All 33 Storm Cards in Magic Ranked

Last updated on April 2, 2026

Tempest Technique | Illustration by Nino Vecia

With the release of Tarkir: Dragonstorm, one can’t help but think about all the cards in MTG with storm, what with the name of the set and all. While the reality is that there aren't many, it opens the gates for the question: Which are the best storm cards printed in MTG?

Today, I go over all of them to uncover why they’re good and which formats they mostly see/saw play in. Let’s dive right into them!   

What Are Storm Cards in MTG?

Flusterstorm | Illustration by Erica Yang

In Magic: The Gathering, storm cards are spells that copy themselves for each other spell cast before it during the same turn. This makes storm cards especially dangerous in combo decks, where players cast many cheap spells to build up a huge storm count and win the game in a single turn. The best part? It also counts your opponent’s spells, meaning you can wait until they’ve played their turn to maximize the value from your instant-speed storm spells.

#33. Crow Storm

Crow Storm may have started as a joke, but WotC eventually turned it into a card that, while not playable, exists.

#32. Astral Steel

Astral Steel is a straightforward combat trick that becomes far more dangerous with storm. It gives a creature +1/+2 until the end of the turn, which can save it in combat or help push through damage. Storm spreads the buff across multiple creatures or stacks them on one for a surprise blowout. While modest on its own, this becomes a real problem when part of a larger spell chain.

#31. Hindering Touch

Hindering Touch is a blue counterspell that taxes your opponent’s spells with a 2-mana payment per copy. It’s not the most efficient card on its own, but it becomes a stack of soft counters that can grind a combo or tempo deck to a halt. It’s a great way to punish greedy turns and protect your own combos without relying on hard counters.

#30. Wing Shards

Aggressive strategies can crumble fast when faced with a well-timed answer like Wing Shards. It makes a target opponent sacrifice an attacking creature, and storm lets you stack multiple copies on the same player—shredding their entire board. It’s especially brutal against Voltron builds.

#29. Scattershot

Scattershot is a simple burn spell that deals 1 damage to a creature, but storm lets it scale into a machine gun. This is especially effective against small token armies or utility creatures. It's not flashy, but in the right matchup, it clears the board or picks off threats piece by piece.

#28. Sprouting Vines

It’s amazing how Pauper decks can use storm cards in one way or another. Sprouting Vines is a ramp tool that lets you search your deck for basic lands and put them into your hand. It’s a bit slow, but it shines when you need to hit land drops, fix colors, or deplete your deck of lands to maximize exile effects like Wrenn's Resolve and never run into dead cards.

#27. All of History, All at Once

A wild ride for any deck playing with time counters, whether it's suspend, vanishing, or some oddball interaction, All of History, All at Once gives you the power to add or remove them however you like. Storm lets you repeat the effect multiple times for a single, explosive turn.

#26. Amphibian Downpour

Amphibian Downpour is a fast, reactive enchantment that completely neuters threats. This flashes in and turns any creature into a 1/1 blue Frog with no abilities. Storm locks down multiple creatures in one swoop, which makes this feel more like a board-shrinking spell than a single-target removal. While I personally like direct removal spells, this can become useful in mono-blue decks that otherwise don’t have reliable answers to threats.

#25. Elemental Eruption

Elemental Eruption brings the heat with a 4/4 Dragon Elemental with flying and prowess. That alone is a solid token for 6 mana, but storm turns this into an aerial army that grows bigger with each noncreature spell you cast.

#24. Fiery Encore

Add a little chaos and a whole lot of heat to your turn with Fiery Encore. It lets you rummage—discard and draw—and deals damage to a creature or planeswalker equal to the mana value of the discarded card, as long as it’s not a land. Storm stacks that effect fast, letting you sculpt your hand while setting the board ablaze.

#23. Mordor on the March

Mordor on the March is flavorful and deadly. You exile a creature from your graveyard, create a hasty token copy of it, and then watch it vanish at the end step. That alone is a neat pseudo-reanimation effect, but with storm, this becomes a sudden parade of resurrected threats, each swinging in for surprise damage.

#22. Radstorm

If you’re running a counter-based strategy, this spell is a tidy way to turn things up a notch. Radstorm offers a single proliferate effect at a fair cost—but with storm, it becomes a counter-granting chain reaction. It shines in decks focused on poison, sagas, planeswalkers, or energy, and a big enough storm count swings the game from calm to catastrophic.

#21. Tempest Technique

Tempest Technique brings elegant synergy to enchantment-heavy decks, and of course, Voltron ones. It enchants one of your creatures and boosts it by +1/+1 for each enchantment you control. Since it has storm, you get a token copy of the aura for each previous spell cast, letting you buff your whole team or stack multiple auras on a single threat.

