The 33 Best Prevent All Damage Cards in Magic

Last updated on March 18, 2026

Soul of New Phyrexia | Illustration by Daarken

There are few greater joys in Magic than amassing a field of synergistic creatures that promise to overwhelm your opponents with their military might and your tactical genius… and few tragedies more heartbreaking than seeing that board wasted due to combat or sweepers like Storm's Wrath and Burn Down the House.

Thankfully, Magic is a game of answers as much as questions and R&D has blessed us with a multitude of ways to prevent damage, both in and out of combat. If you want to win every combat phase or just get the red player off your back, this is the list for you!

What Are Prevent All Damage Cards in MTG?

Endure (Eventide) | Illustration by Ralph Horsley

We're using “prevent all damage” as shorthand for effects that shrug off damage, including combat damage and/or direct damage. Though this term suggests a fleet of Fog effects, the truth goes deeper. This list includes several Fogs because they’re efficient means of preventing all combat damage, but we also have cards that grant protection, which prevents damage from specific sources, and cards that grant indestructible to your creatures, which doesn’t prevent the damage but makes it irrelevant.

Honorable Mentions

A few cards can prevent all damage dealt to them so they would need Entangler or Lure to protect more than themselves. That's why I award honorable mentions to Diamond Weapon, Guard Gomazoa, and Seraph of the Sword.

#33. Glory

Glory gets bonus points for repeatability, though it comes with the minor hurdle that you need to get Glory into the graveyard in the first place, which often means you need to play this white creature in something other than mono-white.

#32. Akroma’s Blessing

The cycling ability salvages Akroma's Blessing from being a total dud. As is, it can be handy in a mono-color heavy meta or in a deck built around cycling cards, though you can generally do better for protection spells.

#31. Surge of Salvation

Surge of Salvation’s specificity often regulates it to the sideboard, though the general hexproof attached to the first ability offers enough universality that you could run it in the 99 of an EDH deck if you really wanted.

#30. Solitary Confinement

Solitary Confinement provides incredible protection against combat damage… provided you get around the discard and lack of a draw step. That can be as simple as running Phyrexian Arena or planeswalkers that draw cards to minimize the downside, but you must build around it.

#29. Endure

Endure costs a terrifying amount of mana, but there’s value to a card that protects only you from damage since the average Fog stops everything. That means you can let your opponents be slaughtered by the player who dropped Craterhoof Behemoth while you stand strong, ready to steal the win. And it prevents all damage, making this white instant a protection spell against cards like Star of Extinction.

#28. Prismatic Strands

Prismatic Strands can be clunky, especially against multicolor decks, but it makes up for the expensive Fog with a free flashback cost. Doubling down on Fog effects makes life very annoying for your opponents, if only because they need to find a way to make you blow the second cast.

#27. Deflecting Palm

Deflecting Palm is one of the funniest cards you can cast in a game of Magic. The best part? This card doesn’t target so it prevents damage from sources protected by shroud or hexproof, making it an excellent answer to Voltron commanders like Uril, the Miststalker.

#26. Serra’s Emissary

Serra's Emissary provides tons of value as a reanimation or ramp target. You’ll often default to protection from creatures not only to prevent combat damage but to break through defensive lines, though protection from sorceries protects you from most red-based board wipes like Blasphemous Act and Ill-Timed Explosion.

#25. Fog (and Friends)

The classic option to prevent all combat damage is Fog, which has interestingly seen several functional reprints that were color-shifted in Ethereal Haze and Darkness.

These all have the same inherent weakness: You spent a card without impacting the board. Preventing combat damage in one damage step doesn’t make an opposing board less scary the turn after. The best Fog decks employ strategies that reward them for dragging the game out. Such decks are called Turbo Fog and typically win by milling their opponents out with Jace's Erasure or Teferi's Tutelage. Fogs can also be handy tools in Commander if your opponents always go for the win with Overrun effects as it effectively counters that strategy.

#24. Eerie Interference

Eerie Interference trims the mana cost of Endure in exchange for only preventing damage dealt by creatures, but that’s a fine trade. You can engineer situations where preventing the damage to your creatures blows your opponents out, especially if you tack a Lure onto a Voltron commander.

