Burn the Impure
Instant
Burn the Impure deals 3 damage to target creature. If that creature has infect, Burn the Impure deals 3 damage to that creature's controller.
- CMC
- 2
- Mana cost
- Color identity
- R
- Rarity
- common
- Set
- Mirrodin Besieged
- Price
- $0.03
- EDHREC rank
- #28194
Burn the Impure deals 3 damage to a target creature with a +1/+1 counter on it — narrow enough that it sits in the bulk bin for most decks. In a dedicated Infect or counter-heavy shell, that rider reads as a free trigger condition, but outside those contexts you're running a worse Lightning Bolt with a dead clause.
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 | legal |
| oathbreaker | legal |
In Commander, Burn the Impure is role-players-only: it earns a slot when your meta runs Infect or your own deck generates +1/+1 counters as fodder for the damage rider. In Pauper, the common restriction keeps the card legal but the competition at one mana — Lightning Bolt, Electrickery, Skred — makes Burn the Impure a distant also-ran. Legacy and Vintage have no reason to register it. The one format where it quietly overperforms is Pauper Infect mirrors, where the condition is almost always live and three damage at instant speed closes games.
Key Combos
Combo lines featuring this card
Price Context
Current price
$0.03 bulk tier
At $0.03, Burn the Impure is deep bulk — the kind of card you pull from a common box rather than order individually. Price stability is irrelevant at this tier; it will sit at a penny or two indefinitely unless a dedicated Infect deck suddenly breaks Pauper.
Explore
Sources
Mentioned
Updated . Data from Scryfall, EDHREC, and Commander Spellbook.