Approach of the Second Sun
Sorcery
If this spell was cast from your hand and you've cast another spell named Approach of the Second Sun this game, you win the game. Otherwise, put Approach of the Second Sun into its owner's library seventh from the top and you gain 7 life.
- CMC
- 7
- Mana cost
- Color identity
- W
- Rarity
- rare
- Set
- Pioneer Challenger Decks 2021
- Price
- $5.27
- EDHREC rank
- #1014
Approach of the Second Sun wins the game on the spot — cast it twice and you don't need combat, life totals, or any other condition to matter. The cost is real: seven mana for the first copy and seven more for the second means you need a deck built to survive long enough and find the card again, but Mystical Tutor makes that second cast trivially consistent, and Lorehold, the Historian turns the whole engine into a near-guaranteed close.
Best Commanders
Commanders with the highest synergy
Lorehold, the Historian
Lorehold, the Historian is the premier Approach of the Second Sun commander because the ability to cast spells from exile means a single copy can effectively count as both the first and second cast — the deck is designed from the ground up to find and reuse that one card until the win condition fires.
Elminster
Elminster's scry-heavy engine puts Approach of the Second Sun on top of the library reliably, and the incidental life gain from his triggered abilities buys the time a seven-mana win condition requires.
Kwain, Itinerant Meddler
Kwain, Itinerant Meddler runs a group-hug shell that floods everyone with cards and life, which keeps the table pacified long enough for Approach of the Second Sun to fire twice without drawing immediate aggression.
Zedruu the Greathearted
Zedruu the Greathearted uses the chaos and card-draw from donated permanents to dig toward Approach of the Second Sun while keeping opponents distracted and the board stable enough to survive to turn seven-plus.
Gluntch, the Bestower
Gluntch, the Bestower's resource-sharing stalls aggressive players and accelerates mana, giving Approach of the Second Sun the breathing room it needs to land both copies in the same game.
Format Analysis
Where it lives, where it can’t
| Format | Verdict |
|---|---|
| commander | legal |
| legacy | legal |
| modern | legal |
| pioneer | legal |
| standard | not legal |
| vintage | legal |
| pauper | not legal |
| oathbreaker | legal |
Commander is where Approach of the Second Sun lives — a 100-card singleton format with multiplayer politics gives it exactly the time it needs, and white's access to tutors and protection makes the two-cast requirement manageable rather than punishing. In Pioneer and Modern it sees fringe play in control shells that can stall into the late game, though the seven-mana ask is steep against the efficient threats those formats produce. Legacy and Vintage are theoretically legal but realistically non-starters; the card doesn't interact with those formats' broken mana or combo infrastructure in any meaningful way. Oathbreaker is a reasonable home if your planeswalker supports a stall-and-win gameplan, but the 20-life starting total makes the clock tighter than in Commander.
Key Combos
Combo lines featuring this card
Budget Alternatives
Cheaper options that do most of the same work
There's no true budget replacement for Approach of the Second Sun because the alternate win condition is the entire point — no other card wins the game the same way at any price. If the appeal is a non-combat finisher in white, Thassa's Oracle in a high-devotion build or Test of Endurance fill an adjacent role at lower cost, though both demand heavier deck-building commitments and lack the clean self-sufficiency that makes Approach of the Second Sun worth the seven mana.
Price Context
Current price
$5.27 mid tier
At $5.27, Approach of the Second Sun sits in the mid tier — affordable enough to include in most Commander budgets without deliberation. It's a unique effect with no functional reprint, so the price is unlikely to crater; if anything, new commander products that support spell-reuse strategies tend to pull it upward.
Explore
Sources
Mentioned
Updated . Data from Scryfall, EDHREC, and Commander Spellbook.