Demonic Dread
Sorcery
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 in a random order.)
Target creature can't block this turn.
- CMC
- 3
- Mana cost
- Color identity
- BR
- Rarity
- common
- Set
- Alara Reborn
- Price
- $0.24
- EDHREC rank
- #20293
Demonic Dread is a cascade spell that costs three mana and hits anything with mana value two or less — narrow by design, powerful in decks built around it. If you're not engineering the cascade target, skip it; if you are, it's a tutor stapled to a free spell.
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 |
Demonic Dread is a Commander card first and last — the format's singleton structure and access to dedicated cascade commanders give it the scaffolding it needs to function as a reliable tutor. In Pauper it's legal and occasionally appears in cascade-combo shells where hitting a specific cheap spell wins the game, but the competition for three-mana slots is steep. Legacy and Vintage have it legal but ignore it entirely; the ceiling those formats demand is too high for a conditional tutor with a body that doesn't matter. Demonic Dread is worth sleeving only when you've built the deck to guarantee what it finds.
Key Combos
Combo lines featuring this card
Price Context
Current price
$0.24 bulk tier
At $0.24, Demonic Dread sits firmly in bulk territory — a price that reflects its narrow playability rather than any supply problem. It holds that floor reliably; there's no meaningful reprint risk for a card with this small a target audience.
Explore
Sources
Mentioned
Updated . Data from Scryfall, EDHREC, and Commander Spellbook.