Thermokarst
Sorcery
Destroy target land. If that land was a snow land, you gain 1 life.
- CMC
- 3
- Mana cost
- Color identity
- G
- Rarity
- uncommon
- Set
- Ice Age
- Price
- $5.96
- EDHREC rank
- #25766
Thermokarst destroys a land and, if it hit a Plains, gains you 2 life — two mana for a clean, unconditional land destruction spell that happens to punish white mana bases. It's narrow in most metas but irreplaceable in strategies that want cheap, repeatable land denial.
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 |
In Commander, Thermokarst is a niche inclusion: land destruction is politically costly at a four-player table, and two mana for one land rarely swings a game unless you're in a dedicated land-hate or stax shell. Pauper is where Thermokarst has historically seen the most competitive action, fitting naturally into land-destruction aggro strategies that leverage cheap disruption to strand opponents off curve. Legacy and Vintage allow it but have no real use for it — both formats offer far more efficient disruption, and nobody is casting Thermokarst in a Brainstorm meta. Oathbreaker's tighter card counts and faster games make it even harder to justify the slot.
Key Combos
Combo lines featuring this card
Budget Alternatives
Cheaper options that do most of the same work
Thermokarst's closest functional replacement is Ice Storm, which costs the same two mana but lacks the life gain rider — at a lower or similar price point, it's essentially equivalent for most purposes. If you want to stay in green and keep costs down, Mwonvuli Acid-Moss does the same job at four mana while also ramping you, which is a better rate in Commander even if it's slower in Pauper.
Price Context
Current price
$5.96 mid tier
At $5.96, Thermokarst sits in mid-tier pricing for a card with extremely limited competitive demand — that price is driven almost entirely by its age and scarcity rather than play volume. It's a stable niche card, not a growth target; if you need it for a Pauper land-destruction deck, buy it, but don't expect the price to move much in either direction.
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Sources
Mentioned
Updated . Data from Scryfall, EDHREC, and Commander Spellbook.