Rending Volley
Instant
This spell can't be countered.
Rending Volley deals 4 damage to target white or blue creature.
- CMC
- 1
- Mana cost
- Color identity
- R
- Rarity
- uncommon
- Set
- Explorer Anthology 2
- Price
- —
- EDHREC rank
- #11889
Rending Volley trades one red mana for an uncounterable answer to white and blue creatures — the two colors most likely to be holding up interaction against you. The can't-be-countered clause is the whole point: this is a sideboard hammer for spell-heavy metas, not a maindeck slot.
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, Rending Volley is a meta call — white and blue dominate the format's most powerful creatures and commanders, so the targeting restriction almost never matters, and uncounterable removal punishes blue control players who think they have the table locked. In Modern and Legacy, it's a sideboard piece aimed squarely at blue tempo and white creature strategies, where the one-mana cost and the can't-be-countered clause combine to be genuinely dangerous. Pioneer has less counterspell density in creature matchups, which weakens the card's best argument; you can usually find broader removal that doesn't carry the color restriction. Rending Volley is legal in Vintage but the format's answers to permanents go much deeper than one-mana burn, so it rarely makes the cut there either.
Key Combos
Combo lines featuring this card
Price Context
Current price
unknown tier
Price data isn't available for Rending Volley at the moment — check Scryfall or TCGPlayer for a current number. It's a niche sideboard card with a narrow target profile, so it tends to stay inexpensive even when demand ticks up.
Explore
Sources
Mentioned
Updated . Data from Scryfall, EDHREC, and Commander Spellbook.