Gandalf the White card art

Gandalf the White

Legendary Creature — Avatar Wizard MV 5

Tracked across real Commander games played through TurnZero HQ.

Buy on TCGplayer Track your own decks
Jump to section ▾
What it doesCombosRulingsIn the 99Every version

What it does

Flash

You may cast legendary spells and artifact spells as though they had flash.

If a legendary permanent or an artifact entering or leaving the battlefield causes a triggered ability of a permanent you control to trigger, that ability triggers an additional time.

Combos with Gandalf the White

Lines this card is part of — what it needs alongside it, and what the two of them do. An infinite result is the one that moves a deck's bracket.

Showing the 8 shortest and most explosive. This card appears in more than these — follow any of them through to Commander Spellbook to browse the rest.

Combo data from Commander Spellbook, the community-maintained database of Magic combos. Mirrored nightly.

Rulings

10 official rulings, in the order Wizards published them.

  • 2023-06-16

    Replacement effects are unaffected by Gandalf the White's ability. For example, a legendary creature that enters the battlefield with one +1/+1 counter on it won't receive an additional +1/+1 counter.

  • 2023-06-16

    Abilities that apply "as [this permanent] enters the battlefield," such as choosing a color with Gauntlet of Power, are also unaffected.

  • 2023-06-16

    The second ability applies only to casting spells. It does not, for example, change when you may activate abilities that can be activated "only as a sorcery."

  • 2023-06-16

    You don't need to control the permanent entering or leaving the battlefield, only the permanent that has the triggered ability.

  • 2023-06-16

    Gandalf the White's effect doesn't copy the triggered ability; it just causes the ability to trigger twice. Any choices made as you put the ability onto the stack, such as modes and targets, are made separately for each instance of the ability. Any choices made on resolution, such as whether to put counters on a permanent, are also made individually.

  • 2023-06-16

    If a legendary permanent or an artifact entering or leaving the battlefield at the same time as Gandalf the White (including Gandalf the White itself) causes a triggered ability of a permanent you control to trigger, that ability triggers an additional time.

  • 2023-06-16

    Look at each legendary permanent and each artifact as it exists on the battlefield, taking into account continuous effects, to determine whether any triggered abilities will trigger multiple times. For example, if a nonlegendary creature that has become legendary (probably because it's a player's Ring-bearer) dies, an ability that triggers when it leaves the battlefield triggers twice.

  • 2023-06-16

    If you somehow control two copies of Gandalf the White, a legendary permanent or an artifact entering or leaving the battlefield causes abilities to trigger three times, not four. A third Gandalf the White causes abilities to trigger four times, a fourth causes abilities to trigger five times, and so on.

  • 2023-06-16

    Gandalf the White affects a permanent's own enters-the-battlefield and leaves-the-battlefield triggered abilities as well as other triggered abilities that trigger when that permanent enters or leaves the battlefield. Such triggered abilities start with "when" or "whenever."

  • 2023-06-16

    The trigger event doesn't have to specifically refer to legendary permanents or to artifacts, nor does it have to specifically refer to when something "leaves the battlefield." For example, an ability that triggers "whenever a creature dies" would trigger twice if a legendary creature or an artifact creature dies while Gandalf the White is on the battlefield, as would an ability that triggers "whenever a permanent is put into a graveyard from the battlefield."

Rulings are Wizards of the Coast's own, mirrored from Scryfall and refreshed nightly.

In the 99

Every deck whose current list includes Gandalf the White, whatever its commander.

Decks running it 3
Games played 2
Win rate — Fewer than 5 completed games — not enough to publish a rate yet.
Confirmed on board 0 Games where a board photo caught it actually in play.

Most played under

Commander Decks Games Win rate
Samwise Gamgee 1 2 —
Aragorn, the Uniter 1 0 —
Kediss, Emberclaw Familiar 1 0 —
Yoshimaru, Ever Faithful 1 0 —

Colors it shows up in

  • Selesnya 1 deck
  • Boros 1 deck
  • Four-Color (no Black) 1 deck

Every version of Gandalf the White

9 printings, newest first. Prices are the market figures Scryfall publishes, refreshed nightly — a printing with no figure shows a dash rather than a zero, because Scryfall genuinely publishes none for some of them.

Prices from Scryfall, which tracks the TCGplayer and Cardmarket markets. They move daily and are a guide rather than a quote. Search TCGplayer for Gandalf the White — a name search across every version, for the printings TCGplayer publishes no direct link to.

Aggregated from Commander games tracked in TurnZero HQ. Every figure counts decks and games only — no individual deck list, player or playgroup is identified. Win rates are withheld below 5 completed games, where the sample is too small to mean anything.