Retaliation
Enchantment
Creatures you control have "Whenever this creature becomes blocked by a creature, this creature gets +1/+1 until end of turn."
- CMC
- 3
- Mana cost
- Color identity
- G
- Rarity
- uncommon
- Set
- Urza's Saga
- Price
- $0.19
- EDHREC rank
- #23602
Retaliation turns every blocked creature into a removal engine, dealing damage equal to that creature's power back to the blocking creature's controller — a punishing enchantment in any deck that wants to force through combat. General Marhault Elsdragon is the canonical home, where rampage already rewards being blocked and Retaliation piles on additional pain.
Best Commanders
Commanders with the highest synergy
General Marhault Elsdragon
General Marhault Elsdragon's rampage ability already makes blocking miserable, and Retaliation adds a second tax — opponents take damage from the controller on top of watching their blockers outgrow their stats, making the decision to block at all a losing proposition.
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 |
Retaliation sees virtually no play in Legacy or Vintage, where four mana for a symmetrical-ish enchantment with no immediate effect can't compete with the speed of those formats. Commander is where it lives — the longer game lets the enchantment generate repeated value, and multiplayer politics make "don't block my creatures or you take damage" a credible threat across multiple opponents. In Oathbreaker it's technically legal but faces the same problem as Legacy: the format's tighter constraints make four-mana do-nothings hard to justify. Outside those formats, Retaliation isn't legal anywhere.
Key Combos
Combo lines featuring this card
Price Context
Current price
$0.19 bulk tier
At $0.19, Retaliation is deep bulk — the kind of card you pull from a box rather than buy. Given its narrow application and the small pool of commanders that want it, there's no pressure on that price to move.
Explore
Sources
Mentioned
- General Marhault Elsdragon
Updated . Data from Scryfall, EDHREC, and Commander Spellbook.