Maga, Traitor to Mortals
Legendary Creature — Human Wizard
Maga enters with X +1/+1 counters on it.
When Maga enters, target player loses life equal to the number of +1/+1 counters on it.
- CMC
- 3
- Mana cost
- Color identity
- B
- Rarity
- rare
- Set
- Saviors of Kamigawa
- Price
- $3.10
- EDHREC rank
- #19279
Maga, Traitor to Mortals enters the battlefield and immediately drains every opponent for X life — no attack step required, no blocks, no counterplay once it resolves. The cost is the mana investment: you're paying at minimum six or seven mana for a meaningful impact, which means Maga lives or dies by how well your deck generates and channels large amounts of black mana.
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 Maga, Traitor to Mortals actually belongs — three opponents multiplies the drain trigger into a game-ending threat at sufficiently high X values, and the format's abundance of black mana doublers and infinite mana combos let you skip straight to lethal. In Legacy and Vintage, the card is technically legal but competes against formats that end the game on turn one or two, so a six-plus mana sorcery-speed creature goes nowhere near a competitive 60-card list. Modern is the same story: too slow, too conditional, no home. Oathbreaker gives Maga a niche shot as the spell half of a Liliana-style drain package, but the two-player default caps the drain's ceiling. Stick to Commander.
Key Combos
Combo lines featuring this card
Price Context
Current price
$3.10 cheap tier
At $3.10, Maga, Traitor to Mortals sits in the sweet spot where it costs less than a pack but does real work as a combo finisher or commander. The price is stable — it's a niche card with a committed audience in black mana-combo shells, not a card chasing trend-driven spikes.
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Sources
Mentioned
Updated . Data from Scryfall, EDHREC, and Commander Spellbook.