Sentinel Tower
Artifact
Whenever an instant or sorcery spell is cast during your turn, this artifact deals damage to any target equal to 1 plus the number of instant and sorcery spells cast before that spell this turn.
- CMC
- 4
- Mana cost
- Color identity
- C
- Rarity
- rare
- Set
- Battlebond
- Price
- $2.15
- EDHREC rank
- #9488
Sentinel Tower converts a high-instant-and-sorcery count into direct damage — one spell cast means one damage, but the fifth spell in a turn means five, and in a storm-style shell that number climbs fast. The cost is real: it's a four-mana artifact that does nothing until you cast spells, so it punishes slow hands and rewards decks already chaining instants through Zethi, Arcane Blademaster or similar engines.
Best Commanders
Commanders with the highest synergy
Zethi, Arcane Blademaster
Zethi, Arcane Blademaster recasts instants from exile every combat step, meaning Sentinel Tower triggers stack up across multiple attack phases without any additional spell-casting infrastructure — it's the cleanest possible home for the card.
Urabrask
Urabrask forces opponents to cast spells at sorcery speed while giving you a free impulse draw each upkeep, naturally fueling the high spell-per-turn rate that makes Sentinel Tower threaten lethal in a single go-around.
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 |
Sentinel Tower is legal in Commander, Legacy, Vintage, and Oathbreaker, but it's effectively a Commander card — the multiplayer environment means 120 life total across three opponents, and Sentinel Tower's damage scales with spell volume rather than raw power, which makes the incremental pings far more meaningful when you're burning down multiple life totals simultaneously. In Legacy and Vintage it's simply outclassed: Storm and fast combo decks can close the game before Sentinel Tower ever reaches a relevant damage threshold, and those formats don't want a four-mana artifact that requires setup. Oathbreaker is the closest analog to Commander and the same logic applies — stack spells, point damage, repeat.
Key Combos
Combo lines featuring this card
Price Context
Current price
$2.15 cheap tier
At $2.15, Sentinel Tower sits comfortably in budget territory for a card with a 50% inclusion rate in its best commander's decks. The price reflects genuine demand from Zethi builds rather than casual bulk, so it's unlikely to fall further — if you're building the archetype, pick it up now rather than waiting.
Explore
Sources
Mentioned
- Zethi, Arcane Blademaster
- Urabrask
Updated . Data from Scryfall, EDHREC, and Commander Spellbook.