Pointed Discussion

An average card, but out of all the other commands, this one is the worst. The reason being that it doesn't provide enough of an advantage to you when you use it. Primal Command gets you ahead in the game with extra life and a necessary card; Austere Command clears the board of certain cards; Profane Command (usually used in elf decks) wins the game; And I don't need to explain just how good Cryptic Command is. The point is that all the other commands grant you victory oy at least get you close, the incendiary does not. Thats not to say that Incendiary Command is bad, its just that it could've been better.

I see a lot of potential for this one as in combos, but by itself it's not a lot of bang for the bucks.

It would be sub par if not for that you get to pick 2. As it stands its a fairly decent versatile burn card, which is far from the worst it could be. Out of the commands it is my least favorite however, because its choices are well covered by other cards, and unlike some of the other commands, don't thrash your opponent quite as harshly for playing it. Still, being on the wrong side of a 4 damage and board sweep burn spell or being a control deck that has to discard its hand is no joke.

not the best command, but it can out-do Profane earlier. needs combos to be good. it is also situationally better then Austere Command because if you only need creature destruction, there are ways of making this not hit your own creatures.

Its not that bad, I used it in a land destruction deck. Killed their critters and continued to set them back.
It is still the weakest however, if only the discard thing could have been something better, at the time I wanted a way to destroy all artifacts but white got that instead. White is way more destructive that red.

The text can just about be hilariously summed up to "Destroy something. We don't care what.". It boasts great destructive versatility, but as always, versatility is trumped by effectiveness, and four subpar effects in one card just makes a subpar card.

I run it with ruby medalion in by burn deck and its another discard effect for my fiery temper. Almost always a good non basic out there to kill (in my circle anyways.) And I love that pyroclasm effect,just wipes tokens. In the burn I obviously opt for the 4 damage to a player so I can continue the pressure and still get an additional effect. I think it's all how you use it and I enjoy it.

Like everyone is saying, it's the worst of the Commands.
But, again like everyone is saying, it is not a bad card.
People seem to be rating this on a compared basis,
When in reality, this card can clear boards of those nasty one drops that seem to pester you the whole game,
As well as destroy possibilities/life.
It is slow, and is a bit limited,
But it still can get the job done.

The last two abilities are relevant in EDH.

The first ability could've targeted a creature or player, or did five damage to the player (it a rare anyways). I like the idea of discarding and drawing a set number. This wouldn't have broke the game. Cryptic friggin Command broke the friggin game. Disappointing.

Gah, WotC doesn't know how to count.
- Destroy 1 target nonbasic land
- Incendiary Command deals 2 damage to each creature
- Incendiary Command deals 4 damage to target player

Where's 3!? They should have made the last ability have everyone discard their hand, then draw 3 cards! If you're playing a RDW deck, which is perhaps the only deck where this would be useful, you shouldn't have a hand by the time you play this card!

Good thing at least Chandra Ablaze knows what I'm talking about...

I had fun with this and radiate.
target a single nonbasic land then dump hands to all hell and blow up all the nonbasics.
perhaps killing people who don't have some kind of anti-mill or simply a huge decks outright.

Yes keiya, but even Chandra Ablaze can't count. +1, -2, -7. Poor, poor, wizards.

Ok card, but worst of all commands.

If you really want to compare this card to Cryptic Command,
Cryptic command's ability (4cmc)
- counter target spell (2cmc)
- boomerang (2cmc)
- tap all creatures target player controls (3cmc ish? it is certainly worse than sleep)
- draw a card (1/2cmc)

Incendiary Command's ability (5cmc)
- deal 4 damage to target player (3cmc)
- deal 2 damage to all creatures (2cmc)
- destroy nonbasic land (3cmc)
- each player discard his/her hand and draw that amount (1/2cmc)

Now, if you compare this way you can clearly see that Incendiary Command is comparable to Cryptic Command.
The reasons why this card seem bad is that
A. There weren't many good land destruction when Lorwyn was released. If this card was released with blocks that contained Molten Rain, Pillage, and/or other great land destroyers this would have been rated higher than Cryptic Command.
B. Each player discard his/her hand and draw that amount is a terrible effect compared to draw a card. Rather than drawing mechanism, I would have preferred 2 damage to target creature or player.
C. Faeries. I don't think I have much to explain. When Lorwyn was released, Faerie was the strongest creature type in standard. Naturally, versatile blue card was often broken in faerie deck.

