Scorching Spear
Sorcery
Scorching Spear deals 1 damage to any target.
- CMC
- 1
- Mana cost
- Color identity
- R
- Rarity
- common
- Set
- Starter 1999
- Price
- $0.10
- EDHREC rank
- #28888
Scorching Spear deals 2 damage to any target for one red mana, with an optional upgrade to 4 damage if you pay an additional red — a clean, flexible rate for a burn spell. It's serviceable in formats that tolerate this effect at common, but it's not pulling weight in Commander.
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 | legal |
| oathbreaker | legal |
Scorching Spear finds its best home in Pauper, where the common card pool keeps burn spells competitive and the flexible 2-or-4 damage mode lets it trade up against bigger threats or finish off smaller ones. In Legacy and Vintage it's strictly outclassed — Lightning Bolt does more for less, and those formats punish inefficiency ruthlessly. Commander is where Scorching Spear struggles most: 40 life totals and a table of opponents make single-target, low-damage burn nearly irrelevant, and the slot is almost always better filled by removal that answers any permanent. Oathbreaker sits closer to Commander than Pauper in this regard, so the same critique applies.
Key Combos
Combo lines featuring this card
Price Context
Current price
$0.10 bulk tier
At $0.10, Scorching Spear is deep bulk — the kind of card that fills a common box and rarely gets pulled out. There's no price pressure here; supply is abundant and demand is narrow enough that this number is effectively a floor.
Explore
Sources
Mentioned
Updated . Data from Scryfall, EDHREC, and Commander Spellbook.