Red Cliffs Armada
Creature — Human Soldier
This creature can't attack unless defending player controls an Island.
- CMC
- 5
- Mana cost
- Color identity
- U
- Rarity
- uncommon
- Set
- Portal Three Kingdoms
- Price
- $11.65
- EDHREC rank
- #30161
Red Cliffs Armada enters as a 5/5 for five mana — but only if you control an Island, which means it's a dead card in any deck that can't reliably hit blue mana early. The payoff is fine; the conditional is the entire problem.
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 | legal |
| oathbreaker | legal |
In Commander, Red Cliffs Armada is fringe at best — a vanilla 5/5 for five competes with creatures that generate value on entry, and the Island requirement makes it a liability in non-blue or dual-color decks that splash blue lightly. Legacy and Vintage are non-starters; those formats ignore a do-nothing 5/5 entirely. Pauper is the one home where a conditional 5/5 at common can matter in aggressive or tempo shells that already saturate the board with Islands, though even there cheaper threats usually win the slot.
Key Combos
Combo lines featuring this card
Budget Alternatives
Cheaper options that do most of the same work
Any blue creature deck looking for a big body on a budget is better served by Cryptic Serpent or Tolarian Terror, both of which scale with actual game state rather than asking a yes/no land question. Red Cliffs Armada has no evasion, no enters-the-battlefield ability, and no upside beyond raw size, so almost any similarly costed threat with a built-in payoff outclasses it.
Price Context
Current price
$11.65 mid tier
At $11.65, Red Cliffs Armada sits in the mid tier on the back of collector demand rather than gameplay merit — this is a Portal Three Kingdoms card, and scarcity drives the price far above the card's functional value. Don't pay this for a deck slot; pay it only if you're completing a collection.
Explore
Sources
Mentioned
Updated . Data from Scryfall, EDHREC, and Commander Spellbook.