Vicious Shadows
Enchantment
Whenever a creature dies, you may have this enchantment deal damage to target player equal to the number of cards in that player's hand.
- CMC
- 7
- Mana cost
- Color identity
- R
- Rarity
- rare
- Set
- Shards of Alara
- Price
- $1.91
- EDHREC rank
- #11069
Vicious Shadows turns every creature death into a hand-size-matters damage trigger — in a multiplayer game where opponents routinely hold six or more cards, a single board wipe can close out the table on the spot. The seven-mana cost is real, but Feldon of the Third Path and Zurzoth, Chaos Rider both generate enough creature churn that Vicious Shadows pays for itself the turn it lands.
Best Commanders
Commanders with the highest synergy
Zurzoth, Chaos Rider
Zurzoth, Chaos Rider forces every opponent to draw an extra card on their turn, which inflates hand sizes across the board and turns each Devil token death into a Vicious Shadows trigger that scales with a stacked hand — the two cards form a self-reinforcing damage engine.
Format Analysis
Where it lives, where it can’t
| Format | Verdict |
|---|---|
| commander | legal |
| legacy | legal |
| modern | legal |
| pioneer | not legal |
| standard | not legal |
| vintage | legal |
| pauper | not legal |
| oathbreaker | legal |
Vicious Shadows is legal in Commander, Legacy, Modern, Vintage, and Oathbreaker, but its home is overwhelmingly Commander. In eternal formats like Legacy and Vintage, seven mana is a prohibitive cost in an environment full of faster, cheaper threats, and the trigger rarely fires enough times to matter before the game ends. Commander is where Vicious Shadows earns its slot: multiplayer games run longer, opponents accumulate cards, and the board wipe density means the enchantment frequently triggers five or more times in a single turn cycle. Oathbreaker is a functional fit but lower-powered on average, so the payoff is less consistent.
Key Combos
Combo lines featuring this card
Feldon of the Third PathDiamond LionThornbite StaffVicious Shadows
Infinite damage; Infinite death triggers; Infinite ETB; Infinite LTB; Infinite sacrifice triggers
View on Commander Spellbook ↗Price Context
Current price
$1.91 cheap tier
At $1.91, Vicious Shadows sits firmly in the budget tier despite the outsized closing power it brings to Commander tables. That price is unlikely to spike dramatically given the card's narrow competitive appeal, so picking up copies now is low-risk for anyone building creature-death or group-slug strategies.
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Sources
Updated . Data from Scryfall, EDHREC, and Commander Spellbook.