Uphill Battle
Enchantment
Creatures played by your opponents enter tapped.
- CMC
- 3
- Mana cost
- Color identity
- R
- Rarity
- uncommon
- Set
- Mercadian Masques
- Price
- $3.27
- EDHREC rank
- #15109
Uphill Battle taxes every creature your opponents play by making them enter tapped, a stax effect that compounds fast at a four-player table. Three mana for a global slow-down is a reasonable rate, and Kratos, God of War's combat-hungry gameplan makes the asymmetry here close to free.
Best Commanders
Commanders with the highest synergy
Kratos, God of War
Kratos, God of War attacks and fights for value constantly, so opponents' creatures coming in tapped means they can't block profitably the turn they land — Uphill Battle effectively gives Kratos a window to swing through boards that would otherwise brick him.
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 |
Uphill Battle is legal in Commander, Legacy, Vintage, and Oathbreaker, and Commander is realistically its only home. In Legacy and Vintage, dedicated stax shells exist but have access to faster, more punishing pieces and three mana is too slow to matter. In Commander, the effect scales with the number of opponents, making a single enchantment do the work of multiple slower disruption pieces. Oathbreaker is a real option in creature-heavy metas, but the smaller format size reduces the payoff.
Key Combos
Combo lines featuring this card
Price Context
Current price
$3.27 cheap tier
At $3.27, Uphill Battle sits in the cheap-but-not-bulk tier — fair for a niche enchantment with a real effect. It sees enough Commander play to stay above bulk pricing, but don't expect much movement in either direction.
Explore
Sources
Mentioned
Updated . Data from Scryfall, EDHREC, and Commander Spellbook.