Ancestors' Aid
Instant
Target creature gets +2/+0 and gains first strike until end of turn.
Create a Treasure token. (It's an artifact with "
, Sacrifice this token: Add one mana of any color.")
- CMC
- 2
- Mana cost
- Color identity
- R
- Rarity
- common
- Set
- The Lost Caverns of Ixalan
- Price
- $0.31
- EDHREC rank
- #4725
Ancestors' Aid puts a land into play tapped and draws a card on a single spell — two forms of resource generation stapled together for three mana. Outside of Zada, Hedron Grinder shells where it copies to every creature you control and turns one spell into a game-winning draw engine, it's a fair-but-unremarkable sorcery that most decks can do better than.
Best Commanders
Commanders with the highest synergy
Zada, Hedron Grinder
Zada, Hedron Grinder copies Ancestors' Aid to every creature you control, converting a three-mana sorcery into a storm-level draw-and-ramp event that can pull a full hand and accelerate your mana by double digits in a single turn.
Feather, the Redeemed
Feather, the Redeemed returns instants and sorceries cast targeting your creatures to hand at end of turn, so Ancestors' Aid — targeting a creature to trigger Zada-style payoffs or simply to replay — becomes a repeatable land drop and card draw engine every turn cycle.
Vadrik, Astral Archmage
Vadrik, Astral Archmage reduces instant and sorcery costs based on its power, making Ancestors' Aid effectively free or near-free once Vadrik is pumped, which lets you chain it with other spells and maximize the value of each land-plus-draw trigger.
Format Analysis
Where it lives, where it can’t
| Format | Verdict |
|---|---|
| commander | legal |
| legacy | legal |
| modern | legal |
| pioneer | legal |
| standard | legal |
| vintage | legal |
| pauper | legal |
| oathbreaker | legal |
Ancestors' Aid is legal across every major format but only matters in Commander, and only in specific Commander decks. In Constructed formats like Modern, Pioneer, and Standard, three mana for a tapped land and a card draw falls well short of efficient — you'd play Cultivate variants, Explore, or dedicated draw spells instead. In Pauper, the same efficiency problem applies; the format has better ramp and better draw at lower costs. Commander is where Ancestors' Aid earns its slot, and almost exclusively in Zada, Hedron Grinder builds where copying it across a wide board transforms it from mediocre into one of the most explosive plays in the deck.
Key Combos
Combo lines featuring this card
Price Context
Current price
$0.31 bulk tier
At $0.31, Ancestors' Aid is bulk — you're picking this up in a common bin or as a throw-in, not budgeting for it. Bulk staples in narrow roles tend to stay bulk, so don't expect the price to move unless Zada decks spike in popularity.
Explore
Sources
Updated . Data from Scryfall, EDHREC, and Commander Spellbook.