Lantern Flare
Instant
Cleave 
(You may cast this spell for its cleave cost. If you do, remove the words in square brackets.)
Lantern Flare deals X damage to target creature or planeswalker and you gain X life. [X is the number of creatures you control.]
- CMC
- 2
- Mana cost
- Color identity
- RW
- Rarity
- rare
- Set
- Innistrad: Crimson Vow
- Price
- $0.12
- EDHREC rank
- #19656
Lantern Flare kills a creature and gains you life scaled to the number of Clerics you control — the more devotees at the table, the more lopsided the exchange. In The Archimandrite builds that flood the board with Clerics, it routinely represents four-plus life and a clean answer to a threat for two or three mana.
Best Commanders
Commanders with the highest synergy
The Archimandrite
The Archimandrite naturally assembles the wide Cleric board that makes Lantern Flare overperform — what would be a mediocre burn spell in any other shell becomes unconditional removal plus a meaningful life cushion once four or five Clerics are in play.
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 |
In Commander, Lantern Flare earns its slot in Cleric-tribal lists and nowhere else — outside that tribe it's a worse Searing Spear with a life rider that rarely triggers. In Pioneer and Modern, it lacks the redundancy or power ceiling to compete with efficient single-target removal like Stomp or Fatal Push. Legacy and Vintage have no interest; the rate is simply too low for those formats even with a full Cleric board. Lantern Flare is a narrow tribal payoff, not a cross-format staple.
Key Combos
Combo lines featuring this card
Price Context
Current price
$0.12 bulk tier
At $0.12, Lantern Flare is pure bulk — pick up as many copies as you need without a second thought. Bulk tribal payoffs this narrow rarely move in price, so there's no urgency and no ceiling worth watching.
Explore
Sources
Mentioned
Updated . Data from Scryfall, EDHREC, and Commander Spellbook.