Wail of the Forgotten
Sorcery
Descend 8 — Choose one. If there are eight or more permanent cards in your graveyard as you cast this spell, choose one or more instead.
• Return target nonland permanent to its owner's hand.
• Target opponent discards a card.
• Look at the top three cards of your library. Put one of them into your hand and the rest into your graveyard.
- CMC
- 2
- Mana cost
- Color identity
- BU
- Rarity
- rare
- Set
- The Lost Caverns of Ixalan
- Price
- $0.28
- EDHREC rank
- #13181
Wail of the Forgotten hits three targets at once — mill, discard, or direct damage — and scales with how deep your graveyard already runs. The Ancient One turns that scaling into a closing argument: once you're milling dozens of cards per activation, the damage mode ends games.
Best Commanders
Commanders with the highest synergy
The Ancient One
The Ancient One's ability rewards stacking the graveyard as fast as possible, and Wail of the Forgotten does triple duty — it mills, pressures hands, and converts graveyard count directly into life total damage, making it one of the most efficient single cards in the deck.
Format Analysis
Where it lives, where it can’t
| Format | Verdict |
|---|---|
| commander | legal |
| legacy | legal |
| modern | legal |
| pioneer | legal |
| standard | legal |
| vintage | legal |
| pauper | not legal |
| oathbreaker | legal |
Wail of the Forgotten is a Commander card first and almost exclusively. In graveyard-centric Commander decks, the flexible modal design means it's never a dead draw — you mill early, pivot to discard disruption mid-game, and close with damage once the graveyard is deep enough. Constructed formats like Standard, Pioneer, and Modern are legal but largely uninterested: the damage ceiling requires setup that faster formats don't allow, and dedicated mill or discard strategies there have more efficient, narrower tools. Legacy and Vintage have the raw power density to make the card look slow by comparison. Stick to Commander.
Key Combos
Combo lines featuring this card
Price Context
Current price
$0.28 bulk tier
At $0.28, Wail of the Forgotten is firmly bulk — easy to pick up as a four-of without a second thought. Bulk rares with narrow commander-specific appeal rarely climb unless a breakout deck pushes them, so treat this as a cheap pickup now rather than a hold.
Explore
Sources
Mentioned
Updated . Data from Scryfall, EDHREC, and Commander Spellbook.