The 40 Best Modal Spells in Magic Ranked

Last updated on January 17, 2025

Jeska's Will | Illustrated by Izzy

I love having options and making decisions in Magic, so I naturally gravitate towards modal spells. Picking one or more modes from a juicy selection gives me all the decision trees I could want, not to mention providing interesting bits of flavor.

These cards also aren’t niche; modal spells like Prismari Command, Cryptic Command, and Abrade saw plenty of Constructed play and are still utilized to this day.

Let’s choose which modal MTG cards are the best!

What Are Modal Spells in MTG?

Collective Resistance | Illustration by Raoul Vitale

Modal cards in Magic are spells and abilities that ask you to choose one or more options from a bulleted list of effects. The most famous of these cards are the charms, like Piracy Charm, though there’s plenty of diversity and even mechanics like spree and escalate that build upon this template.

One important thing we must consider before moving on is that there’s a slight difference between modal cards and modal spells. When a Magic card refers to modal spells in its text, like Riku of Many Paths, it only sees instants and sorceries that make you pick one or more options when you cast them. Though permanents don’t count as “modal spells,” this list includes them, as well as cards with escalate and spree—essentially, if it made you choose one or more options, regardless of card type, it made the cut so I could showcase the best flexible spells Magic has for you.

In both cases, they share a few features. These cards commonly interact with your opponents with at least one mode, though that’s not a universal truth. They also tend to be a touch overcosted. Take Abrade, for example: Shattering Spree and Lightning Bolt are both cheaper ways to get half the effect at 1 mana. But Abrade makes you pay the extra mana for the versatility of interacting with artifacts and creatures with a single spell.

#40. Active Volcano

Active Volcano might be the narrowest card on the list, a rather impressive achievement considering how flexible modal cards are. Blue hate can be quite useful, especially if your Rakdos commander () needs a way to interact with Rhystic Study and its ilk.

Quick note, older cards with the “choose one or more” text have been updated to include bulleted lists in their oracle text, making it easier to identify when it's modal.

#39. Split Up

Setting up Split Up can be tricky, though cards like vehicles that allow you to tap your creatures make it more manageable. Three-mana board wipes are a rarity, which makes this white sorcery interesting at the very least; a creatureless deck could leverage this very well.

#38. Collective Resistance

Compressing multiple types of effect into one card is a fantastic practice in Commander to maximize each of your 99 cards. Collective Resistance provides a beautiful example of this, serving as artifact destruction, enchantment hate, and a protective spell depending on your needs.

#37. Thirsting Roots

Lay of the Land isn’t impressive, but the versions with upside are. Thirsting Roots gives your counters deck a cheap proliferate card while smoothing your draws by searching basic lands and fixing your mana.

#36. Angrath’s Rampage

Angrath's Rampage offers a flexible means of interacting with several card types, though it holds to the traditional weakness of edicts. It’s really efficient at handling planeswalkers, so I could see running it in a superfriends-heavy meta.

#35. Change the Equation

Change the Equation sees plenty of play out of the sideboards of Pioneer decks to hate out powerful archetypes like mono-green and Rakdos. I like it in Commander as well; in such a ramp-heavy format, green’s always in vogue, and this often trades up in mana.

#34. Rip Apart

Rip Apart would be a world-class removal spell if it were an instant. As a sorcery, this Boros card () is still a perfectly reasonable interactive spell; I think of it as a Naturalize that occasionally hits an Orcish Bowmasters or similarly problematic small creature.

#33. Genku, Future Shaper

Genku, Future Shaper pairs well with fetch lands. Flicker effects also help; a Displacer Kitten or Teleportation Circle goes a long way towards choosing all three modes in a turn. Getting a token producer and a pump spell in one package makes this an effective finisher.

#32. Wreck and Rebuild

I need to be a self-mill deck to really want Wreck and Rebuild since the Naturalize mode is a little overcosted, but this works with a host of land-matter cards like Blossoming Tortoise and Crucible of Worlds.

#31. Final Showdown

You don’t often get instant-speed board wipes, which makes Final Showdown unique. Add in the ability to keep your best creature and the flexibility to serve as a protective spell and you have a winner!

#30. Smuggler’s Surprise

Smuggler's Surprise has found itself at the heart of a Standard strategy cheating Duskmourn’s impending Overlords into play, which indicates where this green instant plays best: decks with big creatures! The first mode plays nicely with graveyard strategies, but that’s far from necessary.

#29. Sublime Epiphany

If you enjoy casting big counterspells, you can’t do much better than Sublime Epiphany. You rarely get all modes, but countering a spell, drawing a card, and bouncing a permanent happens often enough to make this card well worth the mana investment.

#28. Titan of Industry

Titan of Industry is rarely the best top-end card to put in ramp decks, but it’s often far from the worst. The modes offer enough versatility that I always get two good effects with my massive creature, plus a nice boost to my devotion count!

