Winter Orb
Artifact
As long as this artifact is untapped, players can't untap more than one land during their untap steps.
- CMC
- 2
- Mana cost
- Color identity
- C
- Rarity
- rare
- Set
- Fourth Edition
- Price
- $15.12
- EDHREC rank
- #3225
Winter Orb locks opponents to one untap per turn while you build workarounds — artifacts, tap effects, and untap tricks let you operate freely while everyone else starves for mana. The social cost is real and the target lands on you immediately, but in the right shell this is one of the most oppressive two-mana permanents in the format. Urza, Lord High Artificer ignores the restriction almost entirely, which tells you everything about who wants it.
Best Commanders
Commanders with the highest synergy
Urza, Lord High Artificer
Urza, Lord High Artificer turns every artifact into a mana source, so Winter Orb's land restriction is effectively one-sided — Urza's controller untaps nothing and loses nothing. This is the defining home for the card, which explains a nearly 47% inclusion rate.
Meria, Scholar of Antiquity
Meria, Scholar of Antiquity taps artifacts for mana, which means Winter Orb doesn't hamstring the Meria player the way it does opponents relying on lands. The combination produces a persistent mana advantage that's hard to race.
Grand Arbiter Augustin IV
Grand Arbiter Augustin IV already makes opponents pay more for everything; Winter Orb compounds that by shrinking the mana pool they're spending from. Together they create a soft lock that can strand fully assembled hands.
Jorn, God of Winter
Jorn, God of Winter untaps snow permanents whenever it attacks, giving the Jorn player a built-in out to Winter Orb's restriction every combat step. Running the Orb here is essentially free — opponents suffer while Jorn's controller keeps moving.
Lavinia, Azorius Renegade
Lavinia, Azorius Renegade punishes spells cast without enough mana, and Winter Orb makes "enough mana" harder to reach every turn. The two cards apply pressure from different angles and collapse the same window opponents need to respond.
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 Winter Orb does its most impactful work — multiplayer tables mean three opponents are all land-starved simultaneously, magnifying the asymmetry whenever you have even a modest workaround. In Legacy, it's a legal and historically respected piece of Stax and prison strategies, though the format's access to fast mana and free spells means the lock is harder to maintain. Vintage legality is largely academic; the format's density of Moxen and other mana sources reduces Winter Orb's teeth considerably. It's not legal in Modern, Pioneer, Standard, or Pauper, so outside of Commander and the older eternal formats, this card doesn't exist competitively. Oathbreaker is the other live format, where its two-mana cost slots cleanly into aggressive lockout strategies alongside similarly costed hate pieces.
Key Combos
Combo lines featuring this card
Budget Alternatives
Cheaper options that do most of the same work
Mana Web and Storage Matrix each cost well under a dollar and produce land-taxing effects, though neither matches Winter Orb's blunt stopping power — Mana Web punishes tapping rather than restricting untaps, and Storage Matrix requires the opponent to choose between untapping lands or creatures rather than shutting lands off outright. If the goal is slowing opponents without committing to Winter Orb's price or its social gravity, Hokori, Dust Drinker is a creature-based version that hits every player including you, and it runs around $2.
Price Context
Current price
$15.12 mid tier
At $15.12, Winter Orb sits in the mid tier — expensive enough to feel in a budget build, reasonable for a staple that sees consistent play across multiple formats and archetypes. It's a Reserved List card, so supply is fixed; the price reflects genuine demand from Stax and prison strategies rather than speculation.
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Sources
Mentioned
Updated . Data from Scryfall, EDHREC, and Commander Spellbook.