Elminster's Simulacrum
Instant
For each opponent, you create a token that's a copy of up to one target creature that player controls.
- CMC
- 6
- Mana cost
- Color identity
- U
- Rarity
- mythic
- Set
- Commander Legends: Battle for Baldur's Gate
- Price
- $1.81
- EDHREC rank
- #6722
Elminster's Simulacrum puts a copy of Elminster into play for free whenever the original scries, effectively doubling every trigger the wizard generates without spending an extra card. The four-mana cost is the ceiling on where it fits — it's a role-player in dedicated Elminster builds, not a generic value piece.
Best Commanders
Commanders with the highest synergy
Elminster
Elminster's Simulacrum is the deck's single best support card — the token copy triggers alongside the original, which means every scry 2 becomes double the card selection, double the damage, double the life gain, compounding exponentially as the engine runs.
Hinata, Dawn-Crowned
Hinata, Dawn-Crowned's cost-reduction ability doesn't directly interact with Elminster's Simulacrum, but Hinata decks lean into spells that target multiple times, and the Simulacrum's copy trigger gives you a second Elminster body to protect and build around in the 99.
Ashling, Rekindled
Ashling, Rekindled cares about instants and sorceries, and Elminster's Simulacrum slots in as a redundancy piece — a second Elminster trigger source means more scry-based damage output when the engine is live.
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 |
Elminster's Simulacrum is a Commander card through and through — its payoff is entirely predicated on having Elminster in play repeatedly, which only the singleton format's commander zone reliably guarantees. In Legacy and Vintage, where it's technically legal, there's no competitive context in which a four-mana do-nothing-alone enchantment competes. Oathbreaker could support it if Elminster is your planeswalker, but the power ceiling there is the same as Commander.
Key Combos
Combo lines featuring this card
Price Context
Current price
$1.81 cheap tier
At $1.81, Elminster's Simulacrum sits in the cheap tier — low enough that it's an easy include if you're already building around Elminster, and low enough that you're not losing much if the deck moves in a different direction. It sees play in over a third of Elminster decks, so the price reflects genuine demand without any speculative markup.
Explore
Sources
Mentioned
- Elminster
- Hinata, Dawn-Crowned
- Ashling, Rekindled
Updated . Data from Scryfall, EDHREC, and Commander Spellbook.