Sustaining Spirit
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Magic: The Gathering
Mana cost
Masters Edition IIME2 · #36
- Card type
- Creature — Angel Spirit
- Rarity
- Rare
- Indicative price
- Price unavailable
- Mana value
- 2
- Power
- 0
- Toughness
- 3
- Colour
- White
Card text
Cumulative upkeep (At the beginning of your upkeep, put an age counter on this permanent, then sacrifice it unless you pay its upkeep cost for each age counter on it.) Damage that would reduce your life total to less than 1 reduces it to 1 instead.
Format legality
- CommanderLegal
- DuelLegal
- LegacyLegal
- OathbreakerLegal
- PennyLegal
- PredhLegal
- PremodernLegal
- VintageLegal
Legalities follow the imported catalogue; check format rules before a tournament.
Data imported on 2026-10-06 (UTC).
Indicative Scryfall prices, updated daily. ★: foil; ★ E: etched foil. EUR and USD represent different markets.
Printing information
- Illustrator
- Rebecca Guay
- Card language
- English
- Release date
- 2008-09-22
Flavour text
"Faith is our greatest protector." —Halvor Arensson, Kjeldoran priest
Rulings
Does not affect damage if you are already at zero or negative life. You still take it all.
If an effect asks you to pay life, you can’t pay more life than you have.
Paying cumulative upkeep is always optional. If it’s not paid, the permanent with cumulative upkeep is sacrificed. Partial payments of the total cumulative upkeep cost can’t be made. For example, if a permanent with “cumulative upkeep ” has three age counters on it when its cumulative upkeep ability triggers, it gets another age counter and then its controller chooses to either pay or sacrifice the permanent.
Sustaining Spirit won’t prevent you from losing the game if your life total is 0 or less or some other effect causes you to lose the game.
The ability doesn’t change how much damage is dealt; it just changes how much life that damage makes you lose. An effect such as Spirit Link will see the full amount of damage being dealt.
The second ability applies only if your life total is being reduced by damage. Other effects or costs (such as “lose 1 life” or “pay 1 life”) can reduce your life total below 1 as normal.
The second ability is not a prevention effect. It stops unpreventable damage from reducing your life total below 1.
