Smokestack
Artifact
At the beginning of your upkeep, you may put a soot counter on this artifact.
At the beginning of each player's upkeep, that player sacrifices a permanent of their choice for each soot counter on this artifact.
- CMC
- 4
- Mana cost
- Color identity
- C
- Rarity
- rare
- Set
- Vintage Masters
- Price
- —
- EDHREC rank
- #8357
Smokestack forces every player to sacrifice permanents on your upkeep, and the deck that generates the most fodder — tokens, treasure, clues, whatever — simply loses the least. The catch is that the soot counters escalate every turn, so you either build around the symmetry or get buried by your own card.
Best Commanders
Commanders with the highest synergy
Tergrid, God of Fright
Every permanent an opponent sacrifices to Smokestack lands on your side of the battlefield under Tergrid, God of Fright, turning a painful tax into a one-sided resource drain that compounds with each soot counter you add.
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 |
Commander is where Smokestack does its best work — three opponents means three sacrifice triggers per upkeep, and the stax shells that run it can maintain fodder through token generators or sacrifice-for-value engines while opponents strip down to their last permanents. In Legacy and Vintage, it sees fringe play in dedicated Stax lists, but the format speed and the prevalence of fast mana make the slow escalation harder to leverage before the game ends. Smokestack is illegal in Modern, Pioneer, Standard, and Pauper, so Commander is the practical home for virtually every player considering it.
Key Combos
Combo lines featuring this card
Price Context
Current price
unknown tier
Pricing data isn't available in our current feed for Smokestack, so check Scryfall or TCGPlayer for the live number before buying. It has been reprinted a handful of times, which has historically kept the price accessible relative to its power level in stax builds.
Explore
Sources
Mentioned
- Tergrid, God of Fright
Updated . Data from Scryfall, EDHREC, and Commander Spellbook.