Recurring Nightmare
Mana cost {2}{B}.
Sacrifice a creature, Return this enchantment to its owner's hand: Return target creature card from your graveyard to the battlefield. Activate only as a sorcery.
Recurring Nightmare is a black card, legal in Premodern, shown in its old-frame Exodus printing.
Price and printings: Cardmarket (€50.59) · TCGplayer ($80.81) · Scryfall
Tracked daily since 28 July 2026: on Cardmarket between €50.59 and €70.18 in that time.
Also printed with a gold border in World Championship Decks 1998, for less. Gold-bordered copies aren't tournament legal, but some Premodern events allow them: where, and what they save.
How often Recurring Nightmare is played
Recurring Nightmare is maindecked in 4 of 131 tournament decks in this archive (3%), averaging 1.5 copies; used by 1 of 33 tracked archetypes.
Counting only the 75 decks that can cast black cards, 4 of them play it (5%).
See how it compares on the Premodern staples list.
Premodern archetypes that play Recurring Nightmare
- The Rock: Sacrifice a creature you no longer need and return Recurring Nightmare to your hand to put a better creature card from your graveyard onto the battlefield, then cast it again whenever you have the mana. A spent Wall becomes a Ravenous Baloth or Krosan Tusker. It works only at sorcery speed, but you can activate it as soon as it resolves, before they can destroy it, so they have to counter the spell, Stifle the activation or exile its target in response. It is in about half the lists since September.
Tournament decks with Recurring Nightmare
- Survival Recurring: 1st Place at Monster Mash 2026 (2× mainboard)
- The Rock: 3rd Place at Premodern MTGO Challenge (1× mainboard)
- Junk Nightmare: 1st Place at Premodern Monthly (2× mainboard)
- Black Clerics: 2nd Place at Lega Milano 3/9 (1× mainboard)
