The Black Gate
Legendary Land — Gate
As The Black Gate enters, you may pay 3 life. If you don't, it enters tapped.
: Add 
.
, : Choose a player with the most life or tied for most life. Target creature can't be blocked by creatures that player controls this turn.
- CMC
- 0
- Mana cost
- Color identity
- B
- Rarity
- rare
- Set
- Tales of Middle-earth Commander
- Price
- $19.01
- EDHREC rank
- #1191
The Black Gate enters as a land that immediately puts a -1/-1 counter on a target creature, then taps for black mana while doubling the -1/-1 counters on any creature you target with it. In Nine-Fingers Keene decks, that counter-doubling is the whole engine — this card does real work the moment it hits the table.
Best Commanders
Commanders with the highest synergy
Nine-Fingers Keene
Nine-Fingers Keene cares about -1/-1 counters above all else, and The Black Gate's tap ability doubles them on a target creature, which chains directly into Keene's draw and damage triggers — it's a land that fuels the engine on every activation.
Sauron, Lord of the Rings
The Black Gate's Mordor flavor aside, Sauron, Lord of the Rings runs it because the counter-doubling shrinks blockers and enables the amass payoffs that power the deck's army-building gameplan.
Sauron, the Dark Lord
Sauron, the Dark Lord wants to proliferate and snowball threats, and The Black Gate provides a repeatable, land-slot-efficient way to stack counters on anything that needs to die or be weakened.
Frodo, Sauron's Bane
Frodo, Sauron's Bane decks lean on the Ring-bearer and corruption subtheme, and The Black Gate slots in as on-theme utility that also happens to answer small creatures without spending a spell slot.
Saruman, the White Hand
Saruman, the White Hand copies spells and generates amass tokens, and The Black Gate's ability to double -1/-1 counters doubles as reliable creature control that scales with the deck's go-wide strategy.
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 The Black Gate lives — the counter-doubling ability rewards dedicated -1/-1 counter decks in ways that simply don't exist in other formats. In Legacy and Vintage it's technically legal but has no competitive home; the ability is too slow and narrow to matter in those formats, and you'd never run it over a fetchland or dual. Oathbreaker shares Commander's singleton singleton structure, so the same counter-synergy decks that want it there apply, just at a smaller table scale. Outside of Commander, skip it entirely.
Key Combos
Combo lines featuring this card
Budget Alternatives
Cheaper options that do most of the same work
Blowfly Infestation and Hapatra, Vizier of Poisons fill adjacent roles at under a dollar each, spreading -1/-1 counters without costing a land slot, though neither doubles counters the way The Black Gate does. If the doubling effect specifically is what you're after, Corrosive Mentor and Harbinger of the Tides miss the mark — The Black Gate has no clean budget replacement because the land-slot efficiency is most of the point.
Price Context
Current price
$19.01 mid tier
At $19.01, The Black Gate sits in mid-tier pricing that reflects its narrow but high-demand role in a single archetype. It holds that price because Nine-Fingers Keene decks are numerous and the card is essentially mandatory in them — if you're not building that archetype, it's not worth the slot.
Explore
Sources
Updated . Data from Scryfall, EDHREC, and Commander Spellbook.