Ward of Bones
Artifact
Each opponent who controls more creatures than you can't cast creature spells. The same is true for artifacts and enchantments.
Each opponent who controls more lands than you can't play lands.
- CMC
- 6
- Mana cost
- Color identity
- C
- Rarity
- rare
- Set
- Eventide
- Price
- $24.56
- EDHREC rank
- #11979
Ward of Bones locks every opponent out of playing the game once they're ahead on permanents — lands, creatures, artifacts, enchantments, and planeswalkers all capped at one more than you control. Six mana is steep, but no other single card applies that much board-state pressure across that many permanent types simultaneously.
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 |
Commander is where Ward of Bones actually matters — it's a multiplayer prison piece designed to punish the player who got ahead while letting you catch up, and that dynamic only exists in pods. In Legacy and Vintage it's legal but functionally irrelevant: six mana is uncastable in those formats without dedicated ramp, and one-for-one interaction makes a symmetry-dependent lock piece unplayable at that cost. Oathbreaker is legal and theoretically interesting, but the smaller starting hand sizes and faster clock mean Ward of Bones usually arrives too late to matter. Treat Ward of Bones as a Commander-only card in practice.
Key Combos
Combo lines featuring this card
Budget Alternatives
Cheaper options that do most of the same work
Cursed Totem and Suppression Field attack specific permanent types rather than all of them, so neither replicates the full lockdown — but at a fraction of the cost they cover the most relevant axes in most metas. If the goal is specifically capping creature counts, Meekstone and Marble Titan do heavy lifting under $2, though Ward of Bones is the only card that simultaneously caps lands, artifacts, enchantments, and planeswalkers in one slot.
Price Context
Current price
$24.56 premium tier
At $24.56, Ward of Bones sits in premium territory for a card that sees play in exactly one format. It holds that price because it's a unique effect with no functional reprint — there is simply no other card that gates five permanent types off a single controller-relative threshold.
Explore
Sources
Mentioned
Updated . Data from Scryfall, EDHREC, and Commander Spellbook.