Crimson Wisps
Instant
Target creature becomes red and gains haste until end of turn. (It can attack and 
this turn.)
Draw a card.
- CMC
- 1
- Mana cost
- Color identity
- R
- Rarity
- common
- Set
- The List
- Price
- $1.01
- EDHREC rank
- #2600
Crimson Wisps gives a creature haste and draws a card for one red mana — that's the whole pitch, and it's a good one. In Zada, Hedron Grinder decks specifically, targeting Zada copies the spell to every creature you control, turning a one-mana cantrip into a draw engine that refills your hand while the board attacks immediately.
Best Commanders
Commanders with the highest synergy
Zada, Hedron Grinder
Crimson Wisps is a engine piece in Zada, Hedron Grinder decks — target Zada, copy the spell across your entire board, draw a card per creature, and swing with haste all in one red mana.
Feather, the Redeemed
Feather, the Redeemed returns Crimson Wisps to hand at end of turn, so you're paying one red for a haste enabler and a card draw every single turn cycle without ever spending a second copy.
Urabrask
Urabrask already taxes opponent creatures entering without haste, and Crimson Wisps ensures your own creatures never suffer the same limitation while replacing itself in hand.
The Howling Abomination
The Howling Abomination rewards casting multiple spells, and Crimson Wisps is a zero-opportunity-cost spell — it cantrips, enables attacks, and triggers prowess-style payoffs without costing card equity.
Rionya, Fire Dancer
Rionya, Fire Dancer counts instants and sorceries cast before combat to generate creature tokens, and Crimson Wisps is exactly the cheap cantrip that pads that count while setting up the attack.
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 |
Crimson Wisps sees essentially no play outside Commander and Pauper — the effect is too narrow for Legacy or Vintage, where cantrips compete with Brainstorm and Ponder. In Pauper it's a fringe inclusion in red prowess shells that want cheap instants to trigger Monastery Swiftspear and draw cards. Commander is where Crimson Wisps earns its slot: Feather, the Redeemed and Zada, Hedron Grinder both abuse the copy-and-return mechanics hard enough that the card shows up in well over half of each commander's registered lists. Outside those two archetypes, it's a niche haste enabler that most red decks pass on in favor of effects with broader reach.
Key Combos
Combo lines featuring this card
Price Context
Current price
$1.01 cheap tier
At $1.01, Crimson Wisps sits in the fair-trade zone — cheap enough to autoinclude in any deck that wants it, not so cheap that it signals zero demand. It's a narrow card with a committed audience, so the price is stable rather than declining.
Explore
Sources
Updated . Data from Scryfall, EDHREC, and Commander Spellbook.