Imperial Ceratops
Creature — Dinosaur
Enrage — Whenever this creature is dealt damage, you gain 2 life.
- CMC
- 5
- Mana cost
- Color identity
- W
- Rarity
- uncommon
- Set
- Rivals of Ixalan
- Price
- $0.16
- EDHREC rank
- #18519
Imperial Ceratops puts a 5/4 with lifelink on the board for five mana — the lifelink is always on, no setup required. The ceiling rises sharply under Wayta, Trainer Prodigy, where its power-5 body triggers Wayta's ability and pulls double duty as both a threat and a life buffer.
Best Commanders
Commanders with the highest synergy
Wayta, Trainer Prodigy
Wayta, Trainer Prodigy cares about creatures with power 5 or greater, and Imperial Ceratops hits that threshold natively while the lifelink makes every attack a cushion against the life you spend to activate Wayta's fight ability.
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 |
Imperial Ceratops is legal in Commander, Legacy, Modern, Pioneer, Vintage, and Oathbreaker, but it sees essentially no play outside Commander. In Modern and Pioneer, five mana for a vanilla-adjacent body without an enters-the-battlefield effect or evasion is simply not competitive — the format's threats at that cost do far more. Commander is the only realistic home, and even there it's a narrow role-player slotted into decks that specifically reward power-5 creatures or life gain. Outside of Wayta, Trainer Prodigy and a handful of Enrage-adjacent dinosaur builds, Imperial Ceratops sits on the bench.
Key Combos
Combo lines featuring this card
Price Context
Current price
$0.16 bulk tier
At $0.16, Imperial Ceratops is deep bulk — the kind of card you pull from a box rather than buy. Don't expect that price to move; it has too narrow a home and too little cross-format demand to appreciate.
Explore
Sources
Mentioned
Updated . Data from Scryfall, EDHREC, and Commander Spellbook.