Cackling Flames
Instant
Cackling Flames deals 3 damage to any target.
Hellbent — Cackling Flames deals 5 damage instead if you have no cards in hand.
- CMC
- 4
- Mana cost
- Color identity
- R
- Rarity
- common
- Set
- RNA Guild Kit
- Price
- $0.05
- EDHREC rank
- #27427
Cackling Flames deals 3 damage for four mana — passable — but hellbent bumps that to 5, which is the actual reason to run it. In Commander, getting to hellbent is rare enough that you're usually paying four mana for a worse Lightning Bolt, and that's a bad deal.
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 |
Cackling Flames finds its best home in Pauper, where the hellbent condition is easier to engineer in aggressive red decks that empty their hand by turn three and the common card pool makes 5 damage at instant speed genuinely punishing. In Commander, the math rarely works in its favor — four players, 40 life totals, and hand-refill engines mean hellbent is a fleeting window, not a sustained state, so you're almost always paying full price for underwhelming damage. Legacy and Vintage have access to far more efficient burn, so Cackling Flames doesn't compete there. Oathbreaker shares enough of Commander's dynamics that the same critique applies.
Key Combos
Combo lines featuring this card
Price Context
Current price
$0.05 bulk tier
At $0.05, Cackling Flames is deep bulk — you're not buying it for value, you're picking it out of a common box because nothing else fits the slot. Price stability is a non-issue; it was bulk when it was printed and will stay there.
Explore
Sources
Mentioned
Updated . Data from Scryfall, EDHREC, and Commander Spellbook.