Call Forth the Tempest
Sorcery
Cascade, 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 of your library in a random order. Then do it again.)
Call Forth the Tempest deals damage to each creature your opponents control equal to the total mana value of other spells you've cast this turn.
- CMC
- 8
- Mana cost
- Color identity
- R
- Rarity
- rare
- Set
- Tales of Middle-earth Commander
- Price
- $31.32
- EDHREC rank
- #1920
Call Forth the Tempest wipes the board, deals direct damage, and generates mana all on one card — the question is whether your deck can afford seven mana for a sorcery. In Lorehold, the Historian builds specifically, where the cascade trigger turns that cost into a feature rather than a tax, it earns every slot.
Best Commanders
Commanders with the highest synergy
Lorehold, the Historian
Lorehold, the Historian cascades into Call Forth the Tempest naturally, letting the spell's three modes — wrath, burn, and ritual — fire off mid-chain and refuel the engine rather than drain resources from it.
Averna, the Chaos Bloom
Averna, the Chaos Bloom puts lands into play off every cascade trigger, so the ramp mode on Call Forth the Tempest stacks with Averna's own acceleration, turning a single spell into a land-drop-and-mana-positive play.
Magar of the Magic Strings
Magar of the Magic Strings can imprint Call Forth the Tempest onto a creature and recur the effect repeatedly, getting board wipe plus burn plus mana generation on demand without ever paying the full seven.
Neera, Wild Mage
Neera, Wild Mage flips spells for free, and landing Call Forth the Tempest off a wild magic surge turn means a board wipe at no mana investment — the high cost is irrelevant when Neera is doing the casting.
Maelstrom Wanderer
Maelstrom Wanderer cascades twice, and Call Forth the Tempest is exactly the kind of high-impact sorcery that rewards hitting it off the chain — a free wrath that also ramps you is a legitimate game-winning cascade hit.
Format Analysis
Where it lives, where it can’t
| Format | Verdict |
|---|---|
| commander | legal |
| legacy | legal |
| modern | not legal |
| pioneer | not legal |
| standard | not legal |
| vintage | legal |
| pauper | not legal |
| oathbreaker | legal |
Commander is where Call Forth the Tempest belongs — multiplayer games run long enough that seven mana is reachable, and the three-mode effect (damage to each opponent, wrath, and ritual) hits every axis a Commander deck cares about simultaneously. Cascade and free-spell commanders in particular treat the seven-mana cost as irrelevant, making it an even stronger include in those shells. In Legacy and Vintage it's technically legal but sees no play; seven-mana sorceries can't compete with those formats' speed, and the effect isn't broken enough to justify cheating in. Oathbreaker is the only other format where it might show up, and even there it's a niche pick in slower big-spell lists.
Key Combos
Combo lines featuring this card
Budget Alternatives
Cheaper options that do most of the same work
Blasphemous Act handles the board wipe portion for a fraction of the cost and regularly costs one or two mana in practice, though it skips the burn-to-opponent and ritual modes entirely. Hour of Devastation covers damage plus wrath on a single card under two dollars and hits planeswalkers too, but it won't ramp you and the damage ceiling is lower than Call Forth the Tempest's output at scale.
Price Context
Current price
$31.32 premium tier
At $31.32, Call Forth the Tempest sits firmly in premium territory — this is a card you buy once and slot into the specific deck that wants it, not a staple that belongs in every pile. Demand is real but narrow, concentrated in cascade and spell-cheating commanders, so the price reflects genuine power within a defined metagame niche rather than broad adoption.
Explore
Sources
Mentioned
- Lorehold, the Historian
- Averna, the Chaos Bloom
- Magar of the Magic Strings
- Neera, Wild Mage
- Maelstrom Wanderer
Updated . Data from Scryfall, EDHREC, and Commander Spellbook.