The 43 Best Green Enters the Battlefield Cards in Magic Ranked

Last updated on December 4, 2025

Craterhoof Behemoth | Illustration by Chris Rahn

If you want to take home a game of Commander, you need lots of card advantage. Trading one-for-one in a four-person free-for-all just doesn’t cut it. Of course, getting two or more cards' worth of value from one card works wonders in other Constructed formats as well.

Some of the best ways to get this kind of value are cards with enters abilities. These have an immediate impact on the game (which is fantastic value in its own right) while often leaving something in play for you to extract further value from. Today, I’m looking at all kinds of green enters the battlefield cards to see which monsters and permanents from the color of Fecundity give us the most value!

What Are Green Enters the Battlefield Cards in MTG?

Primeval Titan | Illustration by Aleksi Briclot

Green enters the battlefield cards are any permanents with an ability that triggers when they enter the battlefield. I’m focusing on cards that trigger when they enter rather than when another card enters. For example, Garruk's Uprising versus Elemental Bond (cards that trigger when they or another permanent enters are fine).

As one would expect from green, its enters abilities largely care about creatures and/or mana, though there are a couple of outliers, like cards that let you take the initiative or become the monarch.

#43. Avenging Hunter

Avenging Hunter might not be the flashiest 5-mana play, but taking the initiative pays dividends, especially with a creature that’s large enough to both defend and reclaim it with ease.

#42. Disciple of Freyalise // Garden of Freyalise

Mono-green cards aren’t as associated with sacrificing as black or Golgari, but they can still be  highly impactful. Disciple of Freyalise is no exception, promising a huge burst of card draw if you don’t mind trading away a big creature. That’s some extreme card advantage on top of the flexibility that comes from it being an MDFC land.

#41. Fecund Greenshell

Fecund Greenshell has some pretty strange requirements on that creaturefall ability, but a chunky beater that either replaces itself or ramps you looks lovely. Couple that with a giga-anthem for inevitability, or at least extra value in the late game, and I could see slipping a few extra high-toughness creatures in my deck to maximize this card’s potential.

#40. God-Eternal Rhonas

Ways to buff your creatures are important to close out the game, which God-Eternal Rhonas does relatively well. I would be much more impressed if it gave trample rather than vigilance, but at least you won’t die on the crackback. The recursive ability could be cute alongside cards like Greater Good to get the buff across multiple turns.

#39. Gruff Triplets

I want a way to exploit Gruff Triplets making three bodies before I’m excited to jam it in my deck. Maybe that’s token doublers giving me five bodies. Perhaps it’s cards like Inga and Esika and Enduring Vitality allowing them to tap for mana. Once I have that support, this card becomes a terrifying threat that asks your opponents to have a board wipe or fall very far behind.

#38. Hunter’s Talent

I love bundling multiple effects into one card. Hunter's Talent gives us a removal spell that draws a couple of cards later, which is about as much value as I could ask of a cheap class enchantment.

#37. Lumbering Worldwagon

Lumbering Worldwagon is a sneaky aggressive green card that fetches a basic land card when it enters and attacks. On turn 3, you’re ahead of the curve, and on the following turn you can play a 4-power threat like Scrapshooter to attack with this vehicle quickly. Get a ton of lands and roll over your opponents with Lumbering Worldwagon, Flourishing Bloom-Kin, and Ouroboroid.

#36. Invasion of Shandalar / Leyline Surge

Green recursion mostly cares about permanents, so Invasion of Shandalar is right on theme, and this battle‘s pretty good. It works best in self-mill decks, but getting three good spells plus the threat of playing some of them for free with Leyline Surge helps turn the corner in close games.

#35. Primeval Herald

It’s no Primeval Titan, but Primeval Herald can be a strong source of repeated ramp, especially if you can flicker it. It also works well with haste enablers; this only needs to attack once to be on par with Explosive Vegetation.

#34. Bloomvine Regent

Red often provides the most upside for dragon decks, but the green Bloomvine Regent can also give a bump to that strategy. Its omen ability can be great ramp for green decks by giving you a land in hand and one on the battlefield. If you wait a bit longer and play the creature, you get a good lifegain bonus whenever you play your other dragons. This can be a great thing to counter aggressive decks, especially when you pair it with another Tarkir: Dragonstorm dragon’s omen ability in Scavenger Regent.

