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Showdown of the Skalds

Enchantment — Saga

(As this Saga enters and after your draw step, add a lore counter. Sacrifice after III.)
I — Exile the top four cards of your library. Until the end of your next turn, you may play those cards.
II, III — Whenever you cast a spell this turn, put a +1/+1 counter on target creature you control.

CMC
4
Mana cost
{2}{R}{W}
Color identity
RW
Rarity
rare
Set
The List
Price
$0.38
EDHREC rank
#7420
Buy on TCGplayer
Showdown of the Skalds card art
Showdown of the Skalds exiles four cards and lets you cast them over two turns, then loads +1/+1 counters onto every nonland permanent you play for the rest of the chapter — that's a draw engine and a pump effect stapled together for four mana. Arcbound Reclaimer can return spent saga chapters to keep the value flowing, and Sigurd, Jarl of Ravensthorpe turns every counter placed by the third chapter into a second trigger, making Showdown of the Skalds one of the most efficient four-drops in any Boros counters shell.

Best Commanders

Commanders with the highest synergy

01
Sigurd, Jarl of Ravensthorpe

Sigurd, Jarl of Ravensthorpe

55.4% of decks · synergy 0.54

Sigurd, Jarl of Ravensthorpe doubles +1/+1 counter placements, so every nonland permanent you cast during Showdown of the Skalds's third chapter gets twice the counters — the saga goes from good to engine-defining here, which explains why over half of Sigurd decks run it.

02
Pia Nalaar, Consul of Revival

Pia Nalaar, Consul of Revival

31.3% of decks · synergy 0.29

Pia Nalaar, Consul of Revival cares about artifacts entering and leaving play cheaply, and Showdown of the Skalds fuels a burst of low-cost artifact casts that each pick up a free +1/+1 counter, accelerating Pia's artifact-matters payoffs in a single turn cycle.

03
General Ferrous Rokiric

General Ferrous Rokiric

27.6% of decks · synergy 0.26

General Ferrous Rokiric rewards you for casting multicolored spells with 4/4 Golem tokens, and Showdown of the Skalds's exile-and-cast effect means any multicolored spells you flip into still trigger Rokiric — effectively turning four exiled cards into potential token producers.

04

Gwen Stacy

18.0% of decks · synergy 0.18

Gwen Stacy builds around webs and placing counters on creatures, and Showdown of the Skalds blankets every nonland permanent she casts in a turn with +1/+1 counters, feeding her counter-accumulation gameplan efficiently off a single card.

05
Rocco, Street Chef

Rocco, Street Chef

15.8% of decks · synergy 0.14

Rocco, Street Chef generates Food tokens and cares about counters and artifacts entering play, and Showdown of the Skalds provides both card velocity and a counter-distribution effect that synergizes with the incremental value engine Rocco decks are built around.

Format Analysis

Where it lives, where it can’t

FormatVerdict
commander legal
legacy legal
modern legal
pioneer legal
standard not legal
vintage legal
pauper not legal
oathbreaker legal

In Commander, Showdown of the Skalds is a legitimate draw engine in any Boros or multicolor shell that wants card advantage — the combination of impulse draw and a counters rider on chapter three is hard to find at four mana in these colors. In Pioneer and Modern, it saw fringe play in aggressive white-red midrange decks, though it competes with faster threats and rarely earns a maindeck slot at current power levels. Legacy and Vintage have no interest — four mana sagas don't clear the bar when blue cantrips and faster threats dominate those formats. Oathbreaker mirrors Commander in that Showdown of the Skalds is a real card in aggressive signature-spell shells, particularly when the planeswalker commander can trigger off the nonland permanents you're flooding onto the board.

Key Combos

Combo lines featuring this card

Price Context

Current price

$0.38 bulk tier

At $0.38, Showdown of the Skalds is bulk — the price reflects its narrow competitive range despite being genuinely powerful in the right Commander builds. It's unlikely to spike dramatically given that it has no dominant Modern or Pioneer home, so you can pick up copies without urgency.

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Sources

Mentioned

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Updated . Data from Scryfall, EDHREC, and Commander Spellbook.