Swallowing Plague
Sorcery — Arcane
Swallowing Plague deals X damage to target creature and you gain X life.
- CMC
- 2
- Mana cost
- Color identity
- B
- Rarity
- uncommon
- Set
- Champions of Kamigawa
- Price
- $0.10
- EDHREC rank
- #18514
Swallowing Plague kills a creature and gains you life equal to its toughness — real removal that also stabilizes your life total. The kicker is the flexible black mana cost, which makes it harder to splash but trivially easy in mono-black or heavily black shells.
Format Analysis
Where it lives, where it can’t
| Format | Verdict |
|---|---|
| commander | legal |
| legacy | legal |
| modern | legal |
| pioneer | not legal |
| standard | not legal |
| vintage | legal |
| pauper | not legal |
| oathbreaker | legal |
In Commander, Swallowing Plague fills a clean role in mono-black and black-heavy life-gain decks — it handles a threat and pads your life total in one card, which matters more in a four-player game where resources are stretched thin. The triple-black kicker cost is a real barrier in two- or three-color decks, so it earns its slot primarily in shells that can consistently produce BBB by turn four or five. In Legacy and Vintage it's outclassed by cheaper, unconditional removal like Fatal Push and Swords to Plowshares and sees no meaningful play. Modern similarly has better options at every point on the curve.
Key Combos
Combo lines featuring this card
Price Context
Current price
$0.10 bulk tier
At $0.10, Swallowing Plague is pure bulk — no financial barrier to picking up copies. It won't appreciate in value, but if the effect fits your deck, there's no reason not to run it.
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Sources
Mentioned
Updated . Data from Scryfall, EDHREC, and Commander Spellbook.