Visions of Brutality
Enchantment — Aura
Devoid (This card has no color.)
Enchant creature
Enchanted creature can't block.
Whenever enchanted creature deals damage, its controller loses that much life.
- CMC
- 2
- Mana cost
- Color identity
- B
- Rarity
- uncommon
- Set
- Oath of the Gatewatch
- Price
- $0.40
- EDHREC rank
- #13688
Visions of Brutality turns an opponent's creature into a liability — they lose control of attacks and blocks while you keep a permanent lock on the board. At one black mana with Killian, Decisive Mentor cutting the cost further, this is one of the cheapest ways in Commander to permanently destabilize an opponent's combat math.
Best Commanders
Commanders with the highest synergy
Killian, Decisive Mentor
Killian, Decisive Mentor reduces Visions of Brutality to a single black mana, making it trivially easy to staple onto a creature mid-combat and redirect a threat before it ever connects with you.
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, Visions of Brutality excels because the three-player threat environment means you can almost always find a target worth stranding in a hostile board state. Competitive non-rotating formats like Modern and Legacy have faster, more efficient answers that make a three-mana aura too slow and too fragile to see serious play. Pioneer sits in the same position — the card is legal but has never carved out a real role. Oathbreaker is the one alternative 1v1-adjacent format where it could show up in dedicated Aura or curse strategies, but it remains a fringe pick there.
Key Combos
Combo lines featuring this card
Price Context
Current price
$0.40 bulk tier
At $0.40, Visions of Brutality is firmly bulk — you're essentially picking it up for free in any trade binder. Bulk rares with narrow applications tend to stay at this price floor indefinitely, so there's no urgency either way.
Explore
Sources
Mentioned
Updated . Data from Scryfall, EDHREC, and Commander Spellbook.