Test of Endurance
Enchantment
At the beginning of your upkeep, if you have 50 or more life, you win the game.
- CMC
- 4
- Mana cost
- Color identity
- W
- Rarity
- rare
- Set
- Judgment
- Price
- $4.86
- EDHREC rank
- #3383
Test of Endurance wins the game on your upkeep if you have 50 or more life — the only catch is surviving one full turn rotation after it resolves. In Oloro, Ageless Ascetic builds and similar lifegain shells, hitting 50 life is the deck's natural state, which makes this a legitimate alternate win condition rather than a cute gimmick.
Best Commanders
Commanders with the highest synergy
Oloro, Ageless Ascetic
Oloro, Ageless Ascetic generates life passively from the command zone, so Test of Endurance's 50-life threshold is often crossed before the card even hits the battlefield — it's a closer that the deck reaches for almost automatically, appearing in over a third of all Oloro lists.
Bilbo, Birthday Celebrant
Bilbo, Birthday Celebrant's entire gameplan is reaching 111 life, so Test of Endurance functions as a redundant win condition that fires well before the namesake trigger ever needs to resolve.
Will, Scion of Peace
Will, Scion of Peace reduces spell costs based on life gained each turn, which means the deck is already engineering large life totals — Test of Endurance converts that resource directly into a win.
Aerith Gainsborough
Aerith Gainsborough rewards healing effects with card advantage and token generation, naturally accumulating the life total that Test of Endurance demands while pressuring the board through other means.
Hope Estheim
Hope Estheim decks stack healing effects to fuel cost reductions and triggers, and Test of Endurance slides in as a low-investment payoff that turns the deck's core resource into a game-ending threat.
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 |
Test of Endurance is legal in Commander, Legacy, Vintage, and Oathbreaker, but Commander is where it actually sees play — the 100-card singleton format gives lifegain decks the redundancy and time they need to reliably hit 50 life. In Legacy and Vintage it's a non-factor: those formats end too fast and interact too efficiently for a three-mana enchantment with a one-turn delay to matter. Oathbreaker is the one fringe case where Test of Endurance could pull weight, particularly under a lifegain-oriented planeswalker, but the format's smaller starting life total and compressed game length make it a speculative include at best.
Key Combos
Combo lines featuring this card
Price Context
Current price
$4.86 cheap tier
At $4.86, Test of Endurance sits at the high end of the budget tier but is still a reasonable ask for a card that closes out games. The price reflects steady demand from Commander lifegain builds rather than any spike potential — it's been a known quantity long enough that the market has settled around this range.
Explore
Sources
Mentioned
- Oloro, Ageless Ascetic
- Bilbo, Birthday Celebrant
- Will, Scion of Peace
- Aerith Gainsborough
- Hope Estheim
Updated . Data from Scryfall, EDHREC, and Commander Spellbook.