Cryptic Gateway
Artifact
Tap two untapped creatures you control: You may put a creature card from your hand that shares a creature type with each creature tapped this way onto the battlefield.
- CMC
- 5
- Mana cost
- Color identity
- C
- Rarity
- rare
- Set
- Dominaria Remastered
- Price
- $0.85
- EDHREC rank
- #8101
Cryptic Gateway lets you tap two creatures of a shared type to put any creature of that type directly into play — no mana cost, no questions asked. The five-mana artifact is slow to land but breaks open any typal deck that can loop creatures back to hand, and Stormfront Riders alone turns it into a repeatable cheat engine.
Format Analysis
Where it lives, where it can’t
| Format | Verdict |
|---|---|
| commander | legal |
| legacy | legal |
| modern | not legal |
| pioneer | not legal |
| standard | not legal |
| vintage | legal |
| pauper | not legal |
| oathbreaker | legal |
Cryptic Gateway lives in Commander, full stop. Legacy and Vintage have access to it on paper, but the combination of five mana, no immediate impact, and vulnerability to artifact hate makes it uncompetitive in those formats where the game is over before it gets moving. In Commander, though, the political cover of a multiplayer table and the prevalence of typal strategies give it real room to operate — a single untap step with two creatures in play can chain into something the table cannot answer.
Key Combos
Combo lines featuring this card
Stormfront RidersCryptic Gateway
Infinite ETB; Infinite LTB; Infinite tapped creature tokens
View on Commander Spellbook ↗Price Context
Current price
$0.85 bulk tier
At $0.85, Cryptic Gateway sits firmly in bulk territory — easy to acquire, easy to trade for. It sees enough typal-Commander play to keep it from dropping to pure noise, but don't expect the price to climb without a reprint or a breakout deck putting it on camera.
Explore
Sources
Mentioned
Updated . Data from Scryfall, EDHREC, and Commander Spellbook.