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Riptide Laboratory

Land

{T}: Add {C}.
{1}{U}, {T}: Return target Wizard you control to its owner's hand.

CMC
0
Mana cost
Color identity
U
Rarity
rare
Set
Onslaught
Price
$2.46
EDHREC rank
#1750
Buy on TCGplayer
Riptide Laboratory card art
Riptide Laboratory lets you bounce your own Wizards at instant speed for two mana — protecting key pieces from removal, resetting enters-the-battlefield triggers, and enabling infinite-turn loops with Timestream Navigator. In Inalla, Archmage Ritualist builds especially, that protection-plus-value axis makes it a near-staple rather than a luxury.

Best Commanders

Commanders with the highest synergy

02
Azami, Lady of Scrolls

Azami, Lady of Scrolls

62.9% of decks · synergy 0.53

Azami, Lady of Scrolls runs Riptide Laboratory primarily as protection, bouncing key tap-to-draw Wizards back to hand before targeted removal resolves, keeping the card-draw engine intact through interaction-heavy games.

03
Mairsil, the Pretender

Mairsil, the Pretender

52.0% of decks · synergy 0.48

Riptide Laboratory gives Mairsil, the Pretender a repeatable reset button — bouncing Mairsil back to hand lets you re-cage a new set of activated abilities each time you recast him.

04
Cynette, Jelly Drover

Cynette, Jelly Drover

49.9% of decks · synergy 0.40

Cynette, Jelly Drover benefits from Riptide Laboratory as a way to protect the commander and replay any enters-the-battlefield payoffs tied to Wizard synergies the deck runs.

05
Jeleva, Nephalia's Scourge

Jeleva, Nephalia's Scourge

43.2% of decks · synergy 0.39

Riptide Laboratory pairs with Jeleva, Nephalia's Scourge by letting you bounce and recast her to exile a fresh set of opponent instants and sorceries whenever the existing exiled cards have been spent.

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 Riptide Laboratory actually lives — Wizard tribal is a well-supported archetype, and the Laboratory's bounce ability scales with the quality of Wizards you're protecting or rebounding. In Legacy and Vintage it's legal but sees essentially no play; those formats move too fast for a tap-land that requires additional mana investment to generate value. Oathbreaker is the one non-Commander 60-card-adjacent format where it could see niche use in Wizard-dense builds, though the card pool there is narrow enough to keep it fringe. If you're not building around Wizards specifically, Riptide Laboratory is simply a worse Island.

Key Combos

Combo lines featuring this card

Price Context

Current price

$2.46 cheap tier

At $2.46, Riptide Laboratory sits in cheap territory for a card with a 59% inclusion rate in its top commander archetype — that's strong demand at a low price point. It's not a card that's likely to spike dramatically, but it's also not getting cheaper as Wizard tribal remains a perennial Commander archetype.

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Sources

Mentioned

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