#33. Summon: Fenrir

The saga creatures of Final Fantasy can provide a quick boost or deadly finisher to many strategies. A mythic summon card like Summon: Bahamut can be insane, but the uncommon Summon: Fenrir fits perfectly into many green decks. It provides an extra land, a creature pump, and a potential draw, which makes for a great play in the first several turns.

#32. Regal Behemoth

Taking the monarch lets you claim one of the best card advantage engines in the game, and Regal Behemoth gives you a great way to do so. Getting a big trample creature helps reclaim the monarchy if you lose it and the mana doubling ability ensures you can cast all the cards you draw.

#31. End-Raze Forerunners

Magic has many different flavors of “Craterhoof Behemoth at home”, and I’ve always found End-Raze Forerunners to be among the best alternatives. Getting vigilance and trample at once provides fantastic offensive and defensive power, letting you attack without concern for what comes next. Having the ability on a creature’s ETB opens the door to synergies with flicker effects and cards like Natural Order that makes it a little more appealing than the classic Overrun.

#30. Titania, Protector of Argoth

You need a little synergy to go with Titania, Protector of Argoth, but just running fetch lands counts. It gets even spicier with cards like Sylvan Safekeeper and Zuran Orb to convert your entire mana base into 5/3 Elementals.

#29. Encroaching Dragonstorm

Encroaching Dragonstorm is great green mana ramp that can bounce itself whenever you play a dragon. At a cost of 4 mana, this card brings two lands from your library onto the battlefield, which is perfect when you're dealing with great high-cost dragons like Ancient Bronze Dragon or Ziatora, the Incinerator. You can then repeat this process to give yourself a huge mana advantage.

#28. Up the Beanstalk

While the enters ability on Up the Beanstalk might not be the card’s greatest feature, it makes it a busted card. You avoid the downside of your opponent destroying your enchantment! And it represents enough card advantage to force your opponent’s hand or get buried beneath the resources. It’s crazy how efficiently this card plays, especially when paired with free spells like Force of Will and Solitude.

#27. Regal Force

Regal Force pretty much requires you to play mono-green, or at least a very green-centric strategy. The card draw is well worth the requirement, though; it doesn’t take much for green decks to amass a wide board. It’s a nice alternative to green’s other big card draw spells like Rishkar's Expertise that care about you playing big creatures.

#26. Thickest in the Thicket

Thickest in the Thicket proves that Magic’s pun game has gone too far.

Gripes about the slow addition of Un-set cards to regular Magic sets aside, this is a pretty good card. Green’s no stranger to “draw a card if you have the biggest creature” effects, but drawing two cards a turn gets you pretty far ahead, and the counters help you meet that condition. I don’t know that I’d run it outside of counter-matters strategies, but it seems like a great addition for that archetype.

#25. Three-Mana Ramp Creatures

If you want a 3-mana creature that puts a land into play, green has you covered with the trifecta of Wood Elves, Topiary Stomper, and Farhaven Elf, each of which excel in decks with lots of landfall synergies or 1-mana accelerants to curve this into. Sutina, Speaker of the Tajuru is a newer addition to the bunch, though many decks will be interested in multiple versions of this effect.

#24. Blossoming Tortoise

If you want to combine self-mill with a bit of ramp, Blossoming Tortoise was designed for you. Caring about your graveyard is a pretty low bar to cross, so this slots into lots of decks. Don’t overlook that cost reduction ability; it makes a couple great lands even better, including Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx and War Room, not to mention an infinitely large Lavaclaw Reaches. Okay, that one might be more funny than good.

#23. Deep Forest Hermit + Deranged Hermit

Deep Forest Hermit and Deranged Hermit are interesting, if only for seeing how close Wizards will come to a functional reprint of a Reserved List card.

They’re also just good; four tokens for 5 mana is an excellent rate, and it’s even better if you keep the Hermit around. You’re mostly likely to encounter these in Chatterfang, Squirrel General builds, but they work in other token decks.

#22. Ghalta, Stampede Tyrant

Ghalta, Stampede Tyrant might be the Timmiest card to ever Timmy across Commander. It’s a card of high highs and low lows. Sometimes you’ll play it and introduce your pod to the Eldrazi titans on turn 5 or so, other times your hand’s out of gas and it’s a crummy topdeck. At least, as crummy as an 8-mana 12/12 can be.

