The mega-popular fantasy card game Magic: the Gathering has been going strong for 26 years now, and it's showing no sign of slowing down. Wizards of the Coast has introduced us to all kinds of cool characters, exotic worlds, and astounding magic. All of it is captured on trading cards for you to use in a game.
But naturally, Wizards had to learn and evolve as it went, since the very idea of a trading card game was brand new. Mistakes were made, lessons were learned, and some ideas have been scrapped in favor of new ones. Many younger players have never even used phasing or banding, for example. Meanwhile, instants and sorceries are one-off cards with a dazzling variety of effects, and some are iconic while others really fall short. Which are the ten most irrelevant, underpowered, or just plain bizarre sorcery cards that have been printed over the years?
10 Scorching Spear
Let's start slow with a pretty simple package: a burn spell! Who doesn't love to harness red mana and fling fireballs and lightning at their opponents and burn them to a crisp?
But alas, this is not Lightning Bolt or even its nerfed-but-still-decent cousin Lightning Strike. We pay just one red mana... for one damage! That's not the kind of ratio we're looking for, and even the humble burn spell Shock puts this thing to shame. Worse yet, this is a sorcery, while most cheap burn spells are instants. Something definitely went wrong here.
9 Bargain
This card is a bargain, all right... for your opponent! White is the weakest color for card draw, and the best at gaining life, but this is just silly. You pay up 2W at sorcery speed to gain 7 life, which is pretty unremarkable.
But we forgot the best part! An opponent gets to draw a whole card out of the deal, and trust us, your opponent is coming out ahead in this exchange. Honestly, though, even if your opponent gained some life instead of a card, Bargain is still lousy.
8 Hint of Insanity
Here's another bad sorcery with a fitting name... since the design has a hint of insanity about it! Black mana is an expert at hand control, which can affect the course of an entire game. But not like this.
You can only make your opponent discard nonland cards if they are discarding two or more cards that share a name with each other! How often is that going to happen? Outside of Shadowborn Apostle decks, not very. Factor in a 2B casting cost and this card is doomed to languish in your bulk cards box forever. Thoughtseize, this is not!
7 Rebuking Ceremony
Ah, artifacts. Wizards has freely admitted that artifacts have serious potential to be overpowered in the game. Just look at the Affinity decks of 2003-2004, or the banned cards of the Kaladesh block. Lessons learned.
Nerfing a powerful strategy is fine, but Rebuking Ceremony is not trying hard enough. Green loves to destroy artifacts! What is this card doing, just bouncing them back to the library's top? Even if this is two-for-one, that's nonsense, and paying 3GG for all that (and at sorcery speed) is just too much. Try Reclamation Sage instead.
6 Culling Mark
Green doesn't really dabble in creature destruction, since that's black's domain, and it doesn't deal with burn damage, either (red's territory). But green needs to take the initiative sometimes, so we get the "fight" mechanic. It works great.
But we also got this watered-down imitation of fighting. For 2G, you can force a creature to block, such as a small utility creature. But why not just use fight, or splash another color for other removal options? Paying all that for removal is silly, and if your opponent's board doesn't have a weak link, this card is even worse. Rabid Bite, from Shadows Over Innstrad, is a totally superior alternative to this. Try it!
5 Trait Doctoring
Blue is the dominant color for instants and sorceries, but not even blue is exempt from making some missteps in card design. The Dragon's Maze set had a chilly reception, and cards like Trait Doctoring show us why.
True, this card is cheap, but that's the only perk here. As for the effect: you can change an instance of a color or land type on a permanent with another, until end of turn. Your creature with protection from red now has protection from white! Victory? We think not. This effect is too narrow to be useful, even if it costs just U. It also has cipher, but that's not exactly a point in its favor.
4 Tombfire
Meet the cousin of Mudhole! Some decks harness the power of the graveyard, to treat it has a second hand or deck. That's a strong strategy. We get it.
But how is this supposed to nerf anything? You're only taking out your opponent's cards with flashback, and that's so specific, it's hilarious. Bojuka Bog, Relic of Progenitus, Scavenging Ooze, and Tormod's Crypt can hit the entire graveyard, no matter the card types found in there. Tormod's Crypt is free to cast, the Relic cantrips, and the Ooze is a creature that can get bigger. Tombfire, you can't even begin to compare to all that. Sorry, bud.
3 Ichor Explosion
Who doesn't love some good board-wiping action? This is the domain of white and black, and classics like Wrath of God and Damnation are joined by more niche versions such as Toxic Deluge or Fumigate. All fine cards!
Ichor Explosion, fresh from New Phyrexia, sacrifices function for flavor, and the Phyrexians are really letting us down. To start, we pony up a whopping 5BB for this card, and that's some serious business. But you also have to sacrifice a creature, and it must have a lot of power for this card to work well! Sheesh, this very same set had Life's Finale, costing 4BB and wiping the board with impunity. How can this even compare? It's an explosion that excites neither the goblins nor the players.
2 Archangel's Light
Here we get another expensive sorcery that doesn't even begin to justify its hefty mana cost. 7W? Mana like that had better win you the game, and Archangel's Light does anything but that.
Yes, you gain life, but only if your graveyard is decently stocked. It's important to remember that lifegain alone does not win you the game, and at best, it buys you time. You're supposed to cast threatening creatures and damage your opponent's life total! Shuffling your graveyard into your library is an interesting bonus effect on this card, but alas, we're still not sold on this. The archangel's light is just a dim bulb after all.
1 Aether Tide
What's this? The worst-ever sorcery is in the color of strong noncreature spells? Look, we love bounce effects in blue, with Unsummon and Cyclonic Rift being classic examples. Soft removal is still removal, if you know how to take advantage of it.
But there is no advantage in playing Aether Tide. Seriously, there isn't! First strike: sorcery speed (so it can't be used defensively). Second strike: you might end up paying a lot of mana. Third and biggest strike: you have to discard a creature card for each creature that you're targeting with this Aether Tide! What? Since when do blue decks have hands full of creatures to fuel spells like this? Merfolk decks? That's a fringe case, and seriously, Merfolk can do much better. The costs for Aether Tide's effects are backbreaking, to say the least.