Vicious Rivalry
Sorcery
As an additional cost to cast this spell, pay X life.
Destroy all artifacts and creatures with mana value X or less.
- CMC
- 4
- Mana cost
- Color identity
- BG
- Rarity
- rare
- Set
- Secrets of Strixhaven
- Price
- $1.11
- EDHREC rank
- #14179
Vicious Rivalry forces each player to sacrifice a creature and then puts a +1/+1 counter on each surviving creature they control — a one-mana black sorcery that thins the board while pumping your own. In decks running Betor, Ancestor's Voice or anything that benefits from sacrifice triggers and counter accumulation, this card does meaningful work for essentially nothing.
Best Commanders
Commanders with the highest synergy
Betor, Ancestor's Voice
Betor, Ancestor's Voice cares about creatures entering and leaving play, and Vicious Rivalry delivers both in one card — forcing a sacrifice across the table while seeding counters onto whatever survives, which Betor can then leverage immediately.
Beledros Witherbloom
Beledros Witherbloom runs on life payment and creature churn, and Vicious Rivalry slots in as a cheap edict that doubles as a pump spell for the tokens and lifelinkers you want swinging anyway.
Format Analysis
Where it lives, where it can’t
| Format | Verdict |
|---|---|
| commander | legal |
| legacy | legal |
| modern | legal |
| pioneer | legal |
| standard | legal |
| vintage | legal |
| pauper | not legal |
| oathbreaker | legal |
Commander is where Vicious Rivalry earns its slot — four opponents means four forced sacrifices, and the counter payoff scales with every creature you have in play. In 1v1 formats like Legacy or Modern, a one-mana edict is still playable in attrition shells, but the symmetrical pump clause matters far less when you're only hitting one opponent and both players lose a creature. Pioneer and Standard decks can use it as budget removal in aristocrats or counter-synergy builds, though more targeted removal will usually be preferred in those formats. Oathbreaker follows the same logic as Commander: the more opponents, the more this overperforms its mana cost.
Key Combos
Combo lines featuring this card
Price Context
Current price
$1.11 cheap tier
At $1.11, Vicious Rivalry sits in the budget-staple tier — cheap enough to slot into any black deck without a second thought. Given its multi-format legality and strong Commander utility, that price is likely to hold or tick upward as more sacrifice and counter-synergy commanders are printed.
Explore
Sources
Updated . Data from Scryfall, EDHREC, and Commander Spellbook.