#20. Haze of Rage

Haze of Rage combines aggression and recursion in a way only red could. It gives all your creatures +1/+0 until the end of the turn and has buyback, so you can keep casting it as long as you’ve got mana. When Storm gets involved, this pumps your whole board multiple times over, turning even a group of 1/1s into a lethal strike. This makes for an explosive and repeatable finisher in go-wide decks.

#19. Aeve, Progenitor Ooze

Aeve, Progenitor Ooze is a green storm creature that goes wide fast. Thanks to storm, this makes multiple ooze tokens, none of which are legendary, so they all stick around. This enters the battlefield with a +1/+1 counter for every other ooze you control, so the more storm copies you get, the stronger each one becomes.

#18. Hunting Pack

For anyone who loves turning spells into creatures, this one’s a beast—literally. Hunting Pack creates a 4/4 green Beast and that quickly turns into a full pack. It’s especially great as a reactive play: Let your opponent go off, then flood the board with surprise tokens. As a late-game threat, it rewards good timing with serious power.

#17. Ignite Memories

Ignite Memories leans into randomness but can absolutely crush combo players or opponents holding expensive cards. It reveals a random card from a player’s hand and deals damage equal to that card’s mana value. It’s a gamble on its own—but storm makes it a brutal hand-attack engine. Even if only a few copies hit high-value cards, this adds up quickly and can close games before your opponent has a chance to respond. Or at least, that was the idea Patrick Chapin had, up until Grabriel Nassif survived five Ignite Memories copies.

#16. Spreading Insurrection

Stealing one creature for a turn is solid—but stealing the whole board? That’s where Spreading Insurrection gets wild as a mass Threaten. The most evil thing to do is to pair it with a free creature sacrifice outlet like Altar of Dementia so creatures don’t return to where they belong.

#15. Volcanic Awakening

When it comes to wrecking mana bases, few spells hit as hard as Volcanic Awakening. It blows up a land for every copy, and with just a decent storm count, it leaves the entire table scrambling for mana. What starts as a simple land destruction spell quickly becomes a total lockdown, especially in multiplayer games.

#14. Empty the Warrens

Few storm finishers are as iconic—or as reliable—as Empty the Warrens. It creates two 1/1 red Goblin tokens for every copy; the right mix of rituals and cheap cantrips produces a massive board out of nowhere. It’s even seen solid play in Modern from time to time, and was a go-to win condition in Legacy storm decks during the early days of the format. Of course, it's also banned in Pauper.

#13. Galvanic Relay

Galvanic Relay turns your storm count into future potential. Each copy exiles the top card of your library, and you can cast them on your next turn. It doesn’t do much immediately, but it sets up an explosive follow-up, allowing you to storm again or refill your hand. This way to chain spells in between turns and dig for cheap resources like Lotus Petal was the main reason why it was eventually banned in Pauper, despite not being dominant at the time it happened.

#12. Ground Rift

It might not deal damage, but Ground Rift is a deceptively powerful tool in the right deck. By making creatures without flying unable to block, it turns a cluttered board into a clear path for a lethal swing. It has synergy with Venerated Rotpriest, enabling poison-based kills by forcing through waves of targeted spells. Cheap, efficient, and deadly when timed right, Ground Rift demands respect.

#11. Reaping the Graves

Graveyard recursion doesn't get much more efficient than Reaping the Graves. At instant speed, it returns a creature from your graveyard to your hand—and with storm, each copy brings another back. It shines in grindy games or decks that burn through creatures early, giving you a quick way to reload. In Pauper, it's a key piece of the cycling storm deck, where it plays a critical role in looping creatures and keeping the engine going. Cheap, flexible, and essential in the right shell.

#10. Stormscale Scion

A 4/4 flying dragon with storm, Stormscale Scion brings serious pressure to the board. When this resolves, it buffs all your other dragons with a +1/+1 bonus, and the fact that storm makes copies of it—each one a token—means you can suddenly have a sky full of fire-breathing threats that act as lords for others of their kind, going from a single pump to a massive Craterhoof Behemoth buff.

#9. Dragonstorm

Few spells strike fear like this one in a storm deck. Dragonstorm goes straight into your library to drop a dragon onto the battlefield—no setup, no questions asked. Cast a bunch of spells first, and suddenly you’re unleashing an entire flight of fire-breathers. At some point, I saw and built a Grixis Dragonstorm Commander deck with cheap ramp spells, tutors, and fast mana to build up into a large Dragonstorm, and swing for the win with hasty dragons thanks to Dragonlord Kolaghan or a convoluted combo involving Worldgorger Dragon and Animate Dead, making it one of the funniest decks I’ve ever played with.

