Gruesome Slaughter
Sorcery
Until end of turn, colorless creatures you control gain "
: This creature deals damage equal to its power to target creature."
- CMC
- 6
- Mana cost
- Color identity
- C
- Rarity
- rare
- Set
- Battle for Zendikar Promos
- Price
- —
- EDHREC rank
- #9603
Gruesome Slaughter turns your colorless creatures into a free, no-tap, mass-ping engine — every colorless creature you control deals damage equal to its power to any target, all at once, no mana beyond the five to cast it. In the right deck this ends games on the spot; outside of dedicated colorless-creature builds it's a blank.
Best Commanders
Commanders with the highest synergy
Graaz, Unstoppable Juggernaut
Graaz, Unstoppable Juggernaut makes every creature you control a 5/3 Juggernaut, which means Gruesome Slaughter is essentially firing five damage per creature at any target the moment you cast it — the wide board Graaz naturally produces turns the spell into a game-ending alpha strike without a single attack step.
Traxos, Scourge of Kroog
Traxos, Scourge of Kroog decks lean on a dense suite of historic artifacts, so the board at any given time is packed with large colorless creatures; Gruesome Slaughter converts that artifact army into a direct-damage wave that can close games the combat step alone couldn't.
Omarthis, Ghostfire Initiate
Omarthis, Ghostfire Initiate cares about +1/+1 counters on colorless creatures, meaning those creatures are frequently oversized relative to their mana cost — Gruesome Slaughter rewards that investment by translating every stacked-up power point into a point of direct damage.
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 | not legal |
| oathbreaker | legal |
Gruesome Slaughter is legal in Commander, Legacy, Modern, Pioneer, Vintage, and Oathbreaker, but it's a Commander card in practice — the five-mana sorcery speed and narrow tribal requirement make it unplayable in any 60-card format where you need to close games faster and more consistently. In Commander, it occupies a specific niche: colorless-creature decks with enough board presence to make the damage output lethal, which is a real archetype but not a broad one. Outside that lane, five mana for conditional damage with no other text doesn't compete.
Key Combos
Combo lines featuring this card
Price Context
Current price
unknown tier
Pricing data for Gruesome Slaughter isn't currently available here, so check Scryfall or TCGPlayer for a live figure. Given its narrow application in Commander and near-zero competitive presence elsewhere, it typically sits in bulk-rare territory — pick it up without hesitation if you're building a colorless-creature deck.
Explore
Sources
Updated . Data from Scryfall, EDHREC, and Commander Spellbook.