Invasion of Shandalar // Leyline Surge
Battle — Siege // Enchantment
(As a Siege enters, choose an opponent to protect it. You and others can attack it. When it's defeated, exile it, then cast it transformed.)
When this Siege enters, return up to three target permanent cards from your graveyard to your hand.
- CMC
- 5
- Mana cost
- Color identity
- G
- Rarity
- mythic
- Set
- March of the Machine
- Price
- $1.34
- EDHREC rank
- #7978
Invasion of Shandalar // Leyline Surge puts a free permanent from your graveyard onto the battlefield the moment you flip it, turning the battle itself into a reanimation setup — and the front face already fetches two basic lands to hit five colors. The cost is real: six total defense means your opponents can interfere, and a five-mana sorcery needs to do more than ramp for its slot, which is why Loot, the Key to Everything decks that want the back face's free-cast trigger lean into it hardest.
Best Commanders
Commanders with the highest synergy
Loot, the Key to Everything
Loot, the Key to Everything triggers off playing permanents from zones other than your hand, so Leyline Surge's ability to drop a card directly from your graveyard onto the battlefield is exactly the kind of effect Loot wants stacked in the deck — Invasion of Shandalar // Leyline Surge earns its slot here by doing double duty as a ramp spell on the front and a free-cast engine on the back.
Glissa Sunslayer
Glissa Sunslayer generates consistent first strike and deathtouch pressure that helps defend a battle without additional investment, making the six-damage threshold on Invasion of Shandalar // Leyline Surge significantly easier to reach and turning the flip into a reliable mid-game payoff.
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 |
In Commander, Invasion of Shandalar // Leyline Surge is a niche but real card in five-color and graveyard-adjacent decks — the front tutors basics across all five colors, and the back provides a free permanent drop that can resurrect anything from a land to a creature mid-combat. In Modern and Pioneer, it's too slow and too fragile: battles require board presence to flip, and any deck that can defend one usually wins through other means before Leyline Surge matters. Legacy and Vintage have the raw speed to make the front face's five-mana cost irrelevant, so it doesn't see play there either. Oathbreaker is the format outside Commander where it has the most theoretical traction, specifically in graveyard-fueled builds that want both the fixing and the reanimation angle on a single card.
Key Combos
Combo lines featuring this card
Price Context
Current price
$1.34 cheap tier
At $1.34, Invasion of Shandalar // Leyline Surge sits firmly in bulk-rare territory — cheap enough to slot in speculatively, but the price reflects narrow demand rather than broad staple appeal. It's unlikely to spike without a breakout Commander deck pushing the Leyline Surge trigger into the spotlight.
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Sources
Updated . Data from Scryfall, EDHREC, and Commander Spellbook.