Flood of Tears
Sorcery
Return all nonland permanents to their owners' hands. If you return four or more nontoken permanents you control this way, you may put a permanent card from your hand onto the battlefield.
- CMC
- 6
- Mana cost
- Color identity
- U
- Rarity
- rare
- Set
- Core Set 2020
- Price
- $1.13
- EDHREC rank
- #4157
Flood of Tears clears the entire board of nonland permanents for four mana — and if you control four or more nonland permanents when it resolves, you put one permanent from your hand directly onto the battlefield. That free drop is the whole reason to run it; without it, you're paying four mana for a symmetrical reset, which is a bad deal unless you're Jolrael, Voice of Zhalfir and your hand refills faster than anyone else's.
Best Commanders
Commanders with the highest synergy
Jolrael, Voice of Zhalfir
Jolrael, Voice of Zhalfir triggers on every card drawn during opponents' turns, so the hand stays stocked even after a Flood of Tears wipe — meaning Jolrael almost always meets the four-permanent threshold to cheat something back into play while opponents rebuild from nothing.
Jyoti, Moag Ancient
Jyoti, Moag Ancient generates a Forest land token every time you cast a spell, so Flood of Tears lands in a deck that routinely floods the board with permanents, guaranteeing the free-deployment trigger and letting Jyoti reestablish faster than creature-based opponents.
Millicent, Restless Revenant
Millicent, Restless Revenant builds a ghost-token army that gets swept away along with everyone else's board, but the free permanent drop lets Millicent land an anthem or a key Spirit back immediately — and since tokens don't go to the graveyard in the traditional sense, the reset hurts opponents disproportionately.
Format Analysis
Where it lives, where it can’t
| Format | Verdict |
|---|---|
| commander | legal |
| legacy | legal |
| modern | legal |
| pioneer | legal |
| standard | not legal |
| vintage | legal |
| pauper | not legal |
| oathbreaker | legal |
Flood of Tears is legal in Commander, Legacy, Modern, Pioneer, Vintage, and Oathbreaker, but in practice it's almost exclusively a Commander card. In Modern and Pioneer, four mana for a conditional board wipe that bounces your own permanents too is far too clunky against decks that win on turns three and four. Legacy and Vintage have access to cheaper, more surgical answers, so Flood of Tears never sees play there either. Commander is where the math works: games go longer, board states get unwieldy, and the free permanent deployment can represent a game-winning swing in the right shell.
Key Combos
Combo lines featuring this card
Price Context
Current price
$1.13 cheap tier
At $1.13, Flood of Tears sits firmly in budget territory — cheap enough to slot into any Commander deck without a second thought. It's a niche card with a narrow best-use case, so don't expect the price to move much in either direction.
Explore
Sources
Updated . Data from Scryfall, EDHREC, and Commander Spellbook.