#27. Destroy Evil

In our modern day of cards with a novella in their text box and mechanics that require helper cards to understand, simple designs offer a lot to appreciate. Destroy Evil is one such card, with an elegant choice that works well out of the sideboard or as one of the best destroy enchantment cards in white that catches Smothering Tithe or Rhystic Study.

#26. Burn Down the House

Burn Down the House distinguishes itself from other damage-based board wipes since it damages planeswalkers as well as creatures. The Devil mode gives aggro decks a reason to play this, plus some aristocrat synergies.

#25. Brotherhood’s End

Brotherhood's End also hits planeswalkers, but I’m mostly interested in the ability to destroy small artifacts. I’ve found it a handy tool in Commander and Brawl, formats where the early turns are often dedicated to playing mana dorks and mana rocks that can be swept aside.

#24. Bushwhack

Bushwhack might be the epitome of simple flexibility. It’s a tapped land if you need to hit your land drop and a fight spell if you don’t. It makes the cut in all my green decks.

#23. Pyroblast + Hydroblast

The Magic format you’re in dictates whether Pyroblast and Hydroblast are effective cards, though Pyroblast has broader appeal as a means of fighting off Counterspell and Force of Will. If you really need this effect, Red Elemental Blast and Blue Elemental Blast give you plenty of redundancy.

#22. Drown in the Loch

Making a card that’s either a counterspell or a removal spell creates an interesting design problem: Stapling those effects together negates their respective weaknesses, so how do you balance the card? Drown in the Loch does so elegantly by restricting the targets’ size based on the graveyard. It’s an excellent response; this spell scales with the game, skirting the pitfall of early-game dominance for a powerful control card.

#21. Archdruid’s Charm

Though Archdruid's Charm’s imposing mana cost makes it hard to include in multicolor decks, you should still try. The modality of an artifact/enchantment removal effect or a bite spell would make this very powerful, but it can also be a tutor, one that’s also flexible? This suite of modes means this will never be a dead card.

#20. Pick Your Poison

Green cards that take out flying creatures, artifacts, or enchantments pop up from time to time, but Pick Your Poison gives us an incredibly cheap version of the effect in exchange for the unreliability of an edict. Except, I don’t think that matters—the flexibility and cost mean you can often play it when it's relevant. If played in a multiplayer match it often catches an additional card or two since all your opponents must sacrifice.

#19. Galadriel, Light of Valinor

Galadriel, Light of Valinor is kind of messed up. Turning Shrieking Drake into Dark Ritual and random tokens into Preordain takes over a game in no time. It gets even better with ways to flicker Galadriel since that creates a new instance of the permanent, allowing you to retrigger alliance.

#18. You Find Some Prisoners

You Find Some Prisoners gives you flexible artifact hate that works especially well with cards like Prosper, Tome-Bound and Faldorn, Dread Wolf Herald that reward you for playing cards from exile.

#17. Tooth and Nail

Green tutor Tooth and Nail frequently ends Commander games. You’ll rarely cast this without its entwine cost, which frequently tutors up Avenger of Zendikar and Craterhoof Behemoth for a massive buff, though you have plenty of other options, like annihilator Eldrazi and haste enablers.

#16. Archmage’s Charm

Archmage's Charm mostly flips between the Divination and Cancel modes, though Magic has plenty of powerful 1-drops to steal, like Ragavan, Nimble Pilferer and Esper Sentinel, so you shouldn’t count that mode out.

#15. Ertai Resurrected

Ertai Resurrected exists for the tempo players. This souped-up Mystic Snake handles pretty much any threat. You give your opponent a card, but you get a 3/2 to balance that out.

#14. Glissa Sunslayer

The combination of first strike and deathtouch makes Glissa Sunslayer a formidable threat to any creature-centric deck that finds themselves incapable of interacting with it via combat. Then you get the modal saboteur trigger, which punishes your opponents for playing enchantments or planeswalkers, or draws you a card. This is an incredible midrange threat.

#13. Austere Command

Austere Command puts its modality to good use by providing a variety of decks with a (mostly) one-sided board wipe. Does your battlecruiser deck struggle with tokens chump-blocking? Wipe ‘em away! The same works for a tokens deck that struggles with players going wide. And of course, you don’t need to worry about the affinity and enchantress players.

#12. Umezawa’s Jitte

Umezawa's Jitte sits among the lengthy list of busted artifacts. It obliterates pretty much any creature strategy; you can’t even race it since the Jitte either gains life or gives you more pressure, whichever works.

#11. Abrade

Rip Apart wishes it could be Abrade. The two choices hit a wide enough range of threats to make Abrade a staple in Cube decks and an excellent sideboard tool.