#8. Mind's Desire

Storm players dream of spells like this—powerful, unpredictable, and capable of taking over the game. Mind's Desire shuffles your library, exiles the top card, and lets you cast it for free until the end of turn. With storm, each copy digs deeper, creating a wild chain of free spells that can quickly spiral into a game-winning combo or fuel an unstoppable storm count. Notably, it is a very fun card to play in Vintage Cube on MTGO when it makes the cut.

#7. Temporal Fissure

guess which other Storm card is banned from Pauper? Temporal Fissure is a tempo powerhouse. It bounces any permanent to its owner’s hand and becomes increasingly more effective with storm. One spell might slow your opponent down—but 10 spells? That’s a full reset.

#6. Weather the Storm

Weather the Storm is the go-to lifegain spell in Pauper against burn decks. It gains you 3 life per copy, which adds up incredibly fast during a big turn. This is especially brutal against burn decks or in races where every point of life matters. Pro tip: Wait to cast it on your opponent’s turn, where they are unleashing their fiery spells, to make them feel frustrated by the fact that they ran out of cards for no value.

#5. Chatterstorm

Chatterstorm creates a single 1/1 green Squirrel token, but don’t be fooled—that’s all it takes. This card floods the board with Squirrels at a terrifying rate. It became so efficient that it was banned in Pauper for being too consistent and explosive when paired with First Day of Class and the massive amount of fast mana the format has.

#4. Flusterstorm

Flusterstorm is a popular 1-mana nightmare for any spell-slinger trying to combo off. Mostly used in Legacy, Vintage, and Commander, this spell counters an instant or sorcery unless its controller pays , and while that seems minimal, storm turns that tax into a massive stack of headaches. Even if they can pay for one copy, this piles on so many more that something is bound to fizzle. This is a staple in counter-heavy formats and a great piece of stack control and hate against other storm cards.

#3. Tendrils of Agony

Tendrils of Agony is among the most iconic win conditions in Legacy storm decks. It drains an opponent for 2 life and gains you 2 life per copy, which stacks up quickly. Just five spells beforehand translates to 12 life drained and gained—scale that higher, and it becomes game-ending. In a format that has multiple copies of ritual effects such as Dark Ritual and Cabal Ritual while paired with Demonic Tutor to fetch for it, it's easy to see why its a very solid strategy.

#2. Brain Freeze

As far as mill finishers go, few are as efficient or iconic as Brain Freeze. It mills three cards per copy, which might seem modest at first—until you've rattled off a dozen spells in one turn. Then it becomes a full-blown avalanche, wiping out libraries in a flash. It may not have the flashiness of other storm wincons, but it’s brutally effective and ends games fast when played at the right moment.

#1. Grapeshot

When it comes to storm finishers, few spells are as feared or as effective as Grapeshot. It deals 1 damage to any target per copy, and in a deck that churns through spells, those little pings add up fast. Whether you’re clearing the board or going straight to the face, it offers precision and flexibility. Once the storm count hits double digits, this unassuming red spell turns into a deadly win condition. If both Chatterstorm and Empty the Warrens were banned from Pauper, are you surprised to see this card banned from the format as well?

What Cards Give Your Other Spells Storm?

There aren’t many cards in Magic: The Gathering that actually give the storm ability to other spells. Ral, Crackling Wit is one of them—his ultimate gives all your instants and sorceries storm for the rest of the game. Then there’s Crackling Spellslinger, which gives the next instant or sorcery you cast this turn storm.

Lastly, Storm, Force of Nature gives the keyword whenever it deals combat damage to a player, making it a fun Temur commander.

Beyond that, some cards imitate the effect of storm without using the keyword. Thousand-Year Storm is the most well-known—it copies your spells for each one you’ve already cast that turn (instants and sorceries only). You also have things like Eye of the Storm and Swarm Intelligence, which don’t technically give storm but still create lots of spell copies in their own wild ways.

Notably, cards with replicate kind of act like storm spells in the sense that you create copies of them based on the number of times you pay their cost, as is the case with Lose Focus or Gigadrowse.

What Is Gravestorm?

Gravestorm is a keyword ability in Magic: The Gathering that creates a copy of a spell for each permanent put into a graveyard during a turn. It works like storm, but instead of counting spells, it counts how many permanents died. When you cast a spell with gravestorm, you copy it once for every permanent that went to any graveyard earlier in the turn. Gravestorm appears only on three cards: Bitter Ordeal, Ominous Harvest, and Follow the Bodies.

Wrap Up

Grapeshot | Illustration by Clint Cearley

Without a doubt, storm is among the best and most powerful mechanics ever printed. Pretty much every spell with the mechanic can be played in the right deck, and there aren't wrong calls when one decides to use them.

What do you think about the mechanic? Is it good or overpowered? Let us know in the comments!

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Take care, and we will meet again in my next article.