Is Glacial Chasm good in Commander?

Glacial Chasm

Land

Cumulative upkeep—Pay 2 life. (At the beginning of your upkeep, put an age counter on this permanent, then sacrifice it unless you pay its upkeep cost for each age counter on it.)
When this land enters, sacrifice a land.
Creatures you control can't attack.
Prevent all damage that would be dealt to you.

CMC: 0
Mana cost
Color identity: C
Rarity: mythic
Set: From the Vault: Realms
Price: —
EDHREC rank: #2161

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Glacial Chasm stops all combat damage to you for as long as you can keep paying its cumulative upkeep — a life tax that gets steeper every turn, but in decks like Azusa, Lost but Seeking or Titania, Protector of Argoth that deliberately sacrifice and replay lands, the upkeep never actually comes due. It's not a stall piece; it's a permanent fog that doubles as a land-drop engine trigger.

Best Commanders

Commanders with the highest synergy

Titania, Protector of Argoth

32.3% of decks · synergy 0.30

Titania, Protector of Argoth turns every Glacial Chasm sacrifice into a 5/3 Elemental, so paying the cumulative upkeep by sacrificing the Chasm and replaying it is the plan, not a concession — you're farming bodies every loop.

Lord Windgrace

27.3% of decks · synergy 0.24

Lord Windgrace's -3 returns Glacial Chasm from the graveyard to the battlefield, resetting its age counter and wiping out the upkeep cost every turn cycle while keeping you completely locked out of combat damage.

The Necrobloom

26.1% of decks · synergy 0.22

The Necrobloom creates Zombie tokens whenever a land enters your graveyard, so the sacrifice-and-recur loop on Glacial Chasm converts the upkeep reset into a steady stream of bodies.

The Gitrog Monster

19.1% of decks · synergy 0.18

The Gitrog Monster draws a card whenever a land goes to the graveyard, making each Glacial Chasm sacrifice a free cantrip on top of the protection it already provided.

Azusa, Lost but Seeking

17.5% of decks · synergy 0.15

Azusa, Lost but Seeking's extra land drops let you replay Glacial Chasm from hand the same turn you sacrifice it to reset the counter, so the protection is effectively continuous with zero net upkeep cost.

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

Commander is where Glacial Chasm does its real work — three or four opponents swinging creatures at you is exactly the threat profile it answers, and the land-synergy commanders who abuse it are a Commander-specific phenomenon. In Legacy and Vintage it's legal but practically absent; the formats move too fast for a land that doesn't produce mana and demands an escalating sacrifice to maintain, and there's no Titania or Gitrog to reset it cleanly. Glacial Chasm is not legal in Modern, Pioneer, Standard, or Pauper, so Commander and Oathbreaker are the only competitive homes worth considering.

Key Combos

Combo lines featuring this card

23,017 decks