Nimbus Champion
Creature — Avatar Warrior
Flying
Whenever this creature attacks, you may return target creature to its owner's hand if that creature's power is less than or equal to the number of Warriors your team controls.
- CMC
- 6
- Mana cost
- Color identity
- U
- Rarity
- uncommon
- Set
- Battlebond
- Price
- $0.07
- EDHREC rank
- #29075
Nimbus Champion bounces a creature every time a Merfolk enters the battlefield under your control — on a 3/3 flying body for five mana, that's a repeatable tempo engine, not a one-shot trick. The cost is real: five mana is a lot to ask before the effect does anything, and the bounce only hits opponents' creatures, so it wins games when you're already flooding the board with Merfolk and loses relevance when you're not.
Format Analysis
Where it lives, where it can’t
| Format | Verdict |
|---|---|
| commander | legal |
| legacy | legal |
| modern | not legal |
| pioneer | not legal |
| standard | not legal |
| vintage | legal |
| pauper | not legal |
| oathbreaker | legal |
Nimbus Champion is a Commander card through and through — the format's slower pace and tribal synergy infrastructure are the only context where a five-mana 3/3 with a conditional triggered ability earns its slot. In Merfolk tribal builds, repeated bounce keeps the board clear while your team swings wide, and the evasion matters in a multiplayer environment where ground traffic is constant. Legacy and Vintage are legal but irrelevant — those formats move too fast and too efficiently for Nimbus Champion to compete. Oathbreaker shares enough of Commander's pace that a dedicated Merfolk shell could use it, though the smaller deck size makes the five-mana ask steeper.
Key Combos
Combo lines featuring this card
Price Context
Current price
$0.07 bulk tier
At $0.07, Nimbus Champion is deep bulk — you're paying for cardboard and nothing else. Bulk rares with narrow tribal applications rarely appreciate, so pick it up if you need it and don't think twice about the price.
Explore
Sources
Mentioned
Updated . Data from Scryfall, EDHREC, and Commander Spellbook.