#21. Bane of Progress

One of the best anti-artifact and -enchantment cards in Commander, Bane of Progress takes great advantage of most players packing Signets and other cheap mana rocks to both blow up your opponents’ boards and create a giant threat. While most decks have a few targets, this card also deals with enchantress decks and artifact decks that skirt many other board wipes.

#20. Avenger of Zendikar

One of Commander’s all-time classics, Avenger of Zendikar provides an instant board state with its enters ability. While those plant tokens don’t look imposing at first, it only takes a few land drops for them to become a fierce army, and green excels at making land drops. That army-in-a-can potential keeps me coming back to the Avenger even as new green top-end cards get printed.

#19. Hornet Queen

Hornet Queen is an annoying army-in-a-can finisher. Those insects having deathtouch and flying to make them formidable defenders and pesky attackers. A few pump spells and you become the beatdown quickly, especially if they get trample.

#18. Fierce Empath

Fierce Empath finds the biggest and best creature in your deck and even tailors it to your situation! Though this is a rather narrow creature tutor, it meshes with green’s basic game plan well enough to make up for it.

#17. Titan of Industry

Titan of Industry rarely disappoints when it hits the field. Players often default to creating a 4/4 and blowing something up, but a shield counter helps prepare for the inevitable board wipe and the lifegain is…well, having three good modes out of four is perfectly reasonable.

#16. Cultivator Colossus

Resolving Cultivator Colossus is always a treat because you never know how far you’ll go. Sometimes you’ll just draw a card; other times you draw five and put four lands into play.

#15. Garruk’s Uprising

Garruk's Uprising sees tons of play as a consistent card draw engine that rewards green players for simply playing the game. Its enters ability makes it incredible. The traditional weakness of Elemental Bond comes from its late-game fail case: If you top deck it without a creature to trigger it, it’s kind of bad. Garruk's Uprising has no such downside, unless you don’t have a board—in which case you have bigger things to worry about.

#14. Elvish Visionary

Elvish Visionary looks unassuming, but a cantrip that puts a creature into play has proven potential. Flickering it or copying it gets you even more cards, you can sacrifice it to Flare of Cultivation or Grist, the Hunger Tide, and sometimes it just enables a double block. Elvish Visionary won’t be the best card in your deck, but it’s never the worst.

#13. Overlord of the Hauntwoods

Overlord of the Hauntwoods is an incredible Commander card since the format heavily incentives ramp. It serves as both a ramp spell and something to ramp into that helps bridge the mid-game before you start casting massive monsters. Creating a token land is also a fascinating spin on how this effect typically works; this lets us use token doublers like Adrix and Nev, Twincasters and Doubling Season to get twice the lands.

#12. Court of Bounty

Court of Bounty can be quite the threat, especially if you have the means to protect the crown and put a fat creature into play on your next upkeep. Even if you lose the monarchy, this court enchantment draws you a card and ramps you, which already helps cast a big trampling threat and reclaim your lost title.

#11. Undermountain Adventurer

Undermountain Adventurer is the ideal way to snag the initiative in green since it’s a powerful mana dork in its own right. If you manage to complete a dungeon, the mana boost helps take that advantage further.

#10. Woodfall Primus

Green doesn’t often get to destroy things other than artifacts or enchantments, making Woodfall Primus a useful answer to planeswalkers and utility lands like Cabal Coffers. Getting to double dip thanks to persist makes this both resilient and impactful, plus it enables infinite loops that destroy all your opponents’ lands.

#9. Terastodon

Speaking of blowing up permanents, Terastodon shatters far more permanents in a single go. The secret mode on this monster? Blow up your own permanents to put 18 power and toughness onto the board.

#8. Vaultborn Tyrant

Vaultborn Tyrant might be the best alternative to Garruk's Uprising you can play. It not only replaces itself but has a pseudo-recursion ability that makes it hard to interact with and a killer combo with cards like Sneak Attack.

#7. Kogla, the Titan Ape

Kogla, the Titan Ape punches incredibly hard. Killing a creature while keeping a 7/6 around would be strong enough, but getting to pressure artifacts and enchantments forces your opponents to burn removal on something that already killed their creature–assuming they get around the built-in indestructible, which offers its own form of card advantage when you bounce humans like Eternal Witness and Agent of Treachery.

