Archfiend of Despair card art

Archfiend of Despair

Creature — Demon MV 8

Tracked across real Commander games played through TurnZero HQ.

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What it doesCombosRulingsIn the 99Every version

What it does

Flying

Your opponents can't gain life.

At the beginning of each end step, each opponent loses life equal to the life that player lost this turn. (Damage causes loss of life.)

Combos with Archfiend of Despair

Lines this card is part of — what it needs alongside it, and what the two of them do. An infinite result is the one that moves a deck's bracket.

Showing the 8 shortest and most explosive. This card appears in more than these — follow any of them through to Commander Spellbook to browse the rest.

Combo data from Commander Spellbook, the community-maintained database of Magic combos. Mirrored nightly.

Rulings

3 official rulings, in the order Wizards published them.

  • 2018-06-08

    Archfiend of Despair’s last ability counts only how much life was lost. It doesn’t care whether a player also gained life.

  • 2018-06-08

    In a Two-Headed Giant game, damage and life loss happen to each player individually. If each player on a team is dealt 2 damage, each of those players loses 2 life and the team’s life total goes down by 4. When Archfiend of Despair’s ability resolves, each of those players again loses 2 life and the team’s life total goes down again by 4; they don’t each lose 4 life.

  • 2018-06-08

    The amount of life to lose is determined only as Archfiend of Despair’s triggered ability resolves. For example, if you control two of them and an opponent lost 3 life earlier in the turn, the first ability to resolve would have that player lose 3 life, and the second would have that player lose 6 life.

Rulings are Wizards of the Coast's own, mirrored from Scryfall and refreshed nightly.

In the 99

Every deck whose current list includes Archfiend of Despair, whatever its commander.

Decks running it 3
Games played 0
Win rate — Fewer than 5 completed games — not enough to publish a rate yet.
Confirmed on board 0 Games where a board photo caught it actually in play.

Most played under

Commander Decks Games Win rate
Athreos, God of Passage 1 0 —
Gisa and Geralf 1 0 —
The Lord of Pain 1 0 —

Colors it shows up in

  • Rakdos 1 deck
  • Dimir 1 deck
  • Orzhov 1 deck

Every version of Archfiend of Despair

3 printings, newest first. Prices are the market figures Scryfall publishes, refreshed nightly — a printing with no figure shows a dash rather than a zero, because Scryfall genuinely publishes none for some of them.

Prices from Scryfall, which tracks the TCGplayer and Cardmarket markets. They move daily and are a guide rather than a quote. Search TCGplayer for Archfiend of Despair — a name search across every version, for the printings TCGplayer publishes no direct link to.

Aggregated from Commander games tracked in TurnZero HQ. Every figure counts decks and games only — no individual deck list, player or playgroup is identified. Win rates are withheld below 5 completed games, where the sample is too small to mean anything.