Is Champion of the Path good in Commander?

Champion of the Path

Creature — Elemental Sorcerer

As an additional cost to cast this spell, behold an Elemental and exile it. (Exile an Elemental you control or an Elemental card from your hand.)
Whenever another Elemental you control enters, it deals damage equal to its power to each opponent.
When this creature leaves the battlefield, return the exiled card to its owner's hand.

CMC: 4
Mana cost
Color identity: R
Rarity: rare
Set: Lorwyn Eclipsed
Price: $0.41
EDHREC rank: #8132

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Champion of the Path doubles the base power of any creature you control until end of turn — a massive combat swing or, in the right shell, the last piece of a one-shot kill. The cost is real: it requires two creatures already in play and does nothing without a power-matters payoff like Malignus or a commander like Ashling, the Limitless who can immediately spend that stat spike.

Best Commanders

Commanders with the highest synergy

Ashling, the Limitless

54.8% of decks · synergy 0.49

Ashling, the Limitless copies spells she casts, and Champion of the Path is a prime target — doubling a creature's base power twice in one turn can set up a lethal combat swing or supercharge a damage-based win condition with minimal setup.

Omnath, Locus of the Roil

35.7% of decks · synergy 0.35

Omnath, Locus of the Roil builds around large Elementals, and Champion of the Path turns a moderately sized threat into a game-ending attacker, particularly when Omnath has already been pumping its own power through landfall triggers.

Omnath, Locus of Rage

19.3% of decks · synergy 0.19

Omnath, Locus of Rage generates a board of 5/5 Elementals through landfall, and Champion of the Path can convert one of those tokens into a 10-power threat that demands an immediate answer or ends the game on contact.

Valduk, Keeper of the Flame

17.9% of decks · synergy 0.18

Valduk, Keeper of the Flame creates attacking tokens equal to its equipment count, and Champion of the Path targeting Valduk itself can make the original threat large enough to close a game that the tokens alone couldn't finish.

Ashling, Rekindled

10.7% of decks · synergy 0.10

Ashling, Rekindled rewards you for running high-power creatures, and Champion of the Path slots in as a cheap spell that temporarily inflates base power to meet thresholds or enable a lethal alpha strike.

Format Analysis

Where it lives, where it can’t

Format	Verdict
commander	legal
legacy	legal
modern	legal
pioneer	legal
standard	legal
vintage	legal
pauper	not legal
oathbreaker	legal

Champion of the Path is legal across every major constructed format but has yet to find a competitive home outside Commander — the effect is too situational and too dependent on board state to compete with more consistent pump spells in Legacy, Modern, or Pioneer. In Standard and Pioneer it's strictly a build-around, requiring a dedicated power-matters shell to justify the two-creature tax. Commander is where it belongs: the 100-card singleton format gives you the redundancy and the payoffs — large commanders, combat-damage triggers, and copy effects — that make doubling base power genuinely threatening rather than a marginal combat trick.

Key Combos

Combo lines featuring this card

86 decks