MagicTheGathering.fyi

Light of Promise

Enchantment — Aura

Enchant creature
Enchanted creature has "Whenever you gain life, put that many +1/+1 counters on this creature."

CMC
3
Mana cost
{2}{W}
Color identity
W
Rarity
uncommon
Set
Core Set 2021
Price
$0.38
EDHREC rank
#4320
Buy on TCGplayer
Light of Promise card art
Light of Promise puts +1/+1 counters on a creature equal to the life you gain — an effect that snowballs fast in any lifegain shell and turns Walking Ballista into an immediate threat. The cost is real: two mana to equip and a reliance on sustained lifegain to stay relevant, but Killian, Ink Duelist cuts that equip cost to zero and makes the whole package trivially efficient.

Best Commanders

Commanders with the highest synergy

01
Killian, Ink Duelist

Killian, Ink Duelist

57.0% of decks · synergy 0.55

Killian, Ink Duelist reduces the equip cost of Light of Promise to zero, making it free to move between creatures every turn and collapsing the usual tempo cost of equipment-based lifegain into nothing. That alone justifies the 57% inclusion rate — Killian turns a conditional payoff into an always-on engine.

02
Pearl-Ear, Imperial Advisor

Pearl-Ear, Imperial Advisor

43.0% of decks · synergy 0.39

Pearl-Ear, Imperial Advisor cares about auras and equipment on creatures, and Light of Promise slots in as a repeatable counter-stacker that scales with every point of lifegain the deck generates. The synergy is straightforward: Pearl-Ear's triggers keep the board wide, and Light of Promise rewards that width with growing threats.

03
Light-Paws, Emperor's Voice

Light-Paws, Emperor's Voice

39.9% of decks · synergy 0.35

Light-Paws, Emperor's Voice tutors auras onto the battlefield, and while Light of Promise is an equipment, the counter-stacking payoff aligns with the same go-tall gameplan those aura packages run. At 40% inclusion across nearly 11,500 decks, it's clearly earning its slot as a secondary payoff that doesn't compete with the core aura chain.

04
Lathiel, the Bounteous Dawn

Lathiel, the Bounteous Dawn

25.4% of decks · synergy 0.23

Lathiel, the Bounteous Dawn distributes +1/+1 counters at end of turn whenever you've gained life — Light of Promise doubles down on that by also stacking counters in real time, meaning a single lifelink attack can load up two creatures simultaneously. It's redundancy with the commander's own ability, which is exactly what a Lathiel deck wants.

05
Trelasarra, Moon Dancer

Trelasarra, Moon Dancer

22.3% of decks · synergy 0.20

Trelasarra, Moon Dancer puts a counter on itself and scries whenever you gain life, and Light of Promise converts that same trigger into counters on whichever creature is equipped — often Trelasarra itself. The two effects stack off a single lifegain event, making the deck's engine noticeably more explosive.

Format Analysis

Where it lives, where it can’t

FormatVerdict
commander legal
legacy legal
modern legal
pioneer legal
standard not legal
vintage legal
pauper not legal
oathbreaker legal

Light of Promise is legal in Commander, Legacy, Modern, Pioneer, Vintage, and Oathbreaker, though competitive constructed formats largely ignore it — lifegain payoffs at this speed don't clear the bar in Legacy or Vintage, and Modern has more efficient alternatives. Commander is where Light of Promise actually does work: the format's longer game gives lifegain engines time to generate the repeated triggers the card demands, and commanders like Killian, Ink Duelist or Lathiel, the Bounteous Dawn provide the structural support that makes it threatening rather than incidental. In Oathbreaker it's plausible in the same lifegain shells, though the shorter game length raises the same questions it faces in faster constructed formats.

Key Combos

Combo lines featuring this card

1,575 decks
Spike FeederLight of Promise

Spike FeederLight of Promise

Infinite lifegain; Infinite lifegain triggers; Infinite +1/+1 counters on creatures you control

View on Commander Spellbook ↗

Price Context

Current price

$0.38 bulk tier

At $0.38, Light of Promise is firmly bulk — easy to pick up as a four-of or toss into any lifegain Commander build without a second thought. Bulk rares with active combo and synergy applications tend to hold this floor rather than crater further, so there's no urgency in either direction.

Explore

Sources

Mentioned

← All cards

Updated . Data from Scryfall, EDHREC, and Commander Spellbook.