Anticipate
Instant
Look at the top three cards of your library. Put one of them into your hand and the rest on the bottom of your library in any order.
- CMC
- 2
- Mana cost
- Color identity
- U
- Rarity
- common
- Set
- Magic Online Promos
- Price
- —
- EDHREC rank
- #6182
Anticipate digs three cards deep and puts the best one in hand — immediate card selection, no setup required. The cost is that it replaces itself with one card, not two, which makes it worse than cantrips that draw the same number it cost to cast; in Commander especially, Anticipate is fine in spell-count decks like Talrand, Sky Summoner but rarely a first pick anywhere else.
Best Commanders
Commanders with the highest synergy
Talrand, Sky Summoner
Talrand, Sky Summoner converts every instant and sorcery into a 2/2 Drake, so Anticipate earns its slot twice — once as card selection and once as a free body on the board.
River Song
River Song triggers off spells cast outside the normal order, and Anticipate being an instant you can fire on any opponent's turn helps keep her counter accumulating between your own turns.
Format Analysis
Where it lives, where it can’t
| Format | Verdict |
|---|---|
| commander | legal |
| legacy | legal |
| modern | legal |
| pioneer | legal |
| standard | not legal |
| vintage | legal |
| pauper | legal |
| oathbreaker | legal |
In Commander, Anticipate is a role-player in decks that need to hit a specific piece — combo shells and Talrand, Sky Summoner–style spell-count builds — but most decks would rather run Preordain or Impulse for the same mana. In Pauper it sees occasional play as cheap selection in control and combo lists where commons rule the card pool. In Modern and Pioneer it has mostly been outclassed by Opt and Consider, which cost one mana less for comparable selection. Legacy and Vintage have enough broken one-mana cantrips that Anticipate never gets the call. The honest read on Anticipate is that it's a commons-level utility piece — never embarrassing, never exciting.
Key Combos
Combo lines featuring this card
Price Context
Current price
unknown tier
Anticipate has been printed enough times across core sets and supplemental products that copies are widely available at bulk prices, typically well under a dollar. It's worth picking up freely if you're building on a tight budget, but don't pay more than bulk — there's no shortage of supply.
Explore
Sources
Mentioned
- Talrand, Sky Summoner
- River Song
Updated . Data from Scryfall, EDHREC, and Commander Spellbook.