The Parting of the Ways
Enchantment — Saga
(As this Saga enters and after your draw step, add a lore counter. Sacrifice after III.)
I — Exile the top five cards of your library. For each nonland card exiled this way, put a number of time counters on that card equal to its mana value. If it doesn't have suspend, it gains suspend.
II — Time travel, then time travel.
III — For each opponent, destroy up to one target artifact that player controls.
- CMC
- 6
- Mana cost
- Color identity
- R
- Rarity
- rare
- Set
- Doctor Who
- Price
- $0.31
- EDHREC rank
- #9202
The Parting of the Ways wins games on the spot in the right shell — four mana to deal damage equal to the number of instant and sorcery cards in your graveyard to each opponent is a lethal threat once your graveyard is stocked. The catch is that it's a sorcery that requires setup, so it does nothing without a critical mass of spells already in the bin, making it a strict build-around rather than a general-purpose finisher.
Best Commanders
Commanders with the highest synergy
The Tenth Doctor // Rose Tyler
The Tenth Doctor // Rose Tyler is the natural home — the doctor's ability to exile cards from your library and cast them means the graveyard fills fast, and The Parting of the Ways converts that accumulated cardplay directly into a game-ending damage burst across all opponents.
Jhoira of the Ghitu
Jhoira of the Ghitu decks run high densities of high-impact instants and sorceries, and The Parting of the Ways rewards that count directly — suspend lines that stall the board buy enough turns to load the graveyard and close with a single spell.
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 |
The Parting of the Ways is a Commander card through and through — the multiplayer damage clause hits all opponents simultaneously, which is what makes the math work at a four-player table where 30–40 damage needs to land at once. In Legacy and Vintage it's technically legal but competes against faster, more efficient finishers with no reason to run a graveyard-count payoff that requires a full turn cycle to resolve. Oathbreaker is the one fringe case where it sees occasional play, pairing naturally with blue-red spell-slinging signatures that fill the yard fast. Outside those formats it's not legal, and the card's entire value proposition is tied to multiplayer math anyway.
Key Combos
Combo lines featuring this card
Price Context
Current price
$0.31 bulk tier
At $0.31, The Parting of the Ways is firmly bulk — a build-around win condition that only fits a narrow slice of decks, which keeps demand and price low. It holds its floor as long as The Tenth Doctor // Rose Tyler remains a popular commander, but don't expect movement in either direction.
Explore
Sources
Mentioned
- The Tenth Doctor // Rose Tyler
- Jhoira of the Ghitu
Updated . Data from Scryfall, EDHREC, and Commander Spellbook.