#10. Sheoldred’s Edict

Edicts have a glaring weakness: Your opponent can always sacrifice something irrelevant. This often involves sacrificing a token instead of the card you want to hit; Sheoldred's Edict neatly ignores this while catching planeswalkers for good measure. Making each opponent sacrifice is also critical in Commander; getting rid of the threat you cared about plus an extra card or two feels amazing.

#9. Territorial Kavu

Territorial Kavu is secretly a 5-color card (though it works with four colors) and it’s a highly efficient one. The modal abilities are more icing on top of your 2-mana 5/5 than the reason to play the card, though rummaging away lands stands out as a great way to maintain the pressure this creature exerts.

#8. Casualties of War

Casualties of War does a ton of great work in Commander decks. The multiplayer nature of the format encourages players to run multitarget removal; hitting one of each permanent with this Golgari card () allows you to remove threats with a surgeon’s precision without the feel bads of a board wipe. Or the extra hour added to a game.

#7. Mystic Confluence

Mystic Confluence gives control decks an essential source of card advantage. Countering a spell and drawing two cards or bouncing a bunch of permanents gives a deck filled with 1-for-1 interaction the ability to turn the corner and leverage the game.

#6. Farewell

Players typically run board wipes with the intention of resetting the game. Cards like Wrath of God are great at that, but nothing resets the game quite like Farewell. The best part? The flexibility, of course. Your enchantress deck can remove everything else, Karador, Ghost Chieftain keeps its graveyard around, and so on. And the control deck can simply put everyone back to square one with this white board wipe should it be appropriate.

#5. Cryptic Command

If you can cast a Cryptic Command, you probably won’t lose that turn. Like Mystic Confluence, getting to trade 1-for-1 by bouncing or countering a spell then drawing a card gives control decks much-needed card advantage. It even interacts with problematic lands, which blue doesn’t typically do.

#4. Prismari Command + Kolaghan’s Command

Prismari Command and Kolaghan's Command do a fantastic job doing… well, a bit of everything!

They only share half their modes, but they each have a diverse enough suite that they’re never dead, each of them offering varying levels of card advantage. If you’re in these colors, you should at least consider running them.

#3. Akroma’s Will

Commander’s filled with board wipes because of how effectively they handle multiple threats at once, which means most decks should play at least a couple of protection spells. Akroma's Will stands well above the others because it doubles as a finisher, giving you plenty of staying power.

#2. Black Market Connections

Poor Phyrexian Arena has been booted out of relevancy thanks to a suite of similar cards, the best of which must be Black Market Connections. Any card that puts ramp and card draw into one package is at the very least quite strong, if not busted, with Black Market Connections toeing the line.

#1. Jeska’s Will

Remember that quip about ramp and card draw being good? Jeska's Will gives you that, except its mana mode has a very high ceiling. This red sorcery often plays like a Seething Song that nets you a couple of cards. And this acts as a powerful synergy piece with cast-from-exile cards like Nalfeshnee and The War Doctor that care about cards in exile.

Best Modal Spell Payoffs

Riku of Many Paths holds the honor of being Magic’s only card that cares about playing modal spells. Though I must admit it’s a good one!

Modal cards are often interaction, which lend themselves well to a controlling shell, and you can use Riku as a source of card advantage and a threat to close the game out with. Toss in a couple of other token generators like Talrand, Sky Summoner and Third Path Iconoclast and you’ll have an interesting control brew on your hands.

Is a Permanent a Modal Spell?

No, permanents don’t count as modal spells; so, for example, Ertai Resurrected won’t trigger Riku of Many Paths.

Ertai is still a modal card, though; it does have a modal ability that goes to the stack when triggered. But you don't choose a mode when you cast Ertai as a spell – you do so when Ertai enters, as an ability.

Since Riku cares about modal spells that you cast, permanents with modal abilities won't trigger Riku.

Can You Pick New Modes if You Copy a Modal Spell?

No, you can’t pick new modes from the copy.

Per rule 700.2g of the comprehensive rules: “700.2g A copy of a modal spell or ability copies the mode(s) chosen for it. The controller of the copy can’t choose a different mode. (See rule 707.10.).”

Are Cycling Cards Modal Spells?

Cycling cards have general modality, but they aren’t modal spells per the rules of Magic.

A card with modality can be used in different ways; a card with cycling can be cast or cycled, a modal double-faced card like Witch Enchanter can be played as a creature or a land. These are examples of modality. But a modal card in Magic is very specifically a card with the “choose one/two/or more, etc.” template and a list of bullet points.

Wrap Up

Territorial Kavu | Illustration by E. M. Gist

I love modal spells and jam them in my decks whenever I get a chance to. The flexibility they offer makes your deck more consistent because you’re just more likely to have the best answer at the time you need it. The best modal spells include choices that are generally good, like drawing cards, so you never need to worry about them getting stranded in your hand.

What’s your favorite modal spell? Do you have any sick Riku of Many Paths tech to share? Let me know in the comments below or on the Draftsim Discord!

Stay safe, and stay flexible!