Traumatize
Sorcery
Target player mills half their library, rounded down.
- CMC
- 5
- Mana cost
- Color identity
- U
- Rarity
- rare
- Set
- Through the Omenpaths Bonus Sheet
- Price
- —
- EDHREC rank
- #2770
Traumatize cuts an opponent's library exactly in half — at instant speed on a five-mana sorcery, that's a massive mill swing that often strips 30 or more cards in a single cast. Alone it's a tempo play; paired with Bruvac the Grandiloquent, who doubles each mill trigger, a single Traumatize mills the entire library.
Best Commanders
Commanders with the highest synergy
Bruvac the Grandiloquent
Bruvac the Grandiloquent's passive doubles every mill trigger, so Traumatize targeting a player with 40 cards left mills all 40 instead of 20 — a one-card kill. At 74% inclusion across 7,000+ Bruvac decks, Traumatize is close to a mandatory slot.
The Emperor of Palamecia
The Emperor of Palamecia cares about exiling cards from graveyards and libraries, and Traumatize front-loads a graveyard with enough material to fuel multiple activations immediately. It's in over half of all Emperor decks precisely because that burst of cards in the yard is hard to replicate at the same speed.
Phenax, God of Deception
Phenax, God of Deception mills through creature toughness activations, and Traumatize accelerates opponents toward empty libraries before those activations have to close the gap entirely. At 52% inclusion, it plays well as a burst finisher when the grind has already done most of the work.
Grolnok, the Omnivore
Grolnok, the Omnivore exiles milled cards and lets you cast them, so Traumatize on yourself dumps half your own library into Grolnok's exile zone at once — a huge card-advantage engine in a single spell. That self-mill angle explains the 38% inclusion rate in a deck that otherwise has nothing to do with the opponent's library.
The Mindskinner
The Mindskinner deals damage based on cards milled, so Traumatize converts directly into a burst of life loss proportional to half the targeted player's library. At 39% inclusion across over 11,000 decks it's a reliable damage multiplier, not just a mill piece.
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 |
Traumatize sees almost no competitive play in Legacy, Modern, or Pioneer — 60-card formats move too fast for a five-mana sorcery that doesn't win on the spot without a follow-up, and opponents often scoop before the library runs out anyway. Vintage has the raw power density to punish the five-mana ask even harder. Commander is where Traumatize actually lives: 100-card libraries make the half-mill effect devastating in raw card count, and the format's slower clock gives you the turns to set up the payoffs that make Traumatize a finisher rather than a tempo play.
Key Combos
Combo lines featuring this card
Bruvac the GrandiloquentTraumatize
Infinite mill for target opponent; Near-infinite self-mill
View on Commander Spellbook ↗
Phenax, God of DeceptionConsuming AberrationTraumatize
Infinite mill for target opponent
View on Commander Spellbook ↗
Price Context
Current price
unknown tier
Pricing data for Traumatize isn't currently available in this page's dataset, so check Scryfall or TCGPlayer for a live number. It has been reprinted multiple times and has historically sat well under $1, making it an easy pickup whenever a mill or self-mill Commander deck is on the table.
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Sources
Updated . Data from Scryfall, EDHREC, and Commander Spellbook.