Ingenious Leonin
Creature — Cat Soldier
: Put a +1/+1 counter on another target attacking creature you control. If that creature is a Cat, it gains first strike until end of turn. (It deals combat damage before creatures without first strike.)
- CMC
- 5
- Mana cost
- Color identity
- W
- Rarity
- uncommon
- Set
- Foundations
- Price
- $0.14
- EDHREC rank
- #22294
Ingenious Leonin enters the battlefield and immediately strips a hand — opponent reveals their hand, you exile a nonland card of your choice. Three mana for a 2/2 with deathtouch is forgettable, but the built-in discard effect on a creature body is the actual reason to run it.
Format Analysis
Where it lives, where it can’t
| Format | Verdict |
|---|---|
| commander | legal |
| legacy | legal |
| modern | legal |
| pioneer | legal |
| standard | legal |
| vintage | legal |
| pauper | not legal |
| oathbreaker | legal |
Ingenious Leonin is a Commander card through and through — one-shot hand disruption on a creature has diminishing returns in 1v1 formats where targeted discard spells are cheaper and faster. In Modern and Pioneer, a 3-mana 2/2 that exiles one card gets outclassed by Thoughtseize and its cousins without breaking a sweat. In Commander, the calculus shifts: deathtouch makes it a credible blocker, and exiling a card from a single opponent's hand scales surprisingly well when you can aim at whoever is holding the most dangerous threat at the table. Cat tribal builds and discard-matters strategies in white-black shells get the most mileage out of Ingenious Leonin, where the body type and effect both pull in the right direction.
Key Combos
Combo lines featuring this card
Price Context
Current price
$0.14 bulk tier
At $0.14, Ingenious Leonin is pure bulk — you're picking it out of a commons box, not a singles binder. That price is stable for what it does; there's no pressure point that sends a 3-mana situational discard creature higher.
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Sources
Mentioned
Updated . Data from Scryfall, EDHREC, and Commander Spellbook.