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Dread Return

Sorcery

Return target creature card from your graveyard to the battlefield.
Flashback—Sacrifice three creatures. (You may cast this card from your graveyard for its flashback cost. Then exile it.)

CMC
4
Mana cost
{2}{B}{B}
Color identity
B
Rarity
uncommon
Set
Time Spiral
Price
$1.75
EDHREC rank
#520
Buy on TCGplayer
Dread Return card art
Dread Return reanimates any creature for free once you sacrifice three bodies — and in graveyard decks, that cost is the engine, not the tax. Commanders like Imotekh the Stormlord flood the board with expendable tokens that turn the flashback into a zero-mana Reanimate.

Format Analysis

Where it lives, where it can’t

FormatVerdict
commander legal
legacy legal
modern banned
pioneer not legal
standard not legal
vintage legal
pauper legal
oathbreaker legal

Dread Return is banned in Modern, where the flashback cost and graveyard synergies made it a consistent turn-two kill enabler rather than a late-game value spell. Vintage and Legacy allow it but the raw power of those formats keeps it in check. Pauper lets it through as a common, where the three-creature sacrifice is a genuine cost rather than a trivial one. Commander gives it a full pass because the one-time-use flashback rarely threatens a one-shot win in a four-player game, and sacrificing three creatures to a single reanimation spell is a real ask when you have three opponents to survive.

Best Commanders

Commanders with the highest synergy

01
Imotekh the Stormlord

Imotekh the Stormlord

74.0% of decks · synergy 0.62

Imotekh the Stormlord generates Necron Warrior tokens whenever cards leave your graveyard, so the three sacrifices to flash back Dread Return pay for themselves in fresh bodies while you're retrieving whatever bomb you milled earlier.

02
Hogaak, Arisen Necropolis

Hogaak, Arisen Necropolis

66.9% of decks · synergy 0.58

Hogaak, Arisen Necropolis already wants a graveyard stacked with creatures, and Dread Return closes the loop — sacrifice tokens or smaller threats to rebuy the exact finisher that closes the game.

03

Grist, Voracious Larva

63.1% of decks · synergy 0.54

Grist, Voracious Larva mills insects into the yard constantly, giving Dread Return both the sacrifice fodder and the targets it needs in the same motion.

04
Sidisi, Brood Tyrant

Sidisi, Brood Tyrant

63.4% of decks · synergy 0.53

Sidisi, Brood Tyrant turns every self-mill trigger into a Zombie token, so the three-creature flashback cost is almost always available, and Dread Return becomes the clean way to convert a milled bomb into a battlefield threat.

05
Araumi of the Dead Tide

Araumi of the Dead Tide

56.3% of decks · synergy 0.50

Araumi of the Dead Tide fills the graveyard fast and wants specific creatures back at key moments — Dread Return is the free retrieval spell that makes Araumi's recursion gameplan consistent.

Key Combos

Combo lines featuring this card

Price Context

Current price

$1.75 cheap tier

At $1.75, Dread Return sits comfortably in the cheap tier — this is a staple-level card at a bulk-rare price. Reprint history has kept it accessible, and there's no reason to expect it to spike given how often it surfaces in precons and supplemental products.

Explore

Sources

Mentioned

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Updated . Data from Scryfall, EDHREC, and Commander Spellbook.