Hamlet Vanguard
Creature — Human Warrior
Ward 
(Whenever this creature becomes the target of a spell or ability an opponent controls, counter it unless that player pays .)
This creature enters with two +1/+1 counters on it for each other nontoken Human you control.
- CMC
- 3
- Mana cost
- Color identity
- G
- Rarity
- rare
- Set
- Innistrad: Crimson Vow Promos
- Price
- —
- EDHREC rank
- #17200
Hamlet Vanguard enters as a massive Human with +1/+1 counters scaled to the number of Humans you control, making it an immediate board presence in any creature-dense green-white strategy. The cost is real — it's a do-nothing card in isolation — but alongside Katilda, Dawnhart Prime generating mana equal to your Human count, you're often casting a 6/6 or larger by turn four.
Best Commanders
Commanders with the highest synergy
Katilda, Dawnhart Prime
Katilda, Dawnhart Prime's engine is exactly what Hamlet Vanguard needs: a wide Human board that taps for mana, which both funds the Vanguard's cost and inflates the counter count, routinely landing it as a 7/7 or better the turn it enters.
Format Analysis
Where it lives, where it can’t
| Format | Verdict |
|---|---|
| commander | legal |
| legacy | legal |
| modern | legal |
| pioneer | legal |
| standard | not legal |
| vintage | legal |
| pauper | not legal |
| oathbreaker | legal |
Hamlet Vanguard is a Commander card first — the 100-card singleton format gives Human tribal strategies the density of payoffs and enablers needed to make its counter-scaling actually threatening. In Modern and Pioneer, dedicated Human aggro decks exist, but those strategies want one- and two-drops that apply pressure immediately, not a five-mana creature that asks how many friends it has. Legacy and Vintage have the raw card quality to ignore it entirely. Hamlet Vanguard's ceiling is in Commander, specifically in Human-tribal builds where it arrives as the biggest creature on the table.
Key Combos
Combo lines featuring this card
Price Context
Current price
unknown tier
Pricing data isn't available for Hamlet Vanguard at the moment — check Scryfall or TCGPlayer for a current buylist. Given its narrow tribal application, it's unlikely to command a premium outside of Human-focused Commander builds.
Explore
Sources
Mentioned
Updated . Data from Scryfall, EDHREC, and Commander Spellbook.