Cerebral Eruption
Sorcery
Target opponent reveals the top card of their library. Cerebral Eruption deals damage equal to the revealed card's mana value to that player and each creature that player controls. If a land card is revealed this way, return Cerebral Eruption to its owner's hand.
- CMC
- 4
- Mana cost
- Color identity
- R
- Rarity
- rare
- Set
- Scars of Mirrodin
- Price
- $0.21
- EDHREC rank
- #22722
Cerebral Eruption exiles the top card of an opponent's library and deals damage to a creature or player equal to that card's mana value — sorcery speed, no targeting restriction, with a free re-cast if you hit a land. The ceiling is real damage off a high-CMC format, but the floor is zero on a fetchland, which makes it unreliable as a primary threat.
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 |
Cerebral Eruption lives almost exclusively in Commander, where high average mana values across 100-card decks push the expected damage well above what competitive formats can offer. In Legacy and Vintage it's too slow and too variance-dependent to compete with efficient burn or combo, and it sees no meaningful play in either. Commander is where a four-mana sorcery that might deal eight or more damage to a planeswalker or problematic creature finds a home — particularly in spellslinger or chaos-oriented decks that lean into the randomness. The land-hit trigger softening the miss case is appreciated but not enough to make Cerebral Eruption a staple even there.
Key Combos
Combo lines featuring this card
Price Context
Current price
$0.21 bulk tier
At $0.21, Cerebral Eruption is deep bulk — you're paying for cardboard, not demand. That price is stable simply because casual interest in high-variance red spells keeps a floor under it, not because it's a sought-after card.
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Sources
Mentioned
Updated . Data from Scryfall, EDHREC, and Commander Spellbook.