Unlicensed Disintegration
Instant
Destroy target creature. If you control an artifact, Unlicensed Disintegration deals 3 damage to that creature's controller.
- CMC
- 3
- Mana cost
- Color identity
- BR
- Rarity
- uncommon
- Set
- Kaladesh Remastered
- Price
- —
- EDHREC rank
- #9041
Unlicensed Disintegration destroys any creature and drains the opponent for 3 if you control an artifact — unconditional removal stapled to meaningful life-loss on a three-mana instant is a strong rate. Davros, Dalek Creator decks treat it as a core piece: artifacts are everywhere in that shell, so the drain trigger is essentially guaranteed.
Best Commanders
Commanders with the highest synergy
Davros, Dalek Creator
Davros, Dalek Creator's gameplan leans hard on artifacts and opponent life-loss triggers, making Unlicensed Disintegration a near-auto-include — you almost always have an artifact in play, so the three-damage drain isn't a bonus condition, it's a baseline.
Kardur, Doomscourge
Kardur, Doomscourge forces opponents into combat and profits from creature deaths, and Unlicensed Disintegration lets you clean up a survivor or threatening blocker while taxing life totals — the drain nudges opponents closer to lethal after their forced attacks.
Rakdos, Lord of Riots
Rakdos, Lord of Riots needs opponents to lose life before he can be cast, and Unlicensed Disintegration's three-damage drain contributes directly to that condition while also clearing a blocker that might be keeping Rakdos off the table.
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 |
In Commander, Unlicensed Disintegration earns its slot in any Rakdos artifact deck — three mana for unconditional creature removal is already competitive, and the drain trigger is reliably live when artifacts are part of your gameplan. In Pioneer and Modern, it's a fringe option at best: both formats have faster, cheaper removal that doesn't ask you to jump through an artifact hoop, so Unlicensed Disintegration mostly shows up in dedicated artifact synergy builds rather than generic removal slots. Legacy and Vintage have access to everything, and three mana is simply too slow to compete with Swords to Plowshares and Fatal Push at that power level. Oathbreaker mirrors Commander in the relevant ways — artifact-heavy Rakdos builds get the same value, and the life-loss clause matters more in a lower-life-total format.
Key Combos
Combo lines featuring this card
Price Context
Current price
unknown tier
Pricing data for Unlicensed Disintegration isn't currently available in the system, so check Scryfall or TCGPlayer for the current market rate before buying. It's a common-rarity instant with narrow synergy requirements, which historically keeps cards like this well under a dollar in most printings.
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Sources
Updated . Data from Scryfall, EDHREC, and Commander Spellbook.