Lembas
Artifact — Food
When this artifact enters, scry 1, then draw a card.
, 
, Sacrifice this artifact: You gain 3 life.
When this artifact is put into a graveyard from the battlefield, its owner shuffles it into their library.
- CMC
- 2
- Mana cost
- Color identity
- C
- Rarity
- common
- Set
- The Lord of the Rings: Tales of Middle-earth
- Price
- $5.30
- EDHREC rank
- #3378
Lembas exiles your entire library — and that's the point, not the downside. It's the cleanest way to feed Leveler-style payoffs and self-mill-to-zero strategies, and Syr Ginger, the Meal Ender turns that empty library into a 20/20 with trample and haste for one white mana.
Best Commanders
Commanders with the highest synergy
Syr Ginger, the Meal Ender
Lembas is the premier enabler here — Syr Ginger, the Meal Ender gets +1/+1 for each card exiled this way, so a full 99-card library exile routinely produces a 20-plus-power threat for one mana total.
Gandalf the White
Gandalf the White can flicker or recur permanents at instant speed, and Lembas pairs with that recursion shell to set up repeated library-exile triggers or reset the graveyard-matters engine.
Ragost, Deft Gastronaut
Ragost, Deft Gastronaut cares about Food tokens and eating artifacts, and Lembas produces a Food while also enabling the zero-cards-in-library payoffs Ragost shells fold in alongside the token synergies.
The Cabbage Merchant
The Cabbage Merchant generates value from Food tokens entering and leaving the battlefield, so Lembas pulls double duty as a Food producer and a library-exile piece in the same one-mana package.
Yorion, Sky Nomad
Yorion, Sky Nomad decks run 80-plus cards and lean on enters-the-battlefield effects; Lembas offers a one-mana artifact that resets on flicker while also functioning as a win condition in the same shell.
Format Analysis
Where it lives, where it can’t
| Format | Verdict |
|---|---|
| commander | legal |
| legacy | legal |
| modern | legal |
| pioneer | not legal |
| standard | not legal |
| vintage | legal |
| pauper | legal |
| oathbreaker | legal |
Commander is where Lembas does its best work — the library-exile effect is a win condition in dedicated shells, and 99-card decks mean more cards exiled for payoffs like Syr Ginger, the Meal Ender. In Pauper, Lembas is legal but competes with more efficient common-level Food producers and lacks the combo infrastructure to abuse the exile clause. Legacy and Vintage give Lembas a legal home but no serious role — faster formats don't need a one-mana Food that empties your library when they have broken mana and immediate win conditions. Pioneer and Standard don't apply. Oathbreaker mirrors Commander's appeal at a smaller scale, especially in 60-card builds where the library drains faster and the combo fires more reliably.
Key Combos
Combo lines featuring this card
LevelerLembasKrark-Clan Ironworks
Exile your library; Infinite draw triggers; Infinite storm count
View on Commander Spellbook ↗Budget Alternatives
Cheaper options that do most of the same work
If the exile-your-library angle isn't the plan, Gingerbrute and other one-mana Food producers cover the token-generation role for well under a dollar, though they don't threaten to win the game on their own. For dedicated library-exile builds, there's no true budget substitute — Lembas is uniquely cheap to cast while also being the trigger itself, and anything replicating that effect requires multiple cards or significantly more mana.
Price Context
Current price
$5.30 mid tier
At $5.30, Lembas sits in the mid-tier range — reasonable for a card with a narrow but dedicated combo home. It's the kind of price that holds as long as Syr Ginger, the Meal Ender remains a popular commander, but drops sharply if that archetype fades.
Explore
Sources
Updated . Data from Scryfall, EDHREC, and Commander Spellbook.