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Ajani, Strength of the Pride

Legendary Planeswalker — Ajani

+1: You gain life equal to the number of creatures you control plus the number of planeswalkers you control.
−2: Create a 2/2 white Cat Soldier creature token named Ajani's Pridemate with "Whenever you gain life, put a +1/+1 counter on this token."
0: If you have at least 15 life more than your starting life total, exile Ajani and each artifact and creature your opponents control.

CMC
4
Mana cost
{2}{W}{W}
Color identity
W
Rarity
mythic
Set
Core Set 2020 Promos
Price
—
EDHREC rank
#3142
Buy on TCGplayer
Ajani, Strength of the Pride card art
Ajani, Strength of the Pride earns its slot by threatening to wipe the board clean the moment your life total pulls ahead — that zero-loyalty activation is a one-sided Wrath that opponents have to respect from the turn it lands. The four-mana cost is honest for what you get, and blink effects like Cloudshift let you reset loyalty while generating a token, making the engine self-sustaining in the right shell. If you're already running Ajani, Nacatl Pariah for the planeswalker synergies, this is the natural second copy of the effect.

Best Commanders

Commanders with the highest synergy

01

Ajani, Nacatl Pariah

51.4% of decks · synergy 0.50

Ajani, Nacatl Pariah's flip condition and token-generation loop feed directly into the life-gain triggers that charge Ajani, Strength of the Pride, and the shared Ajani subtype means both halves of the engine are pulling in the same direction. Over half the Nacatl Pariah decks on EDHREC run Strength of the Pride for exactly this reason.

02
Heliod, Sun-Crowned

Heliod, Sun-Crowned

33.2% of decks · synergy 0.29

Heliod, Sun-Crowned turns every life-gain trigger into a +1/+1 counter, so the tokens Ajani, Strength of the Pride generates come down pre-pumped and keep growing. The deck's density of lifelink creatures also charges Ajani's board-wipe threshold faster than almost any other shell.

03
Bilbo, Birthday Celebrant

Bilbo, Birthday Celebrant

28.8% of decks · synergy 0.27

Bilbo, Birthday Celebrant's entire game plan is accumulating life to hit 111, and Ajani, Strength of the Pride contributes tokens, incremental life gain, and a reset button if the board gets out of hand before Bilbo's win condition fires.

04
Karlov of the Ghost Council

Karlov of the Ghost Council

24.4% of decks · synergy 0.23

Karlov of the Ghost Council wants two life-gain triggers per turn to grow and remove threats, and Ajani, Strength of the Pride delivers both a trigger and a token on the same activation. The board-wipe mode also protects Karlov when opponents go wide trying to race him.

05
Trelasarra, Moon Dancer

Trelasarra, Moon Dancer

26.1% of decks · synergy 0.23

Trelasarra, Moon Dancer places a counter and scries every time you gain life, so every Ajani, Strength of the Pride activation is quietly filtering your draws while building toward the zero-loyalty wrath. The token the plus ability generates also feeds Trelasarra's own counters whenever it trades in combat.

Format Analysis

Where it lives, where it can’t

FormatVerdict
commander legal
legacy legal
modern legal
pioneer legal
standard not legal
vintage legal
pauper not legal
oathbreaker legal

In Commander, Ajani, Strength of the Pride is a staple in dedicated life-gain decks — the board-wipe mode is asymmetrical enough to swing games, and four mana is an acceptable rate when the effect scales with something the deck is already doing. In Pioneer and Modern, it's too slow for most competitive life-gain strategies, which close games faster than the loyalty can accumulate; it shows up occasionally in sideboard slots against go-wide aggro but rarely in main decks. Legacy and Vintage have faster answers and faster clocks, so Ajani, Strength of the Pride never found a foothold there. Commander remains the format where it's most reliably good, specifically in the Heliod, Sun-Crowned and Karlov of the Ghost Council archetypes where the life-gain density is high enough to make the wrath a real threat every game.

Key Combos

Combo lines featuring this card

Price Context

Current price

unknown tier

Current pricing data for Ajani, Strength of the Pride isn't available in this snapshot, so check Scryfall or TCGPlayer for the live number before buying. Historically it's sat in the $2–5 range for non-foil copies, which is reasonable value for a card that pulls real weight in life-gain Commander builds.

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Sources

Mentioned

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Updated . Data from Scryfall, EDHREC, and Commander Spellbook.