Sickening Dreams
Sorcery
As an additional cost to cast this spell, discard X cards.
Sickening Dreams deals X damage to each creature and each player.
- CMC
- 2
- Mana cost
- Color identity
- B
- Rarity
- uncommon
- Set
- World Championship Decks 2003
- Price
- —
- EDHREC rank
- #14162
Sickening Dreams kills the table — discard your hand, deal that much damage to each creature and each player. The catch is that Ad Nauseam is the card that makes this viable: you draw a massive hand off Ad Nauseam, then pitch it all to Sickening Dreams for lethal on the spot. Outside of that specific shell or Maralen of the Mornsong tutor chains, it's a win condition that asks too much of your hand size to run blind.
Best Commanders
Commanders with the highest synergy
Maralen of the Mornsong
Maralen of the Mornsong locks opponents out of drawing and tutors Sickening Dreams directly to hand, turning the discard cost into a one-card kill the moment you've stacked enough life loss on your opponents.
Varragoth, Bloodsky Sire
Varragoth, Bloodsky Sire functions as a repeatable tutor that puts Sickening Dreams on top of your library, letting you reliably assemble the Ad Nauseam draw-your-deck line without needing black tutors in hand.
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 |
Sickening Dreams is legal in Commander, Legacy, Vintage, and Oathbreaker — and Commander is where it actually sees play. In Legacy and Vintage the card is technically castable but has never found a home; those formats have faster, more consistent kill conditions that don't require a full hand of cards to discard. Commander is the sweet spot because the 99-card singleton format rewards digging for a single combo piece, and the four-opponent damage multiplier means a hand of seven deals seven to everyone at the table simultaneously. Oathbreaker offers a narrower version of the same appeal, where the smaller deck size makes assembling the Ad Nauseam line more consistent.
Key Combos
Combo lines featuring this card
Price Context
Current price
unknown tier
Pricing data for Sickening Dreams isn't currently available in our system — check Scryfall or TCGPlayer for a live number. It's a low-demand single-printing card with a narrow home, so copies tend to sit in budget territory, but verify before buying.
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Sources
Updated . Data from Scryfall, EDHREC, and Commander Spellbook.