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Ancient Den

Artifact Land

{T}: Add {W}.

CMC
0
Mana cost
Color identity
W
Rarity
common
Set
The Brothers' War Commander
Price
$3.21
EDHREC rank
#521
Buy on TCGplayer
Ancient Den card art
Ancient Den is an artifact land — it taps for white mana and counts as an artifact simultaneously, which doubles its value in any deck that cares about artifact count or recursion. Commanders like Osgir, the Reconstructor and Tameshi, Reality Architect treat it as a recursion target that also fixes mana, making it pull double duty no basic Plains can match.

Format Analysis

Where it lives, where it can’t

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

Ancient Den is banned in Modern, where artifact lands were deemed too efficient at fueling Affinity-style strategies that could win on turn two. Legacy and Vintage allow it, and the power level there is high enough that the card simply finds its niche without warping the format. Commander gives it a full pass — singleton rules mean you get one copy, and the Affinity-style density that broke Modern is impossible to replicate across a 99-card deck. The result is a card that contributes meaningfully to artifact synergies in Commander without raising any structural concerns.

Best Commanders

Commanders with the highest synergy

01
Osgir, the Reconstructor

Osgir, the Reconstructor

91.6% of decks · synergy 0.79

Osgir, the Reconstructor can exile Ancient Den from the graveyard and put two copies of it onto the battlefield, generating two artifact lands from a single discard or destroyed land — a unique form of both mana acceleration and artifact count padding that no other land provides.

02
Urza, Chief Artificer

Urza, Chief Artificer

85.2% of decks · synergy 0.77

Urza, Chief Artificer cares about artifact count for mana generation and creature stats, and Ancient Den contributes to that count the moment it enters — it's one of the few lands in the format that advances Urza's artifact-matters engine at zero additional cost.

03
Inspirit, Flagship Vessel

Inspirit, Flagship Vessel

84.7% of decks · synergy 0.72

Inspirit, Flagship Vessel synergizes with artifacts entering and being utilized, and Ancient Den slots in as a land that is always also an artifact trigger, ensuring the artifact count stays high from the very first turns of the game.

04
Alibou, Ancient Witness

Alibou, Ancient Witness

84.1% of decks · synergy 0.71

Alibou, Ancient Witness cares about tapping artifacts for its damage and scry trigger, and Ancient Den is a land that can tap as an artifact in a pinch while contributing to the artifact density that keeps Alibou's ability firing consistently.

05
Sami, Wildcat Captain

Sami, Wildcat Captain

82.2% of decks · synergy 0.69

Sami, Wildcat Captain rewards running a high density of artifacts, and Ancient Den earns its slot by being a land that never dilutes the artifact count — it's effectively a free artifact inclusion that also handles mana.

Key Combos

Combo lines featuring this card

Price Context

Current price

$3.21 cheap tier

At $3.21, Ancient Den sits in the cheap tier — accessible for most budgets and straightforward to acquire. It holds that price primarily because demand is narrow but consistent: artifact-focused Commander decks reliably want it, and supply from older printings is finite enough to keep it off the bulk bin.

Explore

Sources

Mentioned

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