Planar Despair
Sorcery
Domain — All creatures get -1/-1 until end of turn for each basic land type among lands you control.
- CMC
- 5
- Mana cost
- Color identity
- B
- Rarity
- rare
- Set
- Apocalypse
- Price
- $0.27
- EDHREC rank
- #28218
Planar Despair wipes the board and scales the damage to your opponents' own permanents — the more they've built up, the harder they fall. The triple-black cost is the real barrier, but any deck that can consistently cast it gets a sweeper that punishes greedy boardstates and rewards restraint.
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 |
Commander is where Planar Despair actually earns its slot — four players means four boardstates developing simultaneously, and a sweeper that deals damage equal to the number of permanents a player controls routinely hits for eight or more across the table by mid-game. Legacy and Vintage have access to it on paper, but neither format has any interest in a five-mana sorcery-speed sweeper when faster, cheaper options exist. Oathbreaker is the one non-Commander format where it could see fringe play in a dedicated black control shell, though the 20-life starting total compresses the game too much for this kind of slow attrition piece to shine consistently.
Key Combos
Combo lines featuring this card
Price Context
Current price
$0.27 bulk tier
At $0.27, Planar Despair is deep bulk — you're picking it up for nearly nothing, which makes the question purely about whether it deserves a slot, not whether it's affordable. Bulk rares with genuinely unique effects tend to hold that floor indefinitely, so there's no timing consideration here.
Explore
Sources
Mentioned
Updated . Data from Scryfall, EDHREC, and Commander Spellbook.