#23. Dawn Charm

Dawn Charm offers a lot as a Fog mostly because it doesn’t have to be one. This white card is a quintessential charm in the sense that none of these modes are particularly worth 2 mana but the chance to use any of them makes up for the inefficiency.

#22. Vigor + Anti-Venom, Horrifying Healer + Gatta and Luzzu

Let's take incoming damage and turn it into +1/+1 counters. Vigor does it on a large scale for every other creature you control. Anti-Venom, Horrifying Healer does it on a selfish scale for itself, and Gatta and Luzzu also protects and buffs one creature, but at instant speed so you can ensure you get some counters out of it.

#21. Glacial Chasm

Glacial Chasm exists in a similar space to Solitary Confinement as you need to circumvent the downside, but the cumulative upkeep cost’s a much smaller price to pay, especially considering all the ways you can play lands from your graveyard.

#20. Comeuppance

Perhaps the best response to Star of Extinction ever printed, Comeuppance blows your opponent out, regardless of whether they were trying to get in via combat or burn you away.

#19. Inkshield

Inkshield has been the subject of more than a few EDH memes, but the card has real potential so long as your deck can hold up 5 mana without seeming suspicious. For that reason, this Orzhov card () plays well with blue decks alongside counterspells and big flash threats like Hullbreaker Horror.

#18. Soul of New Phyrexia

If you’re looking for a repeatable source of damage prevention, you can’t do much better than Soul of New Phyrexia. The mana cost is a bit steep, but cards like Zirda, the Dawnwaker and Training Grounds can clear that up—plus, it’s not like artifact decks are known for lacking mana.

#17. Brave the Elements

You need to be in mono-white to properly leverage Brave the Elements, but it makes up for the restriction with efficiency. You’re hard-pressed to find a cheaper way to get team-wide protection. This works as a protective spell of course, but it has the potential to finish a game by making blockers irrelevant.

#16. New Way Forward

New Way Forward went under the radar and is a game-winner if you wait for the opportune moment. It's expensive, but five mana to do these effects on a 4 power creature is value enough.

#15. Selfless Spirit

Selfless Spirit’s primary charm as a protective spell comes from your ability to recur it. You can crack this to protect your team then recast it with Lurrus of the Dream-Den or recur it via Brought Back or Helping Hand, and so on. The on-demand sacrifice works well with death triggers and sacrifice payoffs.

#14. Ultimate Magic: Holy

Ultimate Magic: Holy is one of the few cards with a foretell cost equal to it's regular cost. It's a nicely flexible spell that does a great job of protecting more than your creatures. Plus, with all the play from exile cards released this might get a bonus without needing to wait a turn or pay an extra .

#13. Morningtide's Light

The effect of damage prevention from Morningtide's Light lasts the entire turn cycle which can be an eternity in some Commander games. You also get a board wide blink to get second instances of all your lovely enter the battlefield effects. There's a reason WotC knows to exile some of it's most powerful spells upon resolution.

#12. Boromir, Warden of the Tower

What if Selfless Spirit could hate on obnoxious cards like Etali, Primal Conqueror and Force of Will? Then you’d have Boromir, Warden of the Tower, a perfectly fine protection card. The Ring tempting you rarely matters beyond specific combo builds, but you can justify running this in any deck that needs one more protection spell.

#11. Flare of Fortitude

Flare of Fortitude keeps your life total steady and your creatures well away from the dangers of the Storm's Wrath and other sweepers so long as you don’t mind a sacrifice for the greater good.

#10. Obscuring Haze

Obscuring Haze doesn’t see the same level of play as the other cards in Ikoria’s free-for-Commander cycle, but it deserves more respect than it receives. Fog has more potential in Commander than people realize, especially when it doesn’t cost mana.

#9. Judgment of Alexander

Judgment of Alexander starts as a fog, but turns it into a bite back from your commander on any creatures that sent damage. Talk about a massive swing if your general is fluent in deathtouch or lifelink, or Alela, Artful Provocateur for both.

#8. Dolmen Gate + Iroas, God of Victory

Dolmen Gate and Iroas, God of Victory offer the same narrow yet highly effective damage prevention. Saving your creatures from the horrors of combat works well when those creatures have attack triggers, like Combat Celebrant or Overlord of the Hauntwoods, so that you reap all the rewards without risking them in combat.

