Gandalf of the Secret Fire
Legendary Creature — Avatar Wizard
Whenever you cast an instant or sorcery spell from your hand during an opponent's turn, exile that card with three time counters on it instead of putting it into your graveyard as it resolves. Then if the exiled card doesn't have suspend, it gains suspend. (At the beginning of your upkeep, remove a time counter. When the last is removed, you may play it without paying its mana cost.)
- CMC
- 4
- Mana cost
- Color identity
- RUW
- Rarity
- mythic
- Set
- Tales of Middle-earth Commander
- Price
- $2.12
- EDHREC rank
- #13903
Gandalf of the Secret Fire lands as a five-mana 3/3 with flash, vigilance, and the ability to cast instants and sorceries from the top of your library whenever you cast a spell — that's a repeatable card-advantage engine stapled to an ambush blocker. The cost is real: five mana is a lot to hold up, and the payoff scales entirely with how many instants and sorceries you're running.
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 |
Commander is where Gandalf of the Secret Fire does its best work — the 100-card singleton format rewards the kind of incremental card advantage he generates, and a spellslinger shell can fire him into play at end of turn and immediately start chaining spells. In Legacy and Vintage, he's technically legal but five mana without an immediate board impact is a hard sell in formats where the game can end on turn one or two. Oathbreaker gives him a niche role as a signature spell enabler in spell-heavy builds, though he's more commonly the planeswalker's support rather than the headliner.
Key Combos
Combo lines featuring this card
Price Context
Current price
$2.12 cheap tier
At $2.12, Gandalf of the Secret Fire sits firmly in the budget range — you're getting a genuine card-advantage engine for the price of a pack of sleeves. That price point is likely stable; he's niche enough not to spike but useful enough in Commander spellslinger decks to keep demand steady.
Explore
Sources
Mentioned
Updated . Data from Scryfall, EDHREC, and Commander Spellbook.