B
- Rarity
- common
- Set
- Born of the Gods
- Price
- $0.03
- EDHREC rank
- #27591
Eye Gouge kills exactly one type of creature — a Cyclops or a creature with exactly one eye — for a single black mana, and outside of extremely narrow tribal or theme contexts that restriction makes it unplayable. It's a strictly worse Gut Shot in almost every conceivable scenario, and Gut Shot itself rarely makes the cut.
Format Analysis
Where it lives, where it can’t
| Format | Verdict |
|---|---|
| commander | legal |
| legacy | legal |
| modern | legal |
| pioneer | legal |
| standard | not legal |
| vintage | legal |
| pauper | legal |
| oathbreaker | legal |
Eye Gouge is legal in Commander, Legacy, Modern, Pioneer, Vintage, Pauper, and Oathbreaker, but legality and playability are different things. In Commander, the one-eye clause essentially reads as a do-nothing in most games — the creature pool is too wide and the targeting window too narrow to justify a deck slot. Pauper is the one format where cheap removal sees the most stress-testing, but even there Eye Gouge loses out to Snuff Out, Disfigure, and a dozen other commons that don't require your opponent to have drafted a Cyclops. In Legacy and Vintage the bar for one-mana interaction is absurdly high, and this doesn't clear it.
Key Combos
Combo lines featuring this card
Price Context
Current price
$0.03 bulk tier
At $0.03, Eye Gouge is deep bulk — you'll find it in a common box long before you'd bother ordering it. That price is a floor with nowhere to fall, and there's no plausible reprint or demand spike that changes the calculus here.
Explore
Sources
Mentioned
Updated . Data from Scryfall, EDHREC, and Commander Spellbook.