Harsh Sustenance

Instant

Harsh Sustenance deals X damage to any target and you gain X life, where X is the number of creatures you control.

CMC
3
Mana cost
{1}{W}{B}
Color identity
BW
Rarity
common
Set
Fate Reforged
Price
$0.09
EDHREC rank
#15225
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Harsh Sustenance card art
Harsh Sustenance drains each opponent for the number of creatures you control, then gains you that much life — in a token deck, that's a meaningful chunk of damage and padding stapled to one instant. Three mana is the real cost of admission, and it shows: this is a finisher in the right shell, not a generic includes.

Best Commanders

Commanders with the highest synergy

01
Thalisse, Reverent Medium

Thalisse, Reverent Medium

14.6% of decks · synergy 0.14

Thalisse, Reverent Medium generates spirit tokens at end of turn for every token you made that turn, so the board floods fast — and Harsh Sustenance converts that headcount directly into damage and life, often ending games the turn Thalisse untaps.

Format Analysis

Where it lives, where it can’t

FormatVerdict
commander
legacy
modern
pioneer
standard
vintage
pauper
oathbreaker

Harsh Sustenance is a Pauper-legal common, and that's where it sees its most competitive daylight — white-black tokens and aristocrats shells can close games with it. In Commander it's a narrow include, best in token-wide decks that reliably hit double-digit creature counts; at that point it doubles as both a finisher and a meaningful life swing against the table. Legacy, Modern, and Pioneer are too fast and too efficient for a three-mana conditional drain to matter, so those are non-starters. Oathbreaker, like Commander, rewards it only if the tokens are already flowing.

Key Combos

Combo lines featuring this card

Price Context

Current price

$0.09 bulk tier

At $0.09, Harsh Sustenance is pure bulk — you're paying for cardboard, not scarcity. There's no pressure to buy in; it'll sit at this floor as long as it stays a fringe Commander include and a Pauper role-player.

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Updated . Data from Scryfall, EDHREC, and Commander Spellbook.