Price$4.17 – $5.28
Buy on TCGplayerBontu's Monument
Legendary Artifact
LegalRank #657
Black creature spells you cast cost 
less to cast.
Whenever you cast a creature spell, each opponent loses 1 life and you gain 1 life.
Why is this card good?
Bontu's Monument is a cost-reducer-plus-payoff for heavily black creature decks. The discount on every black creature spell adds up fast when you're chaining out small bodies, effectively ramping you while you build a board. The drain-and-gain trigger is the real selling point: in a token or go-wide deck that casts many creatures per turn, you're pinging the whole table and stabilizing your own life total incrementally.
Best homes are mono-black or black-heavy creature decks — aristocrats (Yawgmoth, K'rrik), reanimator-adjacent builds that hard-cast a lot, and any commander that rewards casting creatures. Pair it with other Monuments or cost reducers and you snowball.
When to skip it: the trigger only fires on cast, so reanimator and token-doubler decks that put creatures onto the battlefield without casting get nothing from the drain. It's also weak in decks running few black creatures or relying on noncreature spells — the discount is color-locked, so off-color creatures cost full price.
discount on every black creature spell adds up fast when you're chaining out small bodies, effectively ramping you while you build a board. The drain-and-gain trigger is the real selling point: in a token or go-wide deck that casts many creatures per turn, you're pinging the whole table and stabilizing your own life total incrementally.
Best homes are mono-black or black-heavy creature decks — aristocrats (Yawgmoth, K'rrik), reanimator-adjacent builds that hard-cast a lot, and any commander that rewards casting creatures. Pair it with other Monuments or cost reducers and you snowball.
When to skip it: the trigger only fires on cast, so reanimator and token-doubler decks that put creatures onto the battlefield without casting get nothing from the drain. It's also weak in decks running few black creatures or relying on noncreature spells — the discount is color-locked, so off-color creatures cost full price.Related cards
Caged Sun
Reduces cost via mana doubling for mono-black creature decks similarly.
Hazoret's Monument
Same monument cycle for red, cost reduction plus impulse draw.
Oketra's Monument
Same cycle for white, cost reduction plus token generation.
Endurance
Filler placeholder.
Urza's Incubator
Reduces creature spell costs by chosen type, similar ramp role.
Herald's Horn
Reduces creature spell cost by one and provides card advantage.
Cryptolith Rite
Ramp enabler for creature-heavy black decks.
Printings (3)
Played by these commanders
Temmet, Naktamun's Will100% of 1
Dihada, Binder of Wills100% of 1
Rulings (5)
- 2017-04-18
In a Two-Headed Giant game, the triggered ability of Bontu's Monument causes the opposing team to lose 2 life and you gain 1 life.
- 2017-04-18
Each Monument has one ability that reduces the cost of creature spells of a certain color, and a triggered ability that triggers whenever you cast any creature spell—not just a creature spell of that color.
- 2017-04-18
A creature spell that's multiple colors is each of those colors. For example, Ahn-Crop Champion is a white creature and a green creature, so it can benefit from either Oketra's Monument or Rhonas's Monument—or both at once.
- 2017-04-18
To determine the total cost of a creature spell, start with the mana cost or alternative cost you're paying, add any cost increases, then apply any cost reductions. The mana value of the creature remains unchanged, no matter what the total cost to cast it was.
- 2017-04-18
Each Monument's triggered ability triggers as the creature spell is cast and resolves before that creature spell resolves. The ability will resolve even if that creature spell is countered.