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Pestilence

Enchantment

At the beginning of the end step, if no creatures are on the battlefield, sacrifice this enchantment.
{B}: This enchantment deals 1 damage to each creature and each player.

CMC
4
Mana cost
{2}{B}{B}
Color identity
B
Rarity
common
Set
Foreign Black Border
Price
$2.39
EDHREC rank
#4180
Buy on TCGplayer
Pestilence card art
Pestilence is a repeatable board-control engine that hits every creature and player simultaneously for as little as one black mana per activation — the cost is keeping a creature alive to prevent it from leaving play at end of turn. Commanders like Indoraptor, the Perfect Hybrid that want repeated non-combat damage triggers and Maha, Its Feathers Night that gain power from opponents losing life treat that upkeep clause as a feature, not a drawback.

Best Commanders

Commanders with the highest synergy

01
Indoraptor, the Perfect Hybrid

Indoraptor, the Perfect Hybrid

67.3% of decks · synergy 0.64

Indoraptor, the Perfect Hybrid triggers off any non-combat damage dealt to opponents, so each Pestilence activation is both a board wipe and a free Goad effect stapled to a counter — the two cards form an engine that controls the board while pressuring life totals simultaneously.

03
Grismold, the Dreadsower

Grismold, the Dreadsower

48.4% of decks · synergy 0.48

Grismold, the Dreadsower floods the board with Plant tokens for each creature that dies, and Pestilence kills those tokens efficiently while leaving Grismold — a 3/3 that gets counters for each creature death — standing tall as the last creature in play.

04

Rona, Herald of Invasion

28.9% of decks · synergy 0.28

Rona, Herald of Invasion untaps whenever you cast a legendary spell, but the real draw is the Lord Xander flip side: Pestilence pairs with indestructible or damage-immune permanents in the Dimir shell to lock out opposing boards while Rona's discard ability generates ongoing value.

05
Ob Nixilis, Captive Kingpin

Ob Nixilis, Captive Kingpin

20.4% of decks · synergy 0.18

Ob Nixilis, Captive Kingpin triggers and places a +1/+1 counter plus exile ability whenever opponents lose exactly 1 life, and Pestilence's one-mana activations hit each opponent for exactly 1 at a time — making it trivial to chain triggers every single turn.

Format Analysis

Where it lives, where it can’t

FormatVerdict
commander legal
legacy legal
modern not legal
pioneer not legal
standard not legal
vintage legal
pauper legal
oathbreaker legal

Pestilence is a pauper staple, and that's the format where it does its best work — cheap enchantments with repeatable effects are rare at common, and the ability to control the board for one black mana per activation is genuinely broken in a format where most creatures have one or two toughness. In Commander, Pestilence occupies a reliable role in mono-black and black-heavy strategies that can keep a creature in play consistently, particularly alongside indestructible creatures or commanders with high toughness. Vintage and Legacy have access to it but rarely want it — faster, more deterministic win conditions make a slow enchantment that needs a creature to stick feel clunky at those power levels. Oathbreaker parallels Commander in how it plays out: Pestilence is a real card in the right shell but not a universal include.

Key Combos

Combo lines featuring this card

9 decks
PolyraptorPestilenceEarthcraft

PolyraptorPestilenceEarthcraft

Near-infinite creature tokens; Near-infinite damage to creatures; Near-infinite damage to all players; Near-infinite death triggers; Near-infinite ETB; Near-infinite LTB; Near-infinite mana basic lands you control can produce

View on Commander Spellbook ↗

Price Context

Current price

$2.39 cheap tier

At $2.39, Pestilence sits at the low end of the cheap tier — it's an old enchantment with multiple printings, and that price reflects genuine supply rather than lack of demand. It holds value well enough given its pauper and Commander play, but don't expect it to move upward.

Explore

Sources

Mentioned

← All cards

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