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Rishkar's Expertise

Sorcery

Draw cards equal to the greatest power among creatures you control.
You may cast a spell with mana value 5 or less from your hand without paying its mana cost.

CMC
6
Mana cost
{4}{G}{G}
Color identity
G
Rarity
rare
Set
The Lost Caverns of Ixalan Commander
Price
$3.42
EDHREC rank
#247
Buy on TCGplayer
Rishkar's Expertise card art
Rishkar's Expertise draws cards equal to the greatest power among creatures you control, then lets you cast a spell costing five or less for free — and in any deck with a large enough threat, that's a massive swing for one card. Commanders like Yargle and Multani turn it into an instant-speed fifteen-card draw with a free spell attached, and even modest boards routinely net six to eight cards; the six-mana cost is the only real argument against it, and in green that's rarely a problem past turn four.

Best Commanders

Commanders with the highest synergy

01
Yargle and Multani

Yargle and Multani

65.1% of decks · synergy 0.58

Yargle and Multani has 18 power, which means Rishkar's Expertise draws eighteen cards and then casts something free — that's not a draw spell, that's a one-card game state reset. The inclusion rate above 65% reflects that this is less a synergy and more a core piece of the engine.

02
Quandrix, the Proof

Quandrix, the Proof

58.1% of decks · synergy 0.49

Quandrix, the Proof cares about amassing a large creature that keeps growing, and Rishkar's Expertise scales directly with how big that creature gets. The free cast stapled to the draw means one resolving spell can chain into another threat or interaction at exactly the moment the board state demands it.

03
Klauth, Unrivaled Ancient

Klauth, Unrivaled Ancient

62.5% of decks · synergy 0.41

Klauth, Unrivaled Ancient generates enormous amounts of mana off its own large body, and Rishkar's Expertise ensures the hand is full of spells to dump that mana into. Drawing into a board-wide threat or an additional payoff on the same turn Klauth connects is the exact loop this deck wants.

04
Pantlaza, Sun-Favored

Pantlaza, Sun-Favored

51.4% of decks · synergy 0.39

Pantlaza, Sun-Favored commands one of the biggest creature-type pools in Commander, and the dinosaurs filling that 99 tend to have high base power. Rishkar's Expertise turns the first large dinosaur in play into an immediate card advantage burst and a free discover-adjacent cast on the same line.

05
Chishiro, the Shattered Blade

Chishiro, the Shattered Blade

60.3% of decks · synergy 0.38

Chishiro, the Shattered Blade piles +1/+1 counters onto creatures constantly, which steadily inflates the power count Rishkar's Expertise reads off. A fully loaded creature in a Chishiro deck can push the draw count well past six or seven while the free cast slots in another counter-generating threat.

Format Analysis

Where it lives, where it can’t

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

Rishkar's Expertise is a Commander card in practice — the six-mana cost is largely irrelevant in a format where games routinely reach turns seven and eight, and the free cast clause is at its most explosive when commanders routinely hit four, five, or ten power. In Modern and Pioneer it sees essentially no play; six mana is too slow for those formats, and decks with large creatures in those contexts have faster ways to generate advantage. Legacy and Vintage have the speed problem even worse, and neither format is looking to draw cards at sorcery speed for this much mana. Commander is where Rishkar's Expertise belongs, and inside that format it earns its slot in virtually any green deck that puts a sizeable body on the table.

Key Combos

Combo lines featuring this card

Price Context

Current price

$3.42 cheap tier

At $3.42, Rishkar's Expertise sits in the sweet spot where it's cheap enough to include without budget debate but efficient enough that the price could tick upward as more large-creature commanders enter the format. It's a staple-tier card at a bulk-rare price, and there's no cheaper functional substitute for what it does.

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Sources

Mentioned

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