MagicTheGathering.fyi

Nine Lives

Enchantment

Hexproof
If a source would deal damage to you, prevent that damage and put an incarnation counter on this enchantment.
When there are nine or more incarnation counters on this enchantment, exile it.
When this enchantment leaves the battlefield, you lose the game.

CMC
3
Mana cost
{1}{W}{W}
Color identity
W
Rarity
rare
Set
Core Set 2021
Price
$1.40
EDHREC rank
#6332
Buy on TCGplayer
Nine Lives card art
Nine Lives makes you effectively unkillable in combat for as long as it stays on the battlefield — but the moment it accumulates nine incarnation counters, you lose the game outright. The lock is airtight when paired with Solemnity (no counters ever land) and best deployed via Zedruu the Greathearted, who gifts the enchantment to an opponent and collects value while they're stuck holding the trap.

Best Commanders

Commanders with the highest synergy

01
Zedruu the Greathearted

Zedruu the Greathearted

73.1% of decks · synergy 0.70

Zedruu the Greathearted is the natural home: donate Nine Lives to an opponent and watch them absorb the lose-the-game clause while Zedruu draws cards and gains life off the gift.

02
Iroh, Tea Master

Iroh, Tea Master

64.7% of decks · synergy 0.64

Iroh, Tea Master runs Nine Lives as a personal shield — the indestructible-adjacent protection buys the turns Iroh needs to assemble value engines without dying to early aggression.

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

Commander is where Nine Lives does its real work, either as a combo piece with Solemnity or as a political weapon funneled to opponents through donation effects. In Legacy and Vintage it's a curiosity — redundant protection tools are more efficient, and nine-counter clocks are hard to manage without dedicated support. Modern and Pioneer offer more structured enchantment synergies, but the lose-the-game trigger is too fragile against the removal density in those formats. Nine Lives is legal in Oathbreaker, where the condensed game length makes the counter clock less threatening and the lockout potential more immediately relevant.

Key Combos

Combo lines featuring this card

Price Context

Current price

$1.40 cheap tier

At $1.40, Nine Lives sits firmly in the budget tier — low cost of entry for a card that anchors a legitimate win condition. Combo staples at this price point tend to hold steady; demand from Zedruu and enchantment-prison builds keeps a floor under it.

Explore

Sources

Mentioned

← All cards

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