Rune of Protection: Red
Enchantment
: The next time a red source of your choice would deal damage to you this turn, prevent that damage.
Cycling 
(, Discard this card: Draw a card.)
- CMC
- 2
- Mana cost
- Color identity
- W
- Rarity
- common
- Set
- Urza's Saga
- Price
- $0.20
- EDHREC rank
- #23106
Rune of Protection: Red gives you a repeatable damage prevention shield against one of the most aggressive colors in Commander, and it cycles if the matchup never materializes. Two mana to deploy and one white mana per trigger is the entire cost — that's a real rate for a real effect.
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, Rune of Protection: Red is a metagame call — it blanks Purphoros, God of the Forge triggers, turns off Mana Geyser-fueled burn commanders like Neheb, the Eternal, and shores up life totals against red-heavy tables without spending additional cards. The cycling clause means it's never a dead draw in a game where red doesn't show up. In Pauper, where it's legal and aggressive red strategies are a core part of the format, it sees occasional sideboard play as a hard counter to mono-red's burn plan. Legacy and Vintage offer it no real stage — there's too much going on for a one-color prevention enchantment to matter.
Key Combos
Combo lines featuring this card
Price Context
Current price
$0.20 bulk tier
At $0.20, Rune of Protection: Red is deep bulk — the kind of card you pull from a common box without thinking twice. It's not going anywhere in price; supply is enormous and demand is narrow, so expect it to stay at this floor indefinitely.
Explore
Sources
Mentioned
Updated . Data from Scryfall, EDHREC, and Commander Spellbook.