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Pontiff of Blight

Creature — Zombie Cleric

Extort (Whenever you cast a spell, you may pay {W/B}. If you do, each opponent loses 1 life and you gain that much life.)
Other creatures you control have extort. (If a creature has multiple instances of extort, each triggers separately.)

CMC
6
Mana cost
{4}{B}{B}
Color identity
B
Rarity
rare
Set
Forgotten Realms Commander
Price
$0.35
EDHREC rank
#5467
Buy on TCGplayer
Pontiff of Blight card art
Pontiff of Blight gives every other creature you control extort — not just itself — turning a board of five creatures into a five-life swing per spell cast, and that scales fast. The cost is six mana for a 2/7 body with no evasion, which means K'rrik, Son of Yawgmoth is the card that makes Pontiff genuinely broken, paying that cost in life and accelerating the extort storm by a full turn or two.

Best Commanders

Commanders with the highest synergy

01
K'rrik, Son of Yawgmoth

K'rrik, Son of Yawgmoth

27.7% of decks · synergy 0.24

K'rrik, Son of Yawgmoth lets you pay Pontiff of Blight's six-mana cost in life, then every subsequent spell you cast through K'rrik's Phyrexian mana discount triggers extort on every creature in play — a life-total gap that closes games in a single turn cycle.

03

Sorin of House Markov

17.0% of decks · synergy 0.15

Sorin of House Markov's Vampire-tribal shell churns out creatures at a pace that maximizes the number of extort triggers Pontiff of Blight generates, turning every cheap Vampire spell into a meaningful life-drain.

04
Kambal, Consul of Allocation

Kambal, Consul of Allocation

13.8% of decks · synergy 0.11

Kambal, Consul of Allocation already taxes opponents for casting spells; layering Pontiff of Blight's extort on top means opponents lose life for their spells and you drain them further on yours, compounding the life-total pressure.

Format Analysis

Where it lives, where it can’t

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

Commander is where Pontiff of Blight earns its keep — three opponents means each extort trigger drains up to three life and gains you three, making the math on a wide board genuinely game-ending. In one-on-one formats like Legacy and Modern, extort loses two-thirds of its ceiling: you drain one opponent for one life, which a six-mana 2/7 cannot justify when those formats demand immediate board impact. Pioneer is theoretically legal but the same problem applies — curve efficiency kills it there too. Pontiff of Blight is a Commander card that happens to be legal elsewhere, not the other way around.

Key Combos

Combo lines featuring this card

Price Context

Current price

$0.35 bulk tier

At $0.35, Pontiff of Blight is bulk — the kind of card you pick up as a throw-in without blinking. That price reflects format irrelevance outside Commander, which means anyone who wants it for a K'rrik or Cleric tribal deck is getting real power at essentially no cost.

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Sources

Mentioned

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