Cut of the Profits

Strategy & Gameplay

Cut the Profits is a versatile card draw engine from Streets of New Capenna that rewards aggressive deck building with its unique Casualty mechanic. This black sorcery offers flexible mana efficiency by allowing you to draw X cards while paying only X generic mana plus two black mana, with the crucial drawback of losing X life. The real power emerges when you leverage Casualty 3, which lets you sacrifice a creature with power 3 or greater to copy the spell entirely, effectively doubling your card draw and life payment. This makes the card particularly attractive in aggressive or midrange black decks that already feature large creatures, since you're converting creatures that might have served their purpose into additional resources. The Casualty trigger transforms what could be a marginal effect into a powerful advantage engine, especially when combined with creatures that have enter-the-battlefield effects or persist effects that reward sacrifice outlets. In Pioneer and Modern, Cut the Profits finds homes in sacrifice-focused archetypes and creature-heavy black strategies that can easily meet the power 3 threshold. Commander players appreciate the card in decks built around sacrifice themes or token generation, where the ability to copy the spell creates exponential value. The card's legality across nearly every format from Pioneer through Vintage ensures accessibility for competitive and casual players alike. While the life payment is a real cost that aggressive decks must carefully manage, the card advantage potential makes it worth considering in any black deck looking for efficient draw combined with sacrifice synergies.