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Solitary Confinement

Enchantment

At the beginning of your upkeep, sacrifice this enchantment unless you discard a card.
Skip your draw step.
You have shroud. (You can't be the target of spells or abilities.)
Prevent all damage that would be dealt to you.

CMC
3
Mana cost
{2}{W}
Color identity
W
Rarity
rare
Set
Judgment
Price
$8.74
EDHREC rank
#4017
Buy on TCGplayer
Solitary Confinement card art
Solitary Confinement makes you effectively untouchable — no targeting, no combat damage, no nothing — as long as you discard a card at the start of each upkeep and skip your draw step. In enchantress shells like Sythis, Harvest's Hand, where drawing cards is automatic and abundant, that upkeep cost becomes trivial; pair it with Guilty Conscience on an opponent's creature and you have a lock that doubles as a win condition.

Best Commanders

Commanders with the highest synergy

01
Sythis, Harvest's Hand

Sythis, Harvest's Hand

34.2% of decks · synergy 0.31

Sythis, Harvest's Hand draws a card every time you play an enchantment, which means Solitary Confinement's discard-a-card upkeep cost pays for itself the moment you cast any enchantment — the deck feeds the lock naturally.

02
Zedruu the Greathearted

Zedruu the Greathearted

26.8% of decks · synergy 0.26

Zedruu the Greathearted can donate Solitary Confinement to an opponent, saddling them with the upkeep cost and skip-draw clause while Zedruu's triggered ability keeps your own hand full.

04
Kwain, Itinerant Meddler

Kwain, Itinerant Meddler

23.1% of decks · synergy 0.21

Kwain, Itinerant Meddler gives every player a card during the upkeep, which can directly satisfy Solitary Confinement's discard requirement without ever touching your normal draw step.

05
Sergeant John Benton

Sergeant John Benton

18.5% of decks · synergy 0.16

Sergeant John Benton tutors for equipment and silver-bordered synergies, but more relevantly here, his deck leans into hard-to-interact-with permanents — Solitary Confinement slotting in as a redundant protection layer for the controller.

Format Analysis

Where it lives, where it can’t

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

Commander is by far the most relevant home for Solitary Confinement — the enchantress and group-hug archetypes that sustain its upkeep cost are native to the 100-card singleton format, and protecting your commander or a key piece from a table full of opponents is worth a dedicated slot. In Legacy and Vintage, Solitary Confinement sees fringe play in dedicated lock or enchantress builds, though the card advantage formats move too fast for a three-mana enchantment with an upkeep tax to see serious competitive representation. Modern is technically legal but functionally absent; the discard clause is a steep ask without a dedicated engine, and faster threats make the protection less reliable. Oathbreaker can replicate some enchantress synergies, but the smaller game counts reduce the threat density that makes Solitary Confinement's invulnerability so punishing.

Key Combos

Combo lines featuring this card

Budget Alternatives

Cheaper options that do most of the same work

There's no true budget replacement for what Solitary Confinement does — shroud, damage prevention, and targeting immunity on a single permanent is a unique combination — but Aegis of the Gods offers personal hexproof for two mana if you only need to stop targeting effects on yourself. Greater Auramancy protects your enchantments broadly and comes in under $3, which covers a meaningful part of the shell even if it doesn't lock out combat damage the way Solitary Confinement does.

Price Context

Current price

$8.74 mid tier

At $8.74, Solitary Confinement sits in the mid tier — reasonable for a card with this much defensive text and real synergy density across multiple archetypes. It's held this price range steadily due to consistent Commander demand and no recent reprint, so if you're building Sythis or Zedruu, buying now rather than waiting is the sensible call.

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Sources

Mentioned

← All cards

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