Fear of Surveillance
Enchantment Creature — Nightmare
Vigilance
Whenever this creature attacks, surveil 1. (Look at the top card of your library. You may put it into your graveyard.)
- CMC
- 2
- Mana cost
- Color identity
- W
- Rarity
- common
- Set
- Duskmourn: House of Horror
- Price
- $0.16
- EDHREC rank
- #13566
Fear of Surveillance puts a 1/1 flying token on the board every turn you cast a spell from anywhere other than your hand — graveyard, exile, top of library — which in the right shell is a free air force that builds itself. Victor, Valgavoth's Seneschal is the natural home: he fuels exactly that kind of non-hand casting, turning the enchantment into an engine rather than a passenger.
Best Commanders
Commanders with the highest synergy
Victor, Valgavoth's Seneschal
Victor, Valgavoth's Seneschal lets you cast spells from the top of your library and from exile, triggering Fear of Surveillance on nearly every spell you fire off — the enchantment doesn't add a new axis so much as it taxes every play Victor was already making with a free 1/1 flier.
Format Analysis
Where it lives, where it can’t
| Format | Verdict |
|---|---|
| commander | legal |
| legacy | legal |
| modern | legal |
| pioneer | legal |
| standard | legal |
| vintage | legal |
| pauper | legal |
| oathbreaker | legal |
Fear of Surveillance is legal everywhere but finds its clearest role in Commander, where Dimir graveyard and impulse-draw strategies routinely cast from exile and the top of the library as a core function rather than a niche trick. In 1v1 formats like Modern and Pioneer, a 1/1 token per non-hand cast is too slow and conditional to compete — you're paying three mana for a payoff that requires additional setup in formats that punish setup. Pauper is the one 60-card environment where Fear of Surveillance is worth a second look, since common-level flashback and foretell effects are plentiful, but even there the token rate rarely closes games fast enough to justify the slot.
Key Combos
Combo lines featuring this card
Price Context
Current price
$0.16 bulk tier
At $0.16, Fear of Surveillance is bulk — pick it up in any common box or throw it in a next order as an afterthought. Bulk enchantments with narrow synergy profiles don't appreciate unless a breakout Commander card turns the archetype mainstream, so treat it as a cheap role-player and nothing more.
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Sources
Mentioned
Updated . Data from Scryfall, EDHREC, and Commander Spellbook.