For over twenty-five years, the world of trading card games has been unequivocally dominated by the five-mana symbols of Magic the Gathering. The brainchild of Richard Garfield, the game has largely remained unchanged since it first debuted. The game primarily uses five different card types: land cards which can be used to power up other spells, creature cards used to attack and defend from opponents, enchantment cards to enact new, lasting rules on the game, instant spells to cause new, short-term effects and abilities at any point in the game, and sorceries which has similar outcomes to instants but can only be used at certain phases of the caster’s own turn.

Because of their limitations, sorceries are sometimes considered to be the least of these five basic card types. However, that discounts the numerous advantages that sorceries can provide to players. In fact, some sorceries are so ludicrously powerful that they essentially break the game and using them can sometimes feel more like cheating that actually playing. This feeling can be the result of the sorcery costing less than its effect is worth, having an effect that saves or ends the game in the caster’s favor, or the substantial leg-up they give their s. Ultimately, sorceries are one of the most important parts of the game and deserve to be recognized as such so here’s a list of twenty ways to cheat your way to victory in Magic by using them.

MANA TUTORS GIVE EARLY GAME ADVANTAGES

In Magic, speed is everything. The faster you’re able to cast spells, the fewer opportunities your opponents will have to do the same. To that end, one of the most significant advantages a player can have is to get extra mana sources out early. That’s where a handful of powerful, mana ramp sorceries come into play.

Kodama’s Reach and Cultivate both cost 2G and allow players to fetch two basic lands from their libraries, put one into play, and put one into their hand. Nissa’s Pilgrimage is a more powerful version that, under the ‘Spell Mastery’ circumstances, can grab an additional land. However, the most efficient of these land tutoring sorceries is perhaps Farseek, which, for a mana less, can search for a nonbasic Plains, Island, Swamp, or Mountain and put it into play tapped.

USE OP BOARD WIPES TO STOP A PLAYER'S MOMENTUM

Board wipes are a crucial part of any good EDH deck. Essentially, they can reset the state of the game by completely destroying vast portions of the board, stopping players who have grown too threatening or buying a few precious turns to regroup one’s resources. Normally, board wipes can be taken in stride, just like any other obstacle Magic can throw at a player, but some sorceries are just too OP to be fair.

For example, Supreme Verdict destroys all creatures, but cannot be countered or prevented. Merciless Eviction not only allows a player to chose the type of card they want to wipe from the board, but exiles them into oblivion as opposed to simply destroying them. The most powerful may be Hour of Revelation, which for WWW can destroy all non-land permanent cards instead of just creatures.

TAKE ADVANTAGE OF THE ZENITHS AND THEIR RECURSION

The Mirrodin Besieged expansion set introduced players to the “Sun’s Zenith” cards. One for each color of Magic, the Zenith cards are five rare instants or sorceries with X in their mana cost and corresponding effects. Blue and White Sun’s Zeniths are both instants, but Red, Black, and Green Sun’s Zeniths are sorceries.

Red deals X damage to a creature and has the potential to exile it, Green tutors a creature that costs X to the battlefield for just an additional G, and Black puts X -1/-1 counters on all creatures, making it basically a board wipe that can take out indestructible or otherwise untouchable targets. However, the best part of these cards isn’t their powerful effects or low costs, its that all of them get shuffled back into their owner’s library after resolving, allowing them to be played multiple times per game.

TOXIC DELUGE CAN DESTROY THE INDESTRUCTIBLE

Board wipes are an invaluable, desperate resource for players in a fix, but don’t always get the job done. There are some creatures, such as the Theros and Amonkhet god cards, that are indestructible and cannot be destroyed by combat or effects. That’s where Toxic Deluge becomes suddenly relevant.

For the low, low cost of 2B and X life, Toxic Deluge causes all creatures to get -X/-X until end of turn. Because this isn’t combat or a “destroy” effect, this card has the ability to send god or otherwise indestructible cards to the graveyard simply by paying life. Even if your creatures are destroyed as well, Toxic Deluge’s mana cost is so low that you can easily rebuild a sizable board state in the same turn.

