All 5 Flare Cards in Magic Ranked

Last updated on July 30, 2026

Flare of Duplication | Illustration by Olivier Bernard

There was a time, early in my MTG life, when the Force of Will I pulled from an Alliances booster was the only decent Magic card I owned. To this day, when I get someone with it in a Commander game, it’s everything I want from high-power Magic. If you’re going to make my Pillages unplayable after being the card for a minute at our LGS back in the day, well, make the moments worth the volumes of cardboard left behind.

Free spells do just that. We think we know what’s happening based on the board state, but the little tells we look for, the two open blue mana, the one red or black, those are gone and we have to anticipate based on the moment, the matchup, the decklists. I get that plenty of Magic players are ready for all free spells to vanish forever, but I disagree. I just want them to be designed well, and the Flares in Modern Horizons 3 are very well designed. Let’s take a look.

What Are Flare Cards in MTG?

Flare of Cultivation | Illustration by Billy Christian

The Flares are a cycle of five cards released in the Modern Horizons 3 MTG set. These Flares are the latest in an occasional series of free spells, but, like most free spells, the “free” gets qoutation marks because they still have alternative costs, just not mana costs.

The Alliances cycle required you to exile a card from hand, as does Modern Horizons 1‘s Force cycle and Modern Horizons 2‘s elementals, although each set of cards could be cast for a more traditional mana cost in the upper right. The Pact spells from Future Sight cost you mana on the next upkeep, and the Leylines are overcosted anchors if you don’t draw them in your opening hand, which is less of an issue in the similar but super busted Once Upon a Time.

The easiest costs are the Commander 2020 free spells that just require your commander to be in play – not always easy, sure, but it’s the whole point of the format!

The Flares, though, have a different set of costs, specifically sacrificing nontoken creatures that share a color with the spell, and that allows them to work in different design space that feels not only fairer, but more interesting as build-arounds.

As I wrote when rating the best cards from the Modern Horizons 3 set, the Flares are all awesome cards which you should absolutely play in Commander, and perhaps even in the format they were designed for, Modern.

#5. Flare of Cultivation

First off, this is a sorcery, so it’s the least flexible of all the Flares and can’t sacrifice the creature in response to removal.

Second, Flare of Cultivation has a fail case of Cultivate, which isn’t playable outside of Commander anymore, so that’s another issue for this green sorcery.

The third issue is that green usually doesn’t want to sacrifice its creatures, especially in a ramp deck because they're either mana dorks or key threats.

Maybe you can sacrifice creatures with ETB abilities you’ve already used them, like Prosperous Innkeeper or Quirion Sentinel, or Burning-Tree Emissary? But green often needs a devotion count for Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx, links in a Birthing Pod chain, or just bodies to mass-pump with Craterhoof Behemoth, so this green card lacks a home outside of narrow archetypes like a self-mill lands recursion/ramp deck.

#4. Flare of Denial

I know, free counterspells are where it’s at! But hear me out!

Blue decks don’t generally roll along with sacrificial creatures lying around. Often it’s a big important creature in a control deck, from Dream Trawler to Haughty Djinn. Or it’s the tempo flying creature with the Curious Obsession on it.

On the other hand, Flare of Denial‘s fail case is a Cancel, which is fine enough.

Don’t get me wrong, this is still an amazing blue instant! The decks most likely able to utilize this blue card have lots of blue creatures, so probably typal decks built around merfolk, spirits, rogues, faeries…that sort of thing.

#3 Flare of Fortitude

Teferi's Protection at home?

The trouble with Flare of Fortitude is that your permanents don’t phase out, so they can still be exiled with a Farewell or similar sweeper. But this white instant can keep your go-wide team alive in the teeth of cheaper board wipes or spot removal.

You’re already packing worse versions of this in your EDH go-wide white decks like Your Temple Is Under Attack, so by all means use Flare of Fortitude!

#2. Flare of Duplication

Spell copying is busted. Izzet Turns decks duplicated extra turn spells with clunky things like Galvanic Iteration in Standard. Copying a turn spell by sacrificing a goblin or wizard seems kinda good. And since Flare of Duplication can hit your opponent’s spells as well, that may have utility, especially in Commander.

#1. Flare of Malice

Flare of Malice shines because black decks tend to have cheap creatures to sacrifice and often benefit from that sacrifice. Soul Shatter is a cool effect that’s too expensive for Modern, but I’ve seen people sacrifice creatures to enable revolt on a Fatal Push, and isn’t this just more efficient?

Seems like one or two copies of this black instant will show up in decks, maybe sideboards, and of course this is great in EDH.

And if you've read our Modern Horizons 3 Limited Set Review, you know this is the best Flare for MH3 Draft or Sealed formats.

Best Flare Card Enablers

These instants and sorcery will be good in any deck in Commander, especially with multicolor creatures, and because most are instants and can use a doomed creature as fodder, these have loads of synergies with various good EDH decks.

In Modern or other 60-cards formats where these cards are legal, we’re talking about two specific synergies.

One-Drops

The decks that will want these spells anyway already have a ton of 1-drops. They generally want to do other things with them than sacrifice them, but these are emergency applications, let’s say. So Dragon's Rage Channeler, Ragavan, Nimble Pilferer, Arboreal Grazer, and whatever else you have laying around.

You can also look to cheap creatures with strong enters or death triggers. Once Helpful Hunter has entered and drawn a card, you have little better to do with the body than sacrifice it. Similarly, cards like Greedy Freebooter and Primal Druid were printed specifically to throw into the mill of cards like these.

Wrap Up

Flare of Malice | Illustration by David Palumbo

Even if, unlike me, you totally hate “free” spells, I think most MTG players can at least appreciate the way these Flares get their alternative cost. Having to sacrifice a nontoken creature not only puts an interesting limit on how easy it’ll be to use these spells for ‘free,' but it also presents a deck-building challenge that may very well spawn new archetypes, and that’s always fascinating.

I feel like I’ve just scratched the surface of the interesting applications of these cards, so if you’ve got a sweet synergy to add, please let me know in the comment or on Draftsim Discord.

Happy brewing with your CommanderModern Horizons 3 cards!