Pact of the Serpent
Sorcery
Choose a creature type. Target player draws X cards and loses X life, where X is the number of creatures they control of the chosen type.
- CMC
- 3
- Mana cost
- Color identity
- B
- Rarity
- rare
- Set
- Kaldheim Commander
- Price
- $2.86
- EDHREC rank
- #2108
Pact of the Serpent draws cards equal to your tribe count at sorcery speed — in a deck running 20-plus creatures of the same type, that's frequently 10-plus cards for two mana. The cost is life loss equal to the same number, which matters only if your deck can't close before attrition catches up; in tribal shells like Clavileño, First of the Blessed that are already threatening lethal, the life is irrelevant.
Best Commanders
Commanders with the highest synergy
Clavileño, First of the Blessed
Clavileño, First of the Blessed runs a critical mass of Vampires to trigger its flying-token engine, and Pact of the Serpent converts that same headcount into a hand refill — often 15-plus cards — mid-combat or after a board development turn.
Lathril, Blade of the Elves
Lathril, Blade of the Elves wants as many Elves in play as possible to maximize the tap-drain ability, and Pact of the Serpent rewards that density with a single-spell refuel that keeps the engine running through interaction.
Aphelia, Viper Whisperer
Aphelia, Viper Whisperer is a Snake tribal commander that naturally assembles the large same-type board Pact of the Serpent requires, making the card a near-automatic inclusion at any development stage.
Edgar Markov
Edgar Markov floods the board with Vampire tokens faster than almost any other commander, and Pact of the Serpent scales directly off that token count — a turn-four board of ten Vampires translates to a ten-card, ten-life swing on one spell.
Carmen, Cruel Skymarcher
Carmen, Cruel Skymarcher builds a Vampire-heavy list that regularly fields a large enough board for Pact of the Serpent to replace nearly your entire hand, and the life loss is frequently offset by Carmen's own lifegain triggers.
Format Analysis
Where it lives, where it can’t
| Format | Verdict |
|---|---|
| commander | legal |
| legacy | legal |
| modern | not legal |
| pioneer | not legal |
| standard | not legal |
| vintage | legal |
| pauper | not legal |
| oathbreaker | legal |
Pact of the Serpent is legal in Commander, Legacy, Vintage, and Oathbreaker, but Commander is the only format where it's truly powerful. In Commander, 100-card tribal decks routinely hit the creature counts that make this a ten-card draw spell, and at two mana there's nothing else in black that competes for raw output in that slot. Legacy and Vintage have no tribal shell that needs it — those formats don't run 20 creatures of the same type — so Pact of the Serpent is essentially a Commander card that happens to be legal elsewhere.
Key Combos
Combo lines featuring this card
Price Context
Current price
$2.86 cheap tier
At $2.86, Pact of the Serpent sits in the tier of cards that are cheap enough to include on impulse but good enough that the price is unlikely to fall further. It's a staple in multiple high-population tribal commanders — Lathril, Blade of the Elves alone accounts for nearly 32,000 decks — so demand is stable and the current price reflects genuine play rate rather than speculation.
Explore
Sources
Updated . Data from Scryfall, EDHREC, and Commander Spellbook.