Quarum Trench Gnomes
Creature — Gnome
: If target Plains is tapped for mana, it produces colorless mana instead of white mana. (This effect lasts indefinitely.)
- CMC
- 4
- Mana cost
- Color identity
- R
- Rarity
- rare
- Set
- Legends
- Price
- $13.00
- EDHREC rank
- #29707
Quarum Trench Gnomes forces a Plains to tap for colorless instead of white mana — a permanent, targeted color-hosing effect that can lock a white-heavy opponent out of key spells entirely. For three mana at sorcery speed, the payoff is real, but only if white is at your table.
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 |
Quarum Trench Gnomes is a Commander card through and through — the format's multi-player politics and long game give the tap-for-colorless effect time to matter, especially against white-reliant decks running Smothering Tithe, board wipes, or Heliod. In Legacy and Vintage it's legal but effectively unplayable; those formats move too fast for a three-mana creature that does nothing without a white-mana opponent across from you. Commander is the only context where Quarum Trench Gnomes earns its seat, and even there it's a meta call — dead weight if nobody at the table is on white.
Key Combos
Combo lines featuring this card
Budget Alternatives
Cheaper options that do most of the same work
There's no clean budget swap that replicates Quarum Trench Gnomes' on-board color disruption — the effect is unique enough that most alternatives shift to a different angle entirely, like land destruction or blanket color-hosing enchantments. If the goal is punishing white decks rather than surgically targeting a land, cards like Gloom or Karma cover similar territory at a lower entry point, though they sacrifice the precision of picking a specific Plains.
Price Context
Current price
$13.00 mid tier
At $13, Quarum Trench Gnomes sits in mid-tier pricing for a card with a narrow, meta-dependent role — that price is driven almost entirely by Reserved List status rather than competitive demand. It holds value for the same reason, but buy it because you need the effect, not as a financial hedge.
Explore
Sources
Mentioned
Updated . Data from Scryfall, EDHREC, and Commander Spellbook.