Piercing Rays
Sorcery
Exile target tapped creature.
Forecast — 
, Reveal this card from your hand: Tap target untapped creature. (Activate this ability only during your upkeep and only once each turn.)
- CMC
- 2
- Mana cost
- Color identity
- W
- Rarity
- common
- Set
- Modern Horizons 2
- Price
- $0.13
- EDHREC rank
- #20485
Piercing Rays taps a creature and keeps it tapped for two full turns — a two-mana tempo play that buys more time than a simple removal spell. It's fine in limited, but too conditional and non-permanent for most constructed formats where one mana kills outright.
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 |
In Commander, Piercing Rays is too soft — tapping a single creature for two turns does nothing against a table of three opponents, and the slot is always better spent on hard removal or a board wipe. Pauper is where it's most defensible, since the format moves slower and two turns of stasis on a key attacker or blocker can matter, though even there it faces stiff competition from cheaper options. In Legacy and Vintage, the card is legal but essentially invisible — those formats kill faster than two turns of tapping can stabilize. Piercing Rays occupies a niche that only really opens in limited formats, where tempo is currency and outright answers are scarce.
Key Combos
Combo lines featuring this card
Price Context
Current price
$0.13 bulk tier
At $0.13, Piercing Rays is deep bulk — the kind of card that fills a draft chaff box. Don't expect the price to move; there's no competitive demand anchoring it.
Explore
Sources
Mentioned
Updated . Data from Scryfall, EDHREC, and Commander Spellbook.