Vanguard of the Restless
Creature — Spirit Knight
Flying
Spirits you control get +1/+1 for each time you've cast your commander from the command zone this game.
Whenever a Spirit you control enters, you may pay 
. If you do, return this card from your graveyard to the battlefield.
- CMC
- 3
- Mana cost
- Color identity
- W
- Rarity
- rare
- Set
- Secrets of Strixhaven Commander
- Price
- $0.36
- EDHREC rank
- #14692
Vanguard of the Restless enters the battlefield and immediately starts producing Spirit tokens whenever you cast spells that care about the graveyard or past turns, turning incidental play into a board presence that compounds quickly. The rate is strong enough that Quintorius, History Chaser runs it in nearly 80% of builds — that's not an accident, that's a staple.
Best Commanders
Commanders with the highest synergy
Quintorius, History Chaser
Quintorius, History Chaser triggers off cards leaving the graveyard, and Vanguard of the Restless feeds that engine while simultaneously building a Spirit army — two payoffs from one card slot.
Millicent, Restless Revenant
Millicent, Restless Revenant generates Spirit tokens whenever non-token Spirits enter under your control, so Vanguard of the Restless acts as a token multiplier the moment it resolves.
King of the Oathbreakers
King of the Oathbreakers rewards you for going wide with Spirits, and Vanguard of the Restless supplies a steady stream of them without requiring any additional investment beyond casting your normal spells.
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 |
Commander is the natural home for Vanguard of the Restless — 100-card singletons stretch over long games where incremental token generation compounds into a real board state, and the Spirit tribal synergies it plugs into are densest in that format. It's technically legal in Legacy and Vintage, but those formats move too fast and too efficiently for a creature that asks you to wait and accumulate value. Oathbreaker is the one non-Commander 60-card-adjacent format where it sees occasional play, again in Spirit-focused builds where the commander selection does a lot of contextual work.
Key Combos
Combo lines featuring this card
Price Context
Current price
$0.36 bulk tier
At $0.36, Vanguard of the Restless is bulk — you're picking this up out of a common box or a cheap online order without a second thought. Bulk rares with 78% inclusion in a popular commander archetype tend to stay flat rather than spike, so there's no urgency and no downside to grabbing a copy whenever you need one.
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Sources
Updated . Data from Scryfall, EDHREC, and Commander Spellbook.