Gavi, Nest Warden
Legendary Creature — Human Shaman
You may pay 
rather than pay the cycling cost of the first card you cycle each turn.
Whenever you draw your second card each turn, create a 2/2 red and white Dinosaur Cat creature token.
- CMC
- 5
- Mana cost
- Color identity
- RUW
- Rarity
- mythic
- Set
- Commander 2020 Oversized
- Price
- —
- EDHREC rank
- #13685
Gavi, Nest Warden generates a free 1/1 Dinosaur Cat token the first time you cycle each turn, then lets you pay life instead of mana to cycle cards while you control a Dinosaur or Cat — two abilities that compound immediately and demand an answer. The cost is a five-mana legendary that does nothing the turn it enters without a cycler in hand, but in any dedicated cycling shell that downside is nearly theoretical. Brallin, Skyshark Rider // Shabraz, the Skyshark is the partner pairing that turns Gavi's token generation into a board and a clock simultaneously.
Best Commanders
Commanders with the highest synergy
Brallin, Skyshark Rider // Shabraz, the Skyshark
Brallin, Skyshark Rider // Shabraz, the Skyshark runs every piece of cycling redundancy available, and Gavi, Nest Warden slots in as a token engine and cost reducer that keeps the cycling chain going for free once any Cat or Dinosaur is on the board — the three commanders together form a self-sustaining loop of tokens, damage triggers, and life gain.
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 |
Gavi, Nest Warden is a Commander card through and through — the life-payment ability and token generation scale with a 100-card singleton deck built around cycling payoffs, and the format gives you room to assemble that engine consistently. In Legacy and Vintage, where it's technically legal, a five-mana creature that requires supporting infrastructure has no real role in those formats' threat landscapes. Oathbreaker is the one other format worth mentioning: Gavi can serve as a planeswalker-adjacent value piece in a cycling-themed build, though the format's constraints make it harder to exploit than in Commander.
Key Combos
Combo lines featuring this card
Price Context
Current price
unknown tier
Current pricing data for Gavi, Nest Warden isn't available in this snapshot, so check Scryfall or TCGPlayer for the live number. As a commander-precon staple with a specific but popular archetype, it typically sits in the budget-to-mid range — worth picking up if you're building cycling in Jeskai.
Explore
Sources
Mentioned
- Brallin, Skyshark Rider // Shabraz, the Skyshark
Updated . Data from Scryfall, EDHREC, and Commander Spellbook.