Sword-Point Diplomacy
Sorcery
Reveal the top three cards of your library. For each of those cards, put that card into your hand unless any opponent pays 3 life. Then exile the rest.
- CMC
- 3
- Mana cost
- Color identity
- B
- Rarity
- rare
- Set
- Ixalan Promos
- Price
- $0.87
- EDHREC rank
- #22109
Sword-Point Diplomacy reads your opponents three cards each and lets them pay life or exile anything they don't want you to have — then you keep everything they didn't pay for. In a four-player game that's up to twelve cards buried or kept at your opponents' expense, which makes it one of the most explosive impulsive-draw effects black has at three mana.
Format Analysis
Where it lives, where it can’t
| Format | Verdict |
|---|---|
| commander | legal |
| legacy | legal |
| modern | legal |
| pioneer | legal |
| standard | not legal |
| vintage | legal |
| pauper | not legal |
| oathbreaker | legal |
Commander is where Sword-Point Diplomacy does its best work — more opponents means more cards revealed, more life lost, and more meaningful tension around what each player chooses to give up. In 1v1 formats like Legacy, Modern, or Pioneer, it's a three-mana sorcery that nets you somewhere between zero and three cards depending entirely on your opponent's life total and hand knowledge, which is too variance-prone to compete with cleaner card advantage options. Vintage has better things to do at three mana. Stick to Commander, where the multiplayer math consistently rewards it.
Key Combos
Combo lines featuring this card
Price Context
Current price
$0.87 bulk tier
At $0.87, Sword-Point Diplomacy sits firmly in bulk territory despite being a legitimate staple in black Commander decks. The price is unlikely to spike dramatically given regular reprint exposure, so picking up copies now costs almost nothing — there's no reason to wait.
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Sources
Mentioned
Updated . Data from Scryfall, EDHREC, and Commander Spellbook.