#6. Apex Altisaur

Apex Altisaur is as close as green gets to a board wipe. You get a bonafide Plague Wind if you make it indestructible, but killing two or three threats, then leaving a 10/10 in play works just fine. It even acts as a deterrent; the fight club gets together whenever enrage is triggered, so your opponents might avoid attacking into or blocking this dino.

#5. Court of Garenbrig

Taking the monarch on turn 3 is fantastic, largely because players are often still casting their mana rocks and other setup pieces, which makes it easier to retain the crown. Court of Garenbrig goes even further by having a fantastic ability. Counters decks would play a cheap enchantment that distributes two counters a turn even without the tantalizing promise of doubling all your +1/+1 counters.

#4. Reclamation Sage

Since every player in Commander runs mana rocks (except that one commenter “um, actuallying” me, I see you), Reclamation Sage always has a few targets. This elf also hits some of the scariest card in Commander: Rhystic Study, Bolas's Citadel, Smothering Tithe, Portal to Phyrexia… the list winds on. Whatever you blow up, this is just a good, healthy two-for-one, and your Commander deck could always run some more of those.

#3. Primeval Titan

The undisputed champion of the M11 Titans, Primeval Titan would be incredibly powerful if it just cast Explosive Vegetation on ETB or attack. Instead, you get a double land tutor! Did you want to assemble Dark Depths + Thespian's Stage? Perhaps obliterate your opponent with Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle? Few cards exploit utility lands as much as Prime Time. Even if you don’t maximize the land tutor, the potent mana advantage gives you the edge needed to win a game.

#2. Eternal Witness

Eternal Witness might be my favorite green card. Recurring the best spell you’ve played in a given game with zero restrictions makes it powerful, but costing 3 is just enough that you need to sequence things properly. It opens so many decision trees and offers oodles of values if you have ways to get the trigger again and again.

#1. Craterhoof Behemoth

One day I won’t put Craterhoof Behemoth at the top of a “best green X” list; on that day, we will know that power creep has gone too far, and we can put the shutters up on the LGS.

Craterhoof earns the top spot for sheer lethality. If you want to survive the turn somebody plays this, you better have a Fog. I don’t care how big your board is, you don’t have enough toughness to handle this.

Best Green ETB Payoffs

Green doesn’t interact particularly well with enters abilities, but we have a few options to optimize the ETB payoffs. This includes a few mono-green strategies, a fair number of multicolored green cards, and some great colorless support cards.

The colorless support cards primarily interact with creatures, but we’re in green, so that’s what we really care about. Panharmonicon is kind of the marquee payoff for enters abilities that has been iterated on countless times since its printing in Kaladesh. Green enters decks love it for doubling up on creature enters abilities.

If you want to retrigger your enters abilities, Conjurer's Closet should be at the top of your list for a consistent source of card advantage. If you really want that retrigger, you can also use Voyager Staff for a relatively cheap one-shot flicker effect.

Mono-green has a few strategies to get some extra benefit from the ETB effects, even if it’s not as effective as blue or white. Green is very good at returning cards to your hand from your graveyard. This isn’t as great as blink effects, but cards like Unnatural Restoration, Regrowth, and especially Eternal Witness can give you opportunities to get more ETB triggers at a slower pace. Temur Sabertooth is another return option from the battlefield.

To get some of the best ETB triggers, you should cheat your green cards onto the battlefield with great mono-green cards like Natural Order, Pattern of Rebirth, Kona, Rescue Beastie, or Smuggler's Surprise.

Loot, Exuberant Explorer is the best mono-green commander that can truly benefit from these ETB cards.

But not everyone rocks mono-green, and yet they still might want to use these great ETB effects. Some great G+ cards that can help pay off your ETB effects are Colossal Grave-Reaver and Yarok, the Desecrated. If you're looking for a commander that splashes green and can benefit your ETB cards, look no further than The Mimeoplasm.

Wrap Up

Elvish Visionary | Illustration by D. Alexander Gregory

Cards with enters abilities are invaluable to get the immediate value and two-for-ones (or better) you need to compete in a game of Commander. Even away from that format, these cards help you pull ahead of your opponents and bury them beneath a verdant force that Overruns them.

What’s your favorite green enters card? How do you get the most value from them? Let me know in the comments below or on the Draftsim Discord!

Stay safe and keep growing!