Heliod's Punishment
Enchantment — Aura
Enchant creature
This Aura enters with four task counters on it.
Enchanted creature can't attack or block. It loses all abilities and has ": Remove a task counter from Heliod's Punishment. Then if it has no task counters on it, destroy Heliod's Punishment."
- CMC
- 2
- Mana cost
- Color identity
- W
- Rarity
- uncommon
- Set
- The List
- Price
- $0.16
- EDHREC rank
- #14609
Heliod's Punishment locks a creature out of combat and activated abilities for four turns, and the enchanted creature can't even attack to chip those counters off faster — it just sits there. One white mana for that level of shutdown is the real story.
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 |
Commander is where Heliod's Punishment earns its slot — a one-mana answer to a commander that prevents it from being used as a voltron threat or activated-ability engine is genuinely efficient, and it buys four full turns before the problem recurs. In competitive Commander, opponents will often just recast their commander rather than wait it out, which makes this better as a tempo play than a permanent answer. In Legacy, Modern, and Pioneer it's legal but has no real presence — white removal at one mana in those formats either kills the creature outright or the enchantment symmetry isn't worth the trade. Oathbreaker mirrors the Commander dynamic closely, where locking down a planeswalker-adjacent threat for cheap has similar appeal.
Key Combos
Combo lines featuring this card
Price Context
Current price
$0.16 bulk tier
At $0.16, Heliod's Punishment is deep bulk — you're grabbing it out of a commons box, not tracking it on a buylist. Bulk white enchantments at this price point don't move unless they find a breakout home, and nothing on the horizon suggests that's coming.
Explore
Sources
Mentioned
Updated . Data from Scryfall, EDHREC, and Commander Spellbook.