Return to the Ranks
Sorcery
Convoke (Your creatures can help cast this spell. Each creature you tap while casting this spell pays for 
or one mana of that creature's color.)
Return X target creature cards with mana value 2 or less from your graveyard to the battlefield.
- CMC
- 2
- Mana cost
- Color identity
- W
- Rarity
- rare
- Set
- Secrets of Strixhaven Mystical Archive
- Price
- $0.45
- EDHREC rank
- #11090
Return to the Ranks puts an entire squad of small creatures back onto the battlefield at once — and the cost scales down the more creatures you already have in play. Against sweeper-heavy pods, that swing from empty board to full board is frequently game-ending; Polukranos Reborn runs it for exactly that reason.
Best Commanders
Commanders with the highest synergy
Polukranos Reborn
Polukranos Reborn fills the board with small green creatures naturally, which means Return to the Ranks frequently costs two or three mana when you're ready to cast it — converting a board wipe into a one-sided reload.
Amalia Benavides Aguirre
Amalia Benavides Aguirre lives in the graveyard by design: the combo loop kills most of the board repeatedly, and Return to the Ranks snaps everything back into play to start the chain again.
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 |
Commander is where Return to the Ranks does its best work — the format's sweeper-heavy environment means graveyards fill fast, and a convoke spell that puts four or five creatures back into play for two or three mana is exactly the kind of resilience that grinds out games. In Modern and Pioneer it's legal but rarely seen outside dedicated go-wide white aggro shells, where the ceiling is lower because graveyards are smaller and the competition for three-mana slots is fierce. Legacy has access to stronger reanimation at comparable cost, so Return to the Ranks doesn't find a foothold there either. Treat it as a Commander card that happens to be legal elsewhere.
Key Combos
Combo lines featuring this card
Price Context
Current price
$0.45 bulk tier
At $0.45, Return to the Ranks is bulk — you're not paying for reputation, you're paying for cardboard. The supply is wide enough that the price isn't going anywhere meaningful, so pick it up whenever you need it without any urgency.
Explore
Sources
Mentioned
- Polukranos Reborn
- Amalia Benavides Aguirre
Updated . Data from Scryfall, EDHREC, and Commander Spellbook.