Is Pick Your Poison good in Commander?

Pick Your Poison in Commander — Combos, Decks & Price

Pick Your Poison forces an opponent to sacrifice an artifact, sacrifice an enchantment, or sacrifice a creature with flying — all three relevant threat types covered for a single green mana. It's a staple-tier piece of interaction, and Riku of Many Paths copying it for effectively one mana turns a clean answer into a two-for-one that strips two problem permanents at instant speed.

Best Commanders

Commanders with the highest synergy

01

Riku of Many Paths

33.6% of decks · synergy 0.32

Riku of Many Paths copies the first instant or sorcery you cast each turn for free, which means Pick Your Poison routinely becomes two separate removal triggers aimed at two different opponents or two different permanent types — that's exceptional reach for a one-mana spell.

02

Sarulf, Realm Eater

34.5% of decks · synergy 0.32

Sarulf, Realm Eater grows whenever a permanent an opponent controls is put into a graveyard, so Pick Your Poison forcing a sacrifice feeds the counter engine directly while also clearing an artifact, enchantment, or evasive threat that might otherwise race Sarulf to the finish.

03

Mazirek, Kraul Death Priest

22.6% of decks · synergy 0.21

Every sacrifice Pick Your Poison forces puts a +1/+1 counter on each creature you control via Mazirek, Kraul Death Priest, turning targeted removal into a board-wide pump; the fact that it hits three permanent types means it almost never whiffs when you need the trigger.

Format Analysis

Where it lives, where it can’t

Format	Verdict
commander	legal
legacy	legal
modern	legal
pioneer	legal
standard	legal
vintage	legal
pauper	legal
oathbreaker	legal

In Commander, Pick Your Poison is legitimately one of the best one-mana green spells — artifact removal, enchantment removal, and flying removal on a single card covers the three most common threats that green historically struggles to answer cleanly. In competitive 60-card formats like Modern and Pioneer, it's too narrow: opponents can simply have none of the three relevant permanent types in a given matchup, and dedicated removal slots demand more consistency. Pauper is where it competes most seriously outside Commander, as the format is dense with artifacts and enchantments and every mana counts. Legacy and Vintage have access to more powerful options at the same cost, so Pick Your Poison sits on the fringes there.

Key Combos

Combo lines featuring this card

Price Context

Current price

$0.65 bulk tier

At $0.65, Pick Your Poison sits at the top of the bulk tier and is worth grabbing in any quantity — it's in roughly a third of all Riku of Many Paths and Sarulf, Realm Eater decks, and its playability is broad enough that demand stays steady. Don't expect it to spike, but don't expect it to get cheaper either.