Bituminous Blast
Instant
Cascade (When you cast this spell, exile cards from the top of your library until you exile a nonland card that costs less. You may cast it without paying its mana cost. Put the exiled cards on the bottom in a random order.)
Bituminous Blast deals 4 damage to target creature.
- CMC
- 5
- Mana cost
- Color identity
- BR
- Rarity
- uncommon
- Set
- Commander 2016
- Price
- $0.08
- EDHREC rank
- #7244
Bituminous Blast kills a creature and flips you a free spell off the top — five mana buys removal plus a cascade roll, and the floor is still a removal spell. Abaddon the Despoiler turns that cascade trigger into a Mark of Chaos counter, making this a two-for-one that also advances your commander's clock.
Best Commanders
Commanders with the highest synergy
Abaddon the Despoiler
Abaddon the Despoiler counts cascade triggers toward his Mark of Chaos counters, so Bituminous Blast is doing double duty: it removes a threat and fuels the treason counter engine at the same time.
Prosper, Tome-Bound
Prosper, Tome-Bound rewards casting spells from exile, and cascade exiles cards until it hits — Bituminous Blast's cascade trigger is effectively a free cast from exile, generating a Treasure and advancing Prosper's board presence.
Magar of the Magic Strings
Magar of the Magic Strings can copy Bituminous Blast as a face-down card and recur it, turning a single copy into repeatable removal with repeated cascade rolls.
Format Analysis
Where it lives, where it can’t
| Format | Verdict |
|---|---|
| commander | legal |
| legacy | legal |
| modern | legal |
| pioneer | not legal |
| standard | not legal |
| vintage | legal |
| pauper | not legal |
| oathbreaker | legal |
Commander is where Bituminous Blast earns its slot — the singleton format means every cascade flip has a wide range of outcomes, and five mana for removal plus a free spell is a clean rate in a 40-life game. In Legacy and Vintage it's legal but doesn't see play; dedicated cascade shells there run faster, cheaper cascaders, and five mana is too slow without a guaranteed payoff. Modern is similarly unkind to a five-drop with no immediate, deterministic impact. Bituminous Blast is a Commander card through and through, and it knows it.
Key Combos
Combo lines featuring this card
Price Context
Current price
$0.08 bulk tier
At $0.08, Bituminous Blast is deep bulk — you will find this in a commons box before you need to order it. Bulk rares with genuine Commander demand tend to stay cheap indefinitely, so there is no urgency either way; just pick one up the next time you're sorting a collection.
Explore
Sources
Updated . Data from Scryfall, EDHREC, and Commander Spellbook.