Orthion, Hero of Lavabrink
Legendary Creature — Human Soldier
, 
: Create a token that's a copy of another target creature you control. It gains haste. Sacrifice it at the beginning of the next end step. Activate only as a sorcery.
, : Create five tokens that are copies of another target creature you control. They gain haste. Sacrifice them at the beginning of the next end step. Activate only as a sorcery.
- CMC
- 4
- Mana cost
- Color identity
- R
- Rarity
- rare
- Set
- March of the Machine
- Price
- $7.04
- EDHREC rank
- #2287
Orthion, Hero of Lavabrink copies any creature you control — including power-7-or-greater payoffs like Terror of the Peaks — for six mana, and its second ability lets you do it twice per turn for twelve. The cost is steep, but in the right shell alongside The Master, Multiplied, that price buys immediate, threatening board presence rather than a setup piece.
Best Commanders
Commanders with the highest synergy
The Master, Multiplied
The Master, Multiplied generates token copies of itself, and Orthion, Hero of Lavabrink can copy any of those tokens to stack additional enter-the-battlefield triggers and compound the doubling engine turn over turn.
Deadpool, Trading Card
Deadpool, Trading Card wants high-power creatures that generate value on entry, and Orthion, Hero of Lavabrink copies whichever one hits hardest — doubling Deadpool himself or any bruiser he's dragged along for extra chaos.
Obeka, Brute Chronologist
Obeka, Brute Chronologist lets players end their turn on demand, dodging the end-step exile clause on token copies — Orthion, Hero of Lavabrink becomes a repeatable copy engine rather than a one-shot play.
Ghired, Mirror of the Wilds
Ghired, Mirror of the Wilds populates and creates large creature tokens, and Orthion, Hero of Lavabrink copies the biggest threat on board to pile on combat damage or double an already-massive ETB.
Roxanne, Starfall Savant
Roxanne, Starfall Savant scales off large meteor tokens and big creatures, and Orthion, Hero of Lavabrink can copy the most impactful creature in play to accelerate the mana-and-damage snowball she's building.
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 |
Orthion, Hero of Lavabrink is a Commander card through and through — six mana with a twelve-mana second mode only makes sense at a 40-life table where games go long enough to deploy it. In competitive formats like Modern or Pioneer, the cost is a non-starter; there are cheaper copy effects that don't demand you hit seven lands first. Legacy and Vintage are legal but irrelevant — the effect isn't broken enough to compete there. Oathbreaker is the one non-Commander 60-card-adjacent format where it could show up as the signature spell, though the planeswalker requirement narrows the builds sharply.
Key Combos
Combo lines featuring this card
Orthion, Hero of LavabrinkGray Merchant of Asphodel
Near-infinite lifegain; Near-infinite lifeloss
View on Commander Spellbook ↗
Orthion, Hero of LavabrinkVillage Bell-Ringer
Infinite ETB; Infinite creature tokens with haste; Infinite untap of creatures you control; Infinite mana creatures you control can produce; Infinite copies of creatures you control with haste
View on Commander Spellbook ↗
Budget Alternatives
Cheaper options that do most of the same work
Strionic Resonator can copy triggered abilities rather than creatures outright, which misses some of what Orthion, Hero of Lavabrink does but costs a fraction and hits many of the same ETB payoffs. Delina, Wild Mage is a closer functional replacement — she creates attacking token copies of creatures and can chain the effect with lucky rolls — and trades the deterministic double-activation ceiling for a higher variance ceiling at a lower price point.
Price Context
Current price
$7.04 mid tier
At $7.04, Orthion, Hero of Lavabrink sits squarely in the mid tier — not a casual throw-in, but not a barrier either. It's a single-printing card with a narrow but loyal home in copy-matters and big-creature shells, so the price is stable as long as The Master, Multiplied keeps pulling players into that archetype.
Explore
Sources
Updated . Data from Scryfall, EDHREC, and Commander Spellbook.