USE WHEEL EFFECTS TO HURT OPPONENTS AND OPEN UP POSSIBILITIES

Of all the effects in Magic, on of the best is the so called “Wheel.” Named after the sorcery card Wheel of Fortune, one of the first in the game, wheel effects cause certain players to discard their hands and draw new ones. The advantages this provides are numerous. For one, card draw is innately good because it means players have more options in of what they can play.

Cards like Wheel of Fortune itself and Windfall can also cause other players to discard as well, but on the caster’s time. This could possibly deprive them of key strategic pieces and disrupt their plans. It’s a risky gamble, as players may be tossing away their own future combos, but it can be worth it in the short term, especially if one has recursion spells to mitigate the loss.

USE ULTIMATUMS TO GET MULTIPLE EFFECTS OFF ONE CARD

The five “Ultimatum” sorceries were introduced in the Shards of Alara expansion set. Each Ultimatum was a singularly powerful, high-cost spell that reflected one of the five titular mini-planes that made up the shattered world of Alara.

Violent Ultimatum destroys up to three uninhibited permanents, Clarion Ultimatum allows a player to search their decks for cards they already have on the battlefield, Brilliant Ultimatum can let players cast some of the top five cards of their libraries for free, and Titanic Ultimatum gives all creatures a player controls a significant power and mechanic boost for the turn. The most powerful, however, is arguably Cruel Ultimatum, which forces a player to sacrifice a creature, discard three cards, and lose five life and allows the caster to do the reverse.

MIRACLE CARDS CAN BE CAST FOR CHEAP

One of the rarer mechanics ever printed in Magic, the Miracle ability is appropriately overpowered to a ludicrous degree. If a card with Miracle is the first card that a player draws in a turn, it can be cast for a fraction of its usual price. The ability is specific to instants and sorceries, some of which are borderline game breaking considering how low they can be cast for.

For example, Terminus not only wipes the board, but puts creatures in the least attainable place in the game: the bottom of their owners’ decks. Likewise, Devastation Tide returns non-land permanents to their owners’ hands, forcing them to be recast. Entreat the Dead returns creatures from the graveyard directly to the battlefield while Entreat the Angels can make a small army of flying angels. However, the best Miracle card is Temporal Mastery, which can give a player a priceless extra turn.

TAKE ADVANTAGE OF GROUP GAMES WITH TEMPTATION CARDS

One of the most popular play-styles of Magic is EDH, also called Commander, which typically involves a multi-player game of three or more participants. In such an environment, inter-player politics becomes just as important as the cards themselves. This makes the “Tempt With” sorcery cards invaluable as they allow the caster to use its effect, then allow other players to copy the effect, and then copy the effect for the caster for each player who was tempted into using the ability.

For example, Tempt With Discovery allows the caster to search their library for any land card and put it onto the battlefield with no drawbacks. Any other player may do the same, but if any do, the caster will get to search for another land. It endears the caster to other players due to the group-helping dynamic of the card, but ensures the caster still remains at an advantage.

DREDGE MECHANIC BREAKS CARD DRAW

It’s widely agreed upon by Magic players that Dredge is the single most broken mechanic ever printed in the game. Not only does it dig through a player’s deck to get to better cards underneath, it can also put other dredge cards into the graveyard returns a usable card to the player’s hand. All at the simple expense of loosing a draw step. Only a couple of sorceries have the Dredge ability, but one of them is Life from the Loam.

Costing only 1G, Life from the Loam lets players return up to three land cards from their graveyard to their hand. The player can then use Dredge to put the top cards of their library into their graveyard and return Life from the Loam to their hand, potentially putting more lands into their graveyard to get back with the card. It essentially revokes the only drawback of the mechanic.

USE OVERWHELMING INFECT WITH TRIUMPH OF THE HORDES

When it comes to strategic aggression in MTG, there is perhaps no greater sorcery than Triumph of the Hordes. For 2GG, it makes all creatures a player controls slightly stronger and gives them the trample ability, which allows them to roll over damage from a defending creature onto a defending player, and infect, which lets them deal damage in the form of -1/-1 and poison counters, until end of turn.

The combination of the three can be devastating as it only takes ten poison counters for a player to lose a game. By making the creatures stronger and giving them trample, Triumph of the Hordes puts a player in immediate jeopardy so long as the caster has enough creatures that an alpha strike can swarm an opponent’s defense.