Contentious Plan
Contentious Plan: Sorcery, War of the Spark. Proliferate. Draw a card. MTG card printings, market prices, rulings, and format legality on Mana Grove.
- Mana cost
- {1}{U}
- Mana value
- 2
- Type
- Sorcery
- Colour identity
- Blue (U)
- Rarity
- Common
- Set
- War of the Spark (WAR)
- Released
- 2019-05-03
- Collector number
- 46
- Artist
- Eric Deschamps
- Keywords
- Proliferate
Build around this card with Grover
About Contentious Plan
Contentious Plan is a Magic: The Gathering card, a common blue sorcery from War of the Spark (WAR), an expansion set released in May 2019. It is collector number 46 in that set, with art by Eric Deschamps. It costs {1}{U} (one generic and one blue mana) to cast, for a mana value of 2. Its colour identity is blue. It is legal in Pioneer, Modern, Legacy, Vintage, Pauper, Commander, Duel Commander, Oathbreaker, Pauper Commander, Brawl, Historic, Timeless and Gladiator. It has been printed in 2 sets. The latest aggregated market price for this printing is $0.40 (normal finish, as of 2026-10-23).
Card text
Proliferate. (Choose any number of permanents and/or players, then give each another counter of each kind already there.)
Draw a card.
Niv-Mizzet had perfected a plan, but he had no control over the mortal minds who had to agree to implement it.
Market price
Latest aggregated market price for the normal finish of this printing: $0.40 (as of 2026-10-23).
The figure covers this printing only; other printings carry their own price on their own page.
Format legality
Legality of Contentious Plan by format. Formats in which it is not legal are not listed.
| Pioneer | Legal |
|---|---|
| Modern | Legal |
| Legacy | Legal |
| Vintage | Legal |
| Pauper | Legal |
| Commander | Legal |
| Duel Commander | Legal |
| Oathbreaker | Legal |
| Pauper Commander | Legal |
| Brawl | Legal |
| Historic | Legal |
| Timeless | Legal |
| Gladiator | Legal |
Other printings of Contentious Plan
Contentious Plan has been printed in 2 sets. The other printings are listed newest first, with the rarity and release year of each.
| Printing | Rarity | Year |
|---|---|---|
| Secret Lair Drop (SLD) #2568 | Rare | 2026 |
Official rulings
Six official rulings apply to Contentious Plan, newest first.
- To proliferate, you can choose any permanent that has a counter, including ones controlled by opponents. You can choose any player who has a counter, including opponents. You can't choose cards in any zone other than the battlefield, even if they have counters on them.
- Players can respond to a spell or ability whose effect includes proliferating. Once that spell or ability starts to resolve, however, and its controller chooses which permanents and players will get new counters, it's too late for anyone to respond.
- You don't have to choose every permanent or player that has a counter, only the ones you want to add another counter to. Since "any number" includes zero, you don't have to choose any permanents at all, and you don't have to choose any players at all.
- An ability that triggers "Whenever you proliferate" triggers even if you chose no permanents or players while doing so.
- If a player or permanent has more than one kind of counter on it, and you choose for it to get additional counters, it must get one of each kind of counter it already has. You can't have it get just one kind of counter it already has and not the others.
- If a permanent ever has both +1/+1 counters and -1/-1 counters on it at the same time, they're removed in pairs as a state-based action so that the permanent has only one of those kinds of counters on it.
Similar cards
Other sorcery cards with a blue colour identity, ranked by how often they appear in Commander decks.