#7. Constant Mists

Constant Mists puts in much more work than your average Fog because buyback combats the issue of ditching a card without impacting the board. While sacrificing lands has its downsides, a Crucible of Worlds makes up for it, especially once you consider how much ramp Commander decks play.

#6. Arachnogenesis

Arachnogenesis combats the weakness of a Fog in a very different way than Constant Mists: It impacts the board in the form of Spider tokens. Since they get to deal damage, it even works as an interactive spell! I’d slam this in most token decks.

#5. Spore Frog + Kami of False Hope

At a glance, Spore Frog and Kami of False Hope look like bad Fogs because you play them at sorcery speed, but they open the door to a host of synergies, specifically with cards like Meren of Clan Nel Toth and Abiding Grace that return them to play each turn so you can soft lock your opponents out of combat.

These cards also have a psychological element when played in Commander. A player’s unlikely to attack the player who controls Spore Frog because they don’t want to waste their combat step; at the very least, they might split their attackers. This could result in your opponents being attacked, or it might prevent players from attacking at all—either of which benefit the kind of deck that wants these effects in the first place.

#4. Heroic Intervention + Dawn’s Truce + Boros Charm

The trifecta of Heroic Intervention, Dawn's Truce, and Boros Charm are among the cheapest ways to make your board indestructible and stop it from taking damage. Intervention’s absolutely the strongest, but all three are worth running if you need to rig a combat step or save your team from Damnation.

#3. Flawless Maneuver

Who doesn’t love a good free spell? Flawless Maneuver lets you freely commit to the board without worrying about holding up mana for cards like Dawn's Truce or Teferi's Protection. Three mana’s also close enough to the going-rate for team-wide indestructibility that paying full price doesn’t hurt much.

#2. Akroma’s Will

Akroma's Will offers as much protection as you could want to prevent your creatures from taking damage—and, thanks to that keyword suite, it prevents your opponents from taking any more turns if you have enough creatures.

#1. Teferi’s Protection

Teferi's Protection has enjoyed a long tenure towards the top of Commander’s best protection spells, and it's no different here. You receive complete protection for your life total and nothing can touch your board, not even Cyclonic Rift or Farewell. If you don’t want to lose on any given turn, just cast this!

Best Prevent All Damage Payoffs

A primary use of these cards, specifically the non-Fog varieties that prevent noncombat damage, is protecting your board from a variety of board wipes. But that also works the other way! A great way to exploit cards like Selfless Spirit and Flawless Maneuver is casting a Blasphemous Act, Planetary Annihilation, or Star of Extinction to wipe away opposing boards while leaving yours untouched.

You can use Lure cards for a similar effect; if you give your alluring creature a bunch of buffs, then make it indestructible or use a card like Eerie Interference or Dolmen Gate, you can blitz through your opponents’ boards in a couple of combats. This trick works beautifully with fight cards as well, from the lowly Bushwhack to the mighty Apex Altisaur (which becomes a bona fide Plague Wind with indestructible!).

Once we start considering the Fogs, there are a couple of uses. They can be handy alongside planeswalkers since they generate enough card advantage to make up for spending a card without impacting the board. In Commander specifically, revealing that you have a Fog can be a powerful bargaining piece if you want to play a political game; telling the aggressor that you can Fog them may direct their attentions elsewhere while a player on the receiving end of a big attack might promise you the stars themselves to survive.

Is Prevent All Damage the Same as Indestructible?

No, indestructible doesn't technically prevent damage, it simply stops a creature from dying to lethal damage. Damage will still be dealt to an indestructible creature, but it won't die to state-based actions.

Wrap Up

Boros Charm (Gatecrash) | Illustration by Zoltan Boros

I think that was enough damage prevention to send every red player cowering beneath their blankets. These cards are useful in myriad situations, from making your removal better to invalidating your opponents’ combat choices.

What’s your favorite damage prevention spell? Do you think Commander players underrate Fog effects, or am I off my rocker? Let me know in the comments or on the Draftsim Discord!

Stay safe, and stay protected!