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Tendrils of Agony - Sorcery

Scourge · 2003

Market Prices

$1.29median

Priced for the Scourge printing — select another in “Printings & Editions” below to re-price.

Indicative cached prices, not a live quote.

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Legality

PremodernBANNED
Full Scryfall Data
Scourge{2}{B}{B}

Tendrils of Agony

Sorcery

Target player loses 2 life and you gain 2 life. Storm (When you cast this spell, copy it for each spell cast before it this turn. You may choose new targets for the copies.)

Printings & Editions

Premodern-legal editions of Tendrils of Agony — old-border printings plus any period-appropriate foil promos (Arena/Judge, through Scourge). Hover to preview an edition on the card; click to select it.

Old-border editions + pre-Scourge promo foils (Arena/Judge). Modern-frame reprints (8th Edition onward) exist but are not period-appropriate printings.

Why It's Banned

Tendrils is the payoff that turns a chain of cheap rituals and cantrips into a lethal Storm count, draining the opponent for two life per spell cast that turn. In a format built on the slower, more interactive combat and resource exchanges of the late-1990s/early-2000s, a deck that ignores the board entirely and kills on turn two or three through a deterministic combo loop warps deckbuilding and play patterns. Banning it removes Storm's only true one-card finisher, keeping the format's combo decks from becoming non-interactive solitaire.

Tendrils of Agony debuted in Scourge (2003), the final set of the Premodern-legal pool, and immediately became the iconic kill spell for Storm combo across Vintage and Legacy. Premodern, the community format created by Martin Berlin spanning Fourth Edition through Scourge, banned it as part of curbing Storm: the deterministic ritual-into-drain finish was something the era's printed answers were never designed to race.

Banned because it is the single card that converts a fast, hard-to-disrupt ritual chain into a guaranteed kill, giving Storm a non-interactive finish the format cannot police.

Full ban-list deep dive

Trivia & Lore

  • First printed in Scourge (May 26, 2003) as an uncommon (#75) illustrated by Pete Venters. It is a {2}{B}{B} sorcery reading "Target player loses 2 life and you gain 2 life" and carries the then-brand-new Storm keyword.
  • The Storm mechanic that powers it was designed by lead designer Brian Tinsman and debuted in Scourge in 2003. R&D has since publicly called Storm one of the most broken/regretted mechanics they ever made.
  • Storm is the namesake of Mark Rosewater's Storm Scale, a 1-to-10 ranking of how unlikely a mechanic is to return to Standard. Storm itself anchors the scale at 10, the 'would take a major miracle' tier.
  • Because the original and every Storm copy each cause 2 life loss, a storm count of 10 (Tendrils plus 10 prior spells) puts 11 total resolutions on the stack for 22 life loss, the classic 'ten spells then Tendrils' kill from 20 life.
  • It is the namesake payoff of two defining Legacy combo decks: ANT (Ad Nauseam Tendrils) and TES (The Epic Storm, originated by Bryant Cook), both of which use rituals, Lion's Eye Diamond and Lotus Petal to build storm count and win on Tendrils.
  • Tendrils has been reprinted across many distinct frames/artists: Friday Night Magic 2008 promo (F08 #4, Volkan Baga), Vintage Masters 2014 (#142, Volkan Baga), and Strixhaven Mystical Archive 2021 (#34, Rovina Cai, plus a Japanese alternate-art version at #97).
  • The Strixhaven Mystical Archive 2021 reprint (STA #34) was illustrated by Rovina Cai, completely new art distinct from Pete Venters' Scourge original and the Volkan Baga FNM/Vintage Masters versions.
  • A signature ANT line pairs Angel's Grace with the combo turn: Angel's Grace ('you can't lose the game this turn' and caps your life at 1) lets the pilot cast Ad Nauseam into negative life and survive the storm turn before resolving a lethal Tendrils.

Critical Rulings

"The copies are put directly onto the stack. They aren't cast and won't be counted by other spells with storm cast later in the turn."

— 2022-12-08

"The triggered ability that creates the copies can itself be countered by anything that can counter a triggered ability. If it is countered, no copies will be put onto the stack."

— 2022-12-08

"Spells cast from zones other than a player's hand and spells that were countered are counted by the storm ability."

— 2022-12-08

"You may choose new targets for any of the copies. You can make different choices for each copy."

— 2022-12-08

"A copy of a spell can be countered like any other spell, but it must be countered individually. Countering a spell with storm won't affect the copies."

— 2022-12-08

Price History

91d · USD
$1.90▲ 111.1%

Tracks this card’s preferred printing: the old-border edition shown by default (block-expansion printings first, e.g. Urza’s, Tempest, Mirage). It doesn’t re-price when you select a different edition above. Per-edition history is planned.

$1.90$1.40$0.89
03/1804/1705/1806/18

Decks playing Tendrils of Agony (2)

Tendrils of Agony is banned in sanctioned Premodern — these are Unchained and historic (legal-when-played) appearances.