Cavalier of Thorns
Creature — Elemental Knight
Reach
When this creature enters, reveal the top five cards of your library. Put a land card from among them onto the battlefield and the rest into your graveyard.
When this creature dies, you may exile it. If you do, put another target card from your graveyard on top of your library.
- CMC
- 5
- Mana cost
- Color identity
- G
- Rarity
- mythic
- Set
- Core Set 2020
- Price
- $0.70
- EDHREC rank
- #5616
Cavalier of Thorns enters as a 5/6 reach that puts a land into play and stocks the graveyard, then comes back from the bin when it dies — that's three meaningful game actions on one card. The five-mana cost is real, but Ashling, the Limitless and any Gruul value shell will recoup it immediately.
Best Commanders
Commanders with the highest synergy
Ashling, the Limitless
Ashling, the Limitless cares about piling counters and recurring big creatures, and Cavalier of Thorns feeds both halves — the enter trigger ramps and fills the yard, and the death trigger returns it to the top of library for Ashling to recur again.
Omnath, Locus of the Roil
Omnath, Locus of the Roil rewards landing extra lands, so the Cavalier of Thorns enter trigger that drops a land directly onto the battlefield converts immediately into Omnath damage or draw triggers.
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 | not legal |
| oathbreaker | legal |
Commander is where Cavalier of Thorns earns its keep — the singleton format means every ETB that ramps and stocks the graveyard matters, and the death trigger's recursion loop is genuinely hard to answer permanently. In Modern and Pioneer it sees fringe play in Amulet Titan adjacent lists or ramp shells that want a self-replacing threat, but it rarely makes the cut over faster options. Legacy and Vintage give it no serious home; the formats move too quickly for a five-mana creature with no immediate board impact beyond a single land drop.
Key Combos
Combo lines featuring this card
Price Context
Current price
$0.70 bulk tier
At $0.70, Cavalier of Thorns sits in bulk rare territory despite doing a lot of work, which makes it a straightforward pickup. The price is unlikely to move unless a new Commander deck or reprint wave shakes the market, but at this number the value question is irrelevant — just buy it.
Explore
Sources
Updated . Data from Scryfall, EDHREC, and Commander Spellbook.