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Karn's Bastion

Land

{T}: Add {C}.
{4}, {T}: Proliferate. (Choose any number of permanents and/or players, then give each another counter of each kind already there.)

CMC
0
Mana cost
Color identity
C
Rarity
rare
Set
War of the Spark
Price
$3.22
EDHREC rank
#200
Buy on TCGplayer
Karn's Bastion card art
Karn's Bastion taps for colorless or, for four mana total, proliferates every permanent you control — a repeatable engine that compounds counters faster than almost any land-slot card has a right to. The cost is real: four mana on a land is slow, and unlike Magosi, the Waterveil it doesn't replace itself, so in non-proliferate shells it's a blank. Run it alongside Tekuthal, Inquiry Dominus and that four-mana activation becomes a two-mana proliferate twice, which is a different card entirely.

Best Commanders

Commanders with the highest synergy

01
Tekuthal, Inquiry Dominus

Tekuthal, Inquiry Dominus

88.2% of decks · synergy 0.83

Tekuthal, Inquiry Dominus halves every proliferate cost, turning Karn's Bastion into a two-mana proliferate-twice engine every turn cycle — that's the combination that makes both cards significantly stronger than they are alone.

02
Brimaz, Blight of Oreskos

Brimaz, Blight of Oreskos

79.3% of decks · synergy 0.74

Brimaz, Blight of Oreskos loads the board with Phyrexian Mite tokens that enter with oil counters, and Karn's Bastion turns those counters into a snowballing resource engine that Brimaz decks can exploit for sacrifice or poison synergies.

03
Ixhel, Scion of Atraxa

Ixhel, Scion of Atraxa

77.2% of decks · synergy 0.70

Ixhel, Scion of Atraxa pushes opponents toward 10 poison counters, and Karn's Bastion gives the deck a repeatable proliferate outlet that doesn't require casting spells — critical in a strategy where every extra poison counter is a kill condition.

04
Commodore Guff

Commodore Guff

82.6% of decks · synergy 0.69

Commodore Guff runs more planeswalkers than almost any Commander deck, and Karn's Bastion proliferating loyalty counters each turn keeps those walkers alive and ultimate-ready faster than opponents can answer them.

05
Carth the Lion

Carth the Lion

72.7% of decks · synergy 0.66

Carth the Lion's tutor trigger rewards running every relevant planeswalker, and Karn's Bastion accelerates loyalty totals reliably enough that Carth decks treat it as a near-mandatory include.

Format Analysis

Where it lives, where it can’t

FormatVerdict
commander legal
legacy legal
modern legal
pioneer legal
standard not legal
vintage legal
pauper not legal
oathbreaker legal

Karn's Bastion is a Commander card through and through — the slow four-mana activation is a liability in faster formats but barely registers in a 40-life multiplayer game where the bastion compounds counters over many turns. In Modern and Pioneer, proliferate strategies exist but the land slot is too precious for an effect this slow without dedicated counter payoffs, and even then dedicated spells like Thrummingbird outclass it on tempo. Legacy and Vintage are non-starters: those formats punish tapped lands that don't accelerate immediately. Oathbreaker is the one non-Commander format where it earns a real look, particularly in any Planeswalker-focused build that can activate it three or four times a game.

Key Combos

Combo lines featuring this card

Price Context

Current price

$3.22 cheap tier

At $3.22, Karn's Bastion sits at the low end of the staple land tier — cheap enough that any proliferate deck should own one without hesitation. It sees consistent demand across Atraxa variants, Phyrexian-themed builds, and superfriends shells, so the floor is stable.

Explore

Sources

Mentioned

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