Pain Magnification
Enchantment
Whenever an opponent is dealt 3 or more damage by a single source, that player discards a card.
- CMC
- 3
- Mana cost
- Color identity
- BR
- Rarity
- uncommon
- Set
- The List
- Price
- $2.18
- EDHREC rank
- #12472
Pain Magnification turns every 3-or-more damage hit your opponents take into a forced discard, and it costs two mana to set up. Zoyowa Lava-Tongue decks run it in roughly a third of all builds because it converts Zoyowa's damage trigger into a recursive discard engine that opponents can't easily outrun.
Best Commanders
Commanders with the highest synergy
Zoyowa Lava-Tongue
Zoyowa Lava-Tongue deals non-combat damage to opponents as a core function, and Pain Magnification stacks directly on top of that — every Zoyowa trigger that clears 3 damage strips a card from hand, often multiple times per turn cycle.
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 |
Pain Magnification is legal in Commander, Legacy, Modern, Vintage, and Oathbreaker, but it's a Commander card in practice. In Legacy and Vintage the effect is too slow and too conditional — those formats kill before a discard-by-damage engine generates meaningful advantage. Commander is where Pain Magnification earns its slot: multiplayer pods mean more damage sources, opponents start at 40 life and need time to develop, and a resolved enchantment at two mana flies under the disruption threshold that would catch a tutor or a combo piece. Rakdos and Jund builds running forced-damage or group slug strategies are its natural home.
Key Combos
Combo lines featuring this card
Price Context
Current price
$2.18 cheap tier
At $2.18, Pain Magnification sits at the low end of niche enchantments with a real Commander home. The price is stable rather than ascending — it sees enough demand from Zoyowa and group slug decks to hold above bulk, but not enough cross-format play to push it higher.
Explore
Sources
Mentioned
Updated . Data from Scryfall, EDHREC, and Commander Spellbook.