Sunfire Balm
Instant
Prevent the next 4 damage that would be dealt to any target this turn.
Cycling 
(, Discard this card: Draw a card.)
When you cycle this card, you may prevent the next 1 damage that would be dealt to any target this turn.
- CMC
- 3
- Mana cost
- Color identity
- W
- Rarity
- uncommon
- Set
- Onslaught
- Price
- $0.10
- EDHREC rank
- #29962
Sunfire Balm gains you life equal to the number of cards in your hand — a payoff that scales with hand size but does nothing else for the board. It's a life gain spell that asks a lot of deck construction and delivers no tempo in return.
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 |
In Commander, Sunfire Balm is fringe at best — life gain without a dedicated payoff engine is rarely worth a slot, and the hand-size scaling requires you to already be winning to get full value. Legacy and Vintage are legal but completely uninterested; those formats end games before life totals matter, and Sunfire Balm offers no disruption or card advantage to justify the slot. Oathbreaker shares Commander's multiplayer logic, where padding your life total without advancing your game plan is a tempo loss you can't afford.
Key Combos
Combo lines featuring this card
Price Context
Current price
$0.10 bulk tier
Sunfire Balm sits at $0.10, squarely in bulk territory. At that price there's no financial downside to picking one up, but the cost of a deck slot is the real tax here.
Explore
Sources
Mentioned
Updated . Data from Scryfall, EDHREC, and Commander Spellbook.