Pitiless Horde
Creature — Orc Berserker
At the beginning of your upkeep, you lose 2 life.
Dash 
(You may cast this spell for its dash cost. If you do, it gains haste, and it's returned from the battlefield to its owner's hand at the beginning of the next end step.)
- CMC
- 3
- Mana cost
- Color identity
- B
- Rarity
- rare
- Set
- The List
- Price
- $0.19
- EDHREC rank
- #21972
Pitiless Horde is a 5/3 trampler for three mana — that rate is legitimately aggressive, and in black-heavy aggro or Wastes-matter strategies it closes games fast. The cost is real: losing a life every upkeep and being forced to attack each turn means a slow or stumbling board punishes you hard.
Format Analysis
Where it lives, where it can’t
| Format | Verdict |
|---|---|
| commander | legal |
| legacy | legal |
| modern | legal |
| pioneer | legal |
| standard | not legal |
| vintage | legal |
| pauper | not legal |
| oathbreaker | legal |
In Commander, Pitiless Horde is a niche inclusion — the mandatory attack and upkeep drain are liabilities in a multiplayer format where you're rarely the only threat and life totals start at 40. It belongs in dedicated aggro-black builds where the game plan is already "kill someone fast or die trying," not midrange or combo shells. In Modern and Pioneer, a 5/3 trample for three is a real number, but the drawbacks push it below the threshold of competitive — formats that want aggressive three-drops have cleaner options without the downside baggage. Legacy and Vintage don't want it at all; the power ceiling there makes Pitiless Horde irrelevant.
Key Combos
Combo lines featuring this card
Price Context
Current price
$0.19 bulk tier
At $0.19, Pitiless Horde is deep bulk — you're picking it out of a dollar box, not tracking it on a buylist. It's not a card that appreciates; the narrow use case keeps demand too low for price movement.
Explore
Sources
Mentioned
Updated . Data from Scryfall, EDHREC, and Commander Spellbook.