War Tax
Enchantment
: This turn, creatures can't attack unless their controller pays for each attacking creature they control.
- CMC
- 3
- Mana cost
- Color identity
- U
- Rarity
- uncommon
- Set
- Mercadian Masques
- Price
- $0.97
- EDHREC rank
- #15368
War Tax turns your mana into a repeatable attack tax — opponents pay X per creature to attack you or your planeswalkers, and you set the price every combat. Three mana to cast, negligible ongoing cost, and it warps combat math for the rest of the game.
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 |
Commander is where War Tax earns its slot: politics tables love a card that says "attack someone else" without burning a removal spell, and the repeatable nature means one casting influences every combat step for the rest of the game. In dedicated pillow-fort shells or superfriends builds that need to protect planeswalkers, War Tax does real work at a trivially low asking price. Legacy and Vintage are technically legal but the effect is far too slow and fair to matter in either format. Oathbreaker shares Commander's multiplayer structure, so the same logic applies — planeswalker-forward oathbreaker decks get extra mileage here since War Tax guards the oathbreaker directly.
Key Combos
Combo lines featuring this card
Price Context
Current price
$0.97 bulk tier
At $0.97, War Tax sits at the high end of bulk — it's not a chase card, but it's not a throwaway either. Supply is thin enough that the price won't crater further, and any renewed interest in pillow-fort or superfriends lists could nudge it upward.
Explore
Sources
Mentioned
Updated . Data from Scryfall, EDHREC, and Commander Spellbook.