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Lonis, Cryptozoologist

Legendary Creature — Snake Elf Scout

Whenever another nontoken creature you control enters, investigate.
{T}, Sacrifice X Clues: Target opponent reveals the top X cards of their library. You may put a nonland permanent card with mana value X or less from among them onto the battlefield under your control. That player puts the rest on the bottom of their library in a random order.

CMC
2
Mana cost
{G}{U}
Color identity
GU
Rarity
rare
Set
Jumpstart: Historic Horizons
Price
—
EDHREC rank
#4794
Buy on TCGplayer
Lonis, Cryptozoologist card art
Lonis, Cryptozoologist turns every nontoken creature entering the battlefield into a free Clue, which means any bounce loop — Shrieking Drake is the classic engine piece — generates unbounded card draw with zero extra investment. The cost is a two-card dependency: Lonis does nothing alone, and the payoff lives entirely in what you do with that Clue flood.

Best Commanders

Commanders with the highest synergy

01
Morska, Undersea Sleuth

Morska, Undersea Sleuth

71.7% of decks · synergy 0.68

Morska, Undersea Sleuth is built around cracking Clues, so Lonis, Cryptozoologist feeding the artifact count on every creature cast makes Morska's investigate payoffs fire faster and more reliably — 72% of Morska decks run it for exactly this reason.

02
Jenny FlintMadame Vastra

Jenny Flint // Madame Vastra

64.8% of decks · synergy 0.63

Jenny Flint // Madame Vastra rewards Clue generation directly, and Lonis, Cryptozoologist supplies a Clue for each creature that enters, letting Vastra's investigation triggers stack without needing dedicate slots to slower artifact producers.

03
Sophia, Dogged Detective

Sophia, Dogged Detective

36.4% of decks · synergy 0.33

Sophia, Dogged Detective scales on Clues and artifacts, so Lonis, Cryptozoologist acts as a passive engine that inflates the artifact count every time the creature plan advances — two overlapping gameplans for the price of one card slot.

04
Rashmi and Ragavan

Rashmi and Ragavan

21.1% of decks · synergy 0.20

Rashmi and Ragavan generate a stream of free spells and token creatures, and Lonis, Cryptozoologist converts each nontoken creature that enters off those triggers into a Clue, translating the cascade value into card-draw fuel.

05

Tamiyo, Inquisitive Student

15.4% of decks · synergy 0.14

Tamiyo, Inquisitive Student wants to flip into her planeswalker side by drawing cards, and Lonis, Cryptozoologist provides a low-friction Clue engine that accelerates the draw count needed to transform her.

Format Analysis

Where it lives, where it can’t

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

Commander is where Lonis, Cryptozoologist lives — either as the general headlining a Simic Clue-combo deck or as a role-player in any green-blue strategy that runs a lot of creatures. In Legacy and Vintage, a two-mana 2/2 that requires nontoken creatures to generate value doesn't clear the bar when faster, more self-contained options exist, and the Clue payoff is too slow for those formats' threat density. Modern is technically legal but similarly uncompetitive at current power levels. Oathbreaker is the one non-Commander 60-card-adjacent format where Lonis sees fringe play, mostly in the same Clue-bounce shell that Commander popularized.

Key Combos

Combo lines featuring this card

Price Context

Current price

unknown tier

Pricing data for Lonis, Cryptozoologist isn't available in the current feed, so check Scryfall or TCGPlayer for a live number before buying. Given its status as a niche Commander staple with a dedicated but narrow fanbase, it typically sits in the budget-to-mid range — worth picking up if you're building any Simic investigate shell.

Explore

Sources

Mentioned

← All cards

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