War Cadence
Enchantment
: This turn, creatures can't block unless their controller pays for each blocking creature they control.
- CMC
- 3
- Mana cost
- Color identity
- R
- Rarity
- uncommon
- Set
- Mercadian Masques
- Price
- $1.75
- EDHREC rank
- #11828
War Cadence lets you tax each blocker individually on a per-attack basis, and opponents have to pay before blockers are declared — turning even a wide board into swiss cheese if they can't fund every creature they want to throw in the way. At one red mana to cast and a scalable activation cost you control, it's one of the most efficient ways to push through damage in combat-focused red or Goblin strategies.
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 |
War Cadence is a Commander card through and through — its value compounds over a long game with multiple opponents, where taxing three or four players' blockers across repeated attack steps creates the kind of sustained pressure that closes out pods. In Legacy and Vintage it's technically legal but functionally irrelevant; those formats end too fast for a slow enchantment that does nothing the turn it enters. Oathbreaker is the one non-Commander context where War Cadence could occasionally show up, particularly in aggressive red shells that want repeated combat wins, but the card pool is narrow enough that it rarely makes the cut.
Key Combos
Combo lines featuring this card
Price Context
Current price
$1.75 cheap tier
At $1.75, War Cadence sits in the bulk-rare tier — cheap enough to slot in without budget justification. It's a single-printing card with a narrow but loyal audience, so the price is stable rather than trending anywhere meaningful.
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Sources
Mentioned
Updated . Data from Scryfall, EDHREC, and Commander Spellbook.