The thing is, the reason that this had to be so bad is because of Cryptic, not in spite of it.

That seems counter-intuitive, but here's my logic: Cryptic got a suite of 4 good effects, roughly fairly priced, to choose from. But because of the versatility, you either got two spell effects that had no business being glued together for only 1UUU, or you got to choose between 3 different 'fair' cantrips all of which would be useable if printed separately for 2UU.

Consider if they had done something of equal power for Red:
Choose 2:
Incinerate creature
Lightning Bolt player
Stone Rain
Wheel of Fortune

with TWO hyper powerful Commands in the set, there would be so much Blue and Red hate as backlash against whatever decks used them, and the other three colors would have been so outclassed, that we never would have gotten stuff like Volcanic Fallout, Searing Blaze, or Koth of the Hammer. well, maybe Koth. Blue still got Jace afterall. but still.

Magic is a pendulum, and by paying the low cost of not having the nicest card in one rare cycle, Red got so much better and Blue is now shaking in its boots at the prospect of Jace rotating. There's 'other Blue' sure, but its going to be just like when Cryptic and Faeries left- 'its Blue, but its just not the same without that awesome bomb that all my ex-friends hated from last season'

This would've been MUCH better if the last ability had a set draw number (i.e. each player discards all cards, then draws, say, 3 cards). It would likely refill your hand, since this is red and you will generally have few cards in hand by the time you play a 5 mana bomb, but it would also hose control decks pretty badly.

As it is, it's easily the worst command.

It would have been nice to see this at a mana cheaper or as an instant. It is a solid card and wouldn't look quite so weak if not for the other commands to compare it too. It curves nicely from a spiteful visions though. I often get out a spiteful visions, and then it will take forever to get the second one. This will speed that right up as well as making everyone nervous about the additional damage. That brings me to part two of this command. When you are playing an attrition deck, you need to stay ahead on life. Two things that help you do this are board sweepers and additional burn, and this can do both. It is, of course, nice to see the utility of non-basic land destruction on a card without the fear that it won't help much if your opponents only have basics out, or too many land to matter.

This would have been great at {2RR} or {1RRR}! As it stands, not so much, but options are options. And it can resculpt a bad hand, so not bad. I would play this in my Numot, the Devastator EDH, but I already run Chandra Ablaze, a very souped-up version of this card.

EDIT: I took this card out, and Chandra Ablaze, and have actually started winning.

Fail whale... You needed to give all of these commands instant speed to compete with blue's. And even then This card is much weaker then blues for more CC. Bad dev team BAD.

Everyone rate this .5/5 in spite of lack of balance.

Should have been instant speed... Volcanic Fallout is so much better if I want a pyroclasm effect.

It's not always going to be great but, it always does something. All 4 effects are useful at various stages over the course of a game.

Deal 4 can finish off a seriously wounded opponent
Dealing 2 to each creature can be really useful in destroying all your opponent's utility guys or just whipe a board of tokens
Destroying a non-basic lets you answer some of the most powerful cards in the game like tolarian achademy, gaea's cradle, volrath's stronghold, Academy ruins
and the Winds of Change ability can be useful to either fix a bad hand or to just dump a bunch of cards that work well out of the graveyard. It also has the added bonus of messing with your opponents' hands.


overall 4 pretty solid abilities imo.

4/5

I'd like it at and sorcery speed please. Otherwise, the 3.5/5 says it all. Just on this side of mediocre. The five cmc land destruction is the worst part of it too.