Sire of Insanity
Creature — Demon
At the beginning of each end step, each player discards their hand.
- CMC
- 6
- Mana cost
- Color identity
- BR
- Rarity
- rare
- Set
- Secret Lair Drop
- Price
- $6.12
- EDHREC rank
- #8519
Sire of Insanity hits the table and immediately strips every player's hand at the end of each turn — a six-mana lock piece that makes topdecking the only game plan for everyone, including you. Decks that can operate without a hand, via Necropotence, graveyard value, or discard payoffs like Kroxa, Titan of Death's Hunger, love it; everyone else hates it.
Best Commanders
Commanders with the highest synergy
Kroxa, Titan of Death's Hunger
Kroxa, Titan of Death's Hunger feeds directly off what Sire of Insanity creates: every opponent forced to discard triggers Kroxa's escape-adjacent punishment loop, and Kroxa itself is happy operating out of the graveyard rather than hand.
Chainer, Nightmare Adept
Chainer, Nightmare Adept casts creatures from the graveyard, so the hand-wipe Sire of Insanity enforces barely touches it — Sire becomes a lock piece that slows opponents while Chainer's reanimation engine hums along undisturbed.
Mogis, God of Slaughter
Mogis, God of Slaughter wants opponents miserable and resource-starved, and Sire of Insanity delivers exactly that — pairing Sire with Mogis's forced sacrifice or damage triggers turns each opponent's upkeep into a mounting tax they can't spend cards to answer.
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 |
Commander is where Sire of Insanity earns its reputation — a multiplayer table with four hands to empty means the lock is four times as punishing, and the six-mana cost is far more acceptable in a format with 40 life and ramp. In Legacy and Vintage it's theoretically legal but far too slow and fair for formats where games end before turn six; no competitive shell wants it. Modern and Pioneer are similarly inhospitable — hand-disruption in those formats runs two mana, not six. Sire of Insanity is a Commander card through and through.
Key Combos
Combo lines featuring this card
Sire of InsanityNecropotenceHarmless OfferingTeferi, Mage of Zhalfir
Target opponent skips their draw step; Lock
View on Commander Spellbook ↗Budget Alternatives
Cheaper options that do most of the same work
Bottomless Pit and Necrogen Mists both force discard on a repeating basis for under $2, though neither wipes hands as immediately or as thoroughly as Sire of Insanity does on the turn it enters. The trade-off is resilience — enchantments are harder to remove than a six-mana creature, but the ceiling is much lower since opponents still get to keep the rest of their hand between triggers.
Price Context
Current price
$6.12 mid tier
At $6.12, Sire of Insanity sits comfortably in the mid tier — expensive enough to feel like a budget consideration, but cheap for a card that generates this kind of table-wide impact. It holds value well given its narrow but devoted Commander audience; it's not going to spike, but it's also not a card people trade away lightly.
Explore
Sources
Updated . Data from Scryfall, EDHREC, and Commander Spellbook.