Forbidden Crypt
Enchantment
If you would draw a card, return a card from your graveyard to your hand instead. If you can't, you lose the game.
If a card would be put into your graveyard from anywhere, exile that card instead.
- CMC
- 5
- Mana cost
- Color identity
- B
- Rarity
- rare
- Set
- Mirage
- Price
- $1.10
- EDHREC rank
- #15424
Forbidden Crypt replaces your draws with cards from your graveyard and punishes you with a loss if the yard runs dry — a brutal self-imposed constraint that becomes an asset the moment you give it to someone else. Blim, Comedic Genius turns it into a win condition: donate it to an opponent with a small graveyard and watch them deck themselves.
Best Commanders
Commanders with the highest synergy
Blim, Comedic Genius
Blim, Comedic Genius donates Forbidden Crypt to an opponent, converting its symmetrical drawback into a targeted kill condition — once their graveyard is exhausted, every draw they attempt triggers a loss.
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 |
Forbidden Crypt is a Commander card through and through — the political and targeted nature of its downside only becomes weaponizable in a multiplayer context where you can choose who suffers it. In Legacy and Vintage it's technically legal but has never found a home; a five-mana enchantment with a conditional self-mill-or-lose clause can't compete in those formats' threat ecosystems. Oathbreaker offers the same donate potential as Commander on a compressed scale, and the card functions there for the same reasons. Anywhere outside a 100-card singleton environment with gifting mechanics, Forbidden Crypt is a liability looking for a deck that doesn't exist.
Key Combos
Combo lines featuring this card
Price Context
Current price
$1.10 cheap tier
At $1.10, Forbidden Crypt sits in the bulk-rare tier — cheap enough to slot in without second-guessing the budget. It's a narrow card with a specific home, so don't expect the price to move meaningfully in either direction.
Explore
Sources
Mentioned
Updated . Data from Scryfall, EDHREC, and Commander Spellbook.