Withering Torment
Instant
Destroy target creature or enchantment. You lose 2 life.
- CMC
- 3
- Mana cost
- Color identity
- B
- Rarity
- uncommon
- Set
- Duskmourn: House of Horror
- Price
- $3.43
- EDHREC rank
- #307
Withering Torment drains each opponent for their own life total divided by four — a punishing, scalable effect that closes out games where other drain spells run out of steam. The cost is real: you pay life equal to your own total divided by four, so running it low puts you in danger, but Toshiro Umezawa recasts it from the graveyard whenever a creature dies, turning that liability into a repeatable engine.
Best Commanders
Commanders with the highest synergy
Toshiro Umezawa
Toshiro Umezawa's flashback-from-graveyard ability was made for Withering Torment — every opponent's creature that dies under his watch is another trigger to recast it, stacking drain totals across the table without spending extra cards.
Cecil, Dark Knight
Cecil, Dark Knight leans into life payment as a resource, and Withering Torment slots cleanly into that philosophy, draining opponents at scale while Cecil's lifegain effects offset the self-damage clause.
Zenos yae Galvus
Zenos yae Galvus wants large, swingy life-loss effects to end games quickly, and Withering Torment's division-based drain scales directly with however bloated opponents' life totals have grown.
Valgavoth, Terror Eater
Valgavoth, Terror Eater rewards opponents losing life in large chunks, and Withering Torment delivers exactly that — a multi-opponent drain that fuels Valgavoth's payoffs in a single cast.
Rev, Tithe Extractor
Rev, Tithe Extractor cares about extracting value from opponents' resources, and Withering Torment turns each opponent's own life total into the measure of their punishment, synergizing with the deck's drain-and-tax gameplan.
Format Analysis
Where it lives, where it can’t
| Format | Verdict |
|---|---|
| commander | legal |
| legacy | legal |
| modern | legal |
| pioneer | legal |
| standard | legal |
| vintage | legal |
| pauper | not legal |
| oathbreaker | legal |
In Commander, Withering Torment is at its best: four opponents means four separate drain triggers off a single spell, and life totals starting at 40 mean the division still yields meaningful numbers deep into the game. In one-on-one formats like Legacy, Modern, Pioneer, and Standard, the effect shrinks to a single target dealing roughly a quarter of their life — functional but rarely better than dedicated burn or drain options at the same cost. Oathbreaker sits closer to Commander in spirit, and the multi-opponent reach holds up there too. Withering Torment is not pauper-legal, which is where budget drain strategies would most want it anyway.
Key Combos
Combo lines featuring this card
Price Context
Current price
$3.43 cheap tier
At $3.43, Withering Torment sits in a comfortable budget range — cheap enough to slot into any Commander build without deliberation, and niche enough that its price reflects genuine demand from Toshiro Umezawa and life-payment strategies rather than speculative hype. It holds value as long as those archetypes stay popular, which they show no signs of abandoning.
Explore
Sources
Mentioned
- Toshiro Umezawa
- Cecil, Dark Knight
- Zenos yae Galvus
- Valgavoth, Terror Eater
- Rev, Tithe Extractor
Updated . Data from Scryfall, EDHREC, and Commander Spellbook.