Erratic Explosion

Sorcery

Choose target creature or player. Reveal cards from the top of your library until you reveal a nonland card. Erratic Explosion deals damage equal to that card's converted mana cost to that creature or player. Put the revealed cards on the bottom of your library in any order.

Legality

Format	Legality
1v1 Commander	Legal
Archenemy	Legal
Canadian Highlander	Legal
Casual	Legal
Commander / EDH	Legal
Commander: Rule 0	Legal
Custom	Legal
Duel Commander	Legal
Highlander	Legal
Legacy	Legal
Leviathan	Legal
Limited	Legal
Oathbreaker	Legal
Pauper	Legal
Pauper Duel Commander	Legal
Pauper EDH	Legal
Planechase	Legal
Premodern	Legal
Quest Magic	Legal
Tiny Leaders	Legal
Vanguard	Legal
Vintage	Legal

Discussion (24)

Rhadamanthus on I recently heard that we …

10 months ago

The reflexive trigger creates a separate triggered ability that goes onto the stack independent of the ability that created it and follows all the normal rules for how to handle triggered abilities, including choosing targets, making responses etc. For each of those examples, the target is chosen when the reflexive trigger is put onto the stack.

There are different reasons for an effect to use a reflexive trigger.

• For Calibrated Blast, it's to make the card easier to use effectively and reduce feel-bads (it's a big oof to hit 5 on Erratic Explosion when you just targeted a 2/2 to be safe)
• If Heart-Piercer Manticore or Grist, the Hunger Tide used an "if you do" then you'd choose the target right away but your opponent would have to decide on their response before you decided whether or not to sacrifice anything
• If they wanted to make the sacrifice mandatory for Grist, it would need to say "As an additional cost to activate this ability..." due to the way loyalty abilities are templated, so the reflexive trigger here also saves words/space

Chasmolinker on Topdeck Manipulation

2 years ago

Cool deck idea. I used to sling Erratic Explosion along with Book Burning way back in the day. Not with any kind of success though. lol +1

Neotrup on Copying erratic explosion - do …

3 years ago

Kinda. Any card printed before the release of Dominaria should have received an oracle update to now say "any target," which means target creature, player, or planeswalker. Any card printed Dominaria or later that says "target creature or player," such as Firesong and Sunspeaker, can only hit a creature or player. Cards function off of their current English oracle text found at gatherer.wizards.com. In general there aren't major differences between the printed card and the oracle text, but occasionally there have been large updates, like the Grand Creature Type Update adding creature types to many older creatures, or the Dominaria update changing direct damage to players to also hit planeswalkers.

The Oracle text for Erratic Explosion is:
Choose any target. Reveal cards from the top of your library until you reveal a nonland card. Erratic Explosion deals damage equal to that card's converted mana cost to that permanent or player. Put the revealed cards on the bottom of your library in any order.

Neotrup on Copying erratic explosion - do …

3 years ago

When you copy a spell, you place an exact duplicate of it on the stack (except that it's not a card). The copy will resolve first, revealing cards and dealing damage to it's target. If it had the same target as the original, this could result in lethal damage/0 loyalty/0 life, removing that object from the game and 'fizzling' the target, so that nothing is revealed for damage (as there's nothing to deal damage to). If it's a different target, or if the target survived the first volley, the original Erratic Explosion will resolve, revealing new cards and dealing damage.

SphericEl on Copying erratic explosion - do …

3 years ago

Mischievous Quanar and Erratic Explosion from Pulverize deck - Scourge edition. Does MQ copy the result from one draw of Erratic Explosion or do I reveal twice for two results?

Boza on Build around cards

4 years ago

Tortured Existence is the ultimate pauper build-around card. You can build any colors of deck around it.

Barring the established decks, there are tons of fun to be had:

Pestilence is very fun to build around.

Briarhorn + Mortician Beetle.

heck, I have even made a deck around Erratic Explosion.

Keep Watch + Rites of Initiation + tokens.

Madness decks with something like Arrogant Wurm.

Boza on I'd Scry that for a dollar (Erratic Miracles)

4 years ago

eyes2sky, I think we have a very similar idea going on - Erratic victory.

Some of the ideas in my deck I think can help yours and vice versa.

i like the way you use Portent to setup miracles. However, Erratic Explosion has a very big drawback in that even if you reveal a Thunderous Wrath and deal 6 to them, it goes to the bottom of the deck. To mitigate that, you need to have a bunch more expensive cards that you can reveal - currently, you have 2 hands of emrakul and 4 thunderous wrath. The best options to add are Errant Ephemeron (7 damage and easy to cast on t2, as well as alternate win con) and Fireblast (6 damage, with the option for 4 more). Additionally, adding 2 more Riddle of Lightning is good as it is infinitely better than erratic explosion - it scries 3, is instant and lets you keep the top card of your library, so it works great with miracle spells.

Gattison on Erratic victory

4 years ago

Boza: Again, you've got a very solid deck here, already. I'm only gonna have some experimental options for you, but you might like some of them. =)

I was going to suggest trying an Owl (Augury Owl/Spire Owl) instead of the Augur of Bolas, but, idk. The AoB digs just as deep and puts something in your hand. The Owls would dig into the top of your deck and help set it up for combos with Erratic Explosion. It comes down to seeing what you need more of in the deck. How does the deck run? Does the deck have a specific weakness it needs improving?

Beyond that, I only suggest that you replace the Guildgates with the lifeland, Swiftwater Cliffs, because they both enter tapped, and gaining one life is better than not gaining one life.