Keen Sense
Enchantment — Aura
Enchant creature
Whenever enchanted creature deals damage to an opponent, you may draw a card.
- CMC
- 1
- Mana cost
- Color identity
- G
- Rarity
- uncommon
- Set
- Time Spiral Remastered
- Price
- $2.75
- EDHREC rank
- #3030
Keen Sense is a one-mana green enchantment that turns any deal-damage trigger into a card — attached to the right creature, it generates consistent card advantage for almost no investment. Glint-Horn Buccaneer and The Howling Abomination both exploit it as a combo piece, not just a value engine.
Best Commanders
Commanders with the highest synergy
The Howling Abomination
The Howling Abomination forces all players to discard, dealing damage equal to cards discarded — Keen Sense converts every one of those pings into a drawn card, turning the commander's passive into a personal card advantage engine that scales with table size.
Borborygmos Enraged
Borborygmos Enraged deals 3 damage every time a land hits the battlefield, and Keen Sense turns each of those triggers into a card draw, letting the deck refuel land ammunition at the same pace it spends it.
Tannuk, Memorial Ensign
Tannuk, Memorial Ensign cares about auras on creatures, and Keen Sense is a cheap, efficient aura that pays for itself the moment the enchanted creature connects — exactly what the deck wants to stack.
Thrun, Breaker of Silence
Thrun, Breaker of Silence is hexproof and attacks freely into most boards, so Keen Sense on Thrun is a guaranteed draw each combat step with almost no interaction risk from opponents.
Ivy, Gleeful Spellthief
When you cast Keen Sense targeting any creature, Ivy, Gleeful Spellthief copies it onto herself for free — one mana becomes two auras and two combat draw triggers.
Format Analysis
Where it lives, where it can’t
| Format | Verdict |
|---|---|
| commander | legal |
| legacy | legal |
| modern | legal |
| pioneer | not legal |
| standard | not legal |
| vintage | legal |
| pauper | not legal |
| oathbreaker | legal |
Commander is where Keen Sense earns its reputation — cheap auras that replace themselves are scarce in green, and any commander that attacks regularly or deals incidental damage turns this into sustained card advantage over a long game. In Legacy and Vintage it's legal but sees virtually no play, since those formats demand interaction and board presence, not incremental enchantment value. Modern has plenty of better draw options for creature-based strategies, so Keen Sense stays a Commander card in practice. Oathbreaker can leverage it similarly to Commander, especially on aggressive Planeswalker shells that want to keep a hand full of spells.
Key Combos
Combo lines featuring this card
Glint-Horn BuccaneerKeen Sense
Infinite draw triggers; Infinite rummaging; Infinite self-discard triggers; Near-infinite damage
View on Commander Spellbook ↗
Niv-Mizzet, ParunKeen Sense
Infinite card draw; Infinite draw triggers; Near-infinite damage
View on Commander Spellbook ↗
Niv-Mizzet, the FiremindKeen Sense
Infinite card draw; Infinite draw triggers; Near-infinite damage
View on Commander Spellbook ↗
Brallin, Skyshark RiderKeen Sense
Infinite card draw; Infinite draw triggers; Near-infinite +1/+1 counters on a creature; Near-infinite damage; Near-infinite self-discard triggers
View on Commander Spellbook ↗
AbundanceBorborygmos EnragedKeen SenseGrafted Exoskeleton
Each opponent loses the game; Near-infinite self-discard triggers
View on Commander Spellbook ↗Price Context
Current price
$2.75 cheap tier
At $2.75, Keen Sense sits comfortably in the cheap tier — it's a fair price for a niche card with a dedicated audience across several high-synergy commanders. Demand is narrow but stable, so the price is unlikely to spike unless a new commander pushes combat-damage draw into the mainstream.
Explore
Sources
Mentioned
Updated . Data from Scryfall, EDHREC, and Commander Spellbook.