Hellfire
Sorcery
Destroy all nonblack creatures. Hellfire deals X plus 3 damage to you, where X is the number of creatures that died this way.
- CMC
- 5
- Mana cost
- Color identity
- B
- Rarity
- rare
- Set
- Masters Edition III
- Price
- —
- EDHREC rank
- #24654
Hellfire wipes the board of all non-black creatures and then taxes you life equal to three times the number of creatures destroyed — a symmetrical sweeper that is never actually symmetrical if you're running a black-heavy or mono-black deck. The mana cost is steep at four black and one generic, but in the right shell this is a one-sided Wrath of God stapled to a Drain Life.
Format Analysis
Where it lives, where it can’t
| Format | Verdict |
|---|---|
| commander | legal |
| legacy | legal |
| modern | not legal |
| pioneer | not legal |
| standard | not legal |
| vintage | legal |
| pauper | not legal |
| oathbreaker | legal |
Commander is where Hellfire actually earns a slot, specifically in mono-black or heavily black decks that populate their board with black creatures and leave opponents' boards full of nonblack targets — the life loss becomes a minor tax rather than a death sentence when your side of the table is mostly untouched. Legacy and Vintage see it almost never; those formats move too fast for a five-mana sorcery that requires triple black and punishes you proportionally for each creature it kills, which is a poor rate when cheaper, cleaner sweepers exist. Oathbreaker is legal and mirrors the Commander logic — if your signature spell or strategy leans mono-black, Hellfire can pull real weight, but outside that context the life payment is simply too punishing to justify.
Key Combos
Combo lines featuring this card
Price Context
Current price
unknown tier
Current pricing data isn't available for Hellfire, so check Scryfall or TCGPlayer for the latest — as an older black-bordered card with a narrow Commander audience, copies tend to sit in the bulk-rare-to-mid-range window rather than spiking. It's worth picking up if you're building a dedicated mono-black shell and find a copy at a price you're comfortable with, but it's not a card that demands urgency.
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Sources
Mentioned
Updated . Data from Scryfall, EDHREC, and Commander Spellbook.