Last updated on February 24, 2026
Faces of the Past | Illustration by Wayne England
Ashling, the Limitless has driven another card to spike as the price of Faces of the Past soared this week, moving from $2 dollars to an average of $7.50. This spike can be attributed to its synergy with Ashling, the most popular commander from Lorwyn Eclipsed and one of the strongest elemental commanders.
Source: MTGStocks.com
Faces + Ashling = Mana Generation
Flamebraider | Illustration by Pete Venters
The synergy is clear: When a creature dies, Faces of the Past untaps all creatures that share a type with it. This works with Ashling because its evoke makes you sacrifice elementals. Each time you use its ability, you get another Faces trigger. Repeatedly untapping your creatures becomes meaningful only if they have powerful abilities worth tapping them for.
Luckily, elementals do because of various mana dorks.
The best of these are Flamebraider and Smokebraider, twin dorks that tap for two mana that can only be spent on elementals. This includes alternative costs, like evoke; one dork pays for half an evoke trigger, so you can squeeze a few extra elementals from it. If you get lucky enough to have both, or find a way to copy one, it becomes even better as the two dorks cover the full evoke cost. Combine that with elementals that draw cards like Mulldrifter and Shinestriker, and you have the recipe for an explosive turn.
Even looking away from those two mana dorks, elementals have a handful of other strong options, including but not limited to Bramble Familiar, Tangled Florahedron, and Leafkin Druid (another dork that potentially taps for two mana).
If those dorks aren’t enough to fuel your Faces of the Past dreams, a handful of cards make all creatures into mana dorks. Elven Chorus and Inga and Esika are the strongest since they double as card advantage, but Cryptolith Rite has it beat for efficiency, and Enduring Vitality is extremely resilient since it needs to either be exiled or removed twice.
Using Faces from the Past
Assuming that Faces from the Past is primarily used as a mana engine, there are a few ways to maximize it. First and foremost, card advantage! Card draw and ramp go together like Splinter Twin and Pestermite. A few notable cards have already been touched on: elementals that draw cards, like Shinestriker, and Elven Chorus, which lets you play creatures from the top of your library. Cards like Risen Reef, Soul of the Harvest, and Nulldrifter also help.
You can also look towards combos to make the Scourge rare tick. The easiest one is Grave Sifter, Ashling, the Limitless, and elemental mana dorks that tap for at least mana.
Grave Sifter—another card that spiked post-Ashling—has a great little trick with the commander. When you evoke an elemental with an enters ability, you choose which ability goes on the stack first: the enters ability or the evoke trigger, which sacrifices the creature. If you resolve the evoke trigger first, Grave Sifter returns itself to your hand with its enters ability, and that’s crucial to this combo.
As long as you untap enough dorks to pay for the evoke cost, you can keep looping Grave Sifter , and get infinite untaps along the way.
The most direct way to translate this to a win is probably Cinder Pyromancer, an elemental that taps to burn your opponents. This loop could also generate infinite mana with dorks that tap for five or more mana since you net a minimum of one mana per loop. With infinite mana, you could then add an elemental to loop alongside Graveshifter like Omnath, Locus of the Roil or Vibrance that deal damage when they enter.
Faces from the Past has incredible potential in an Ashling, the Limitless Commander deck. It may not be a mandatory inclusion, but, with the right build, it leads to explosive turns and even combo finishes that wouldn’t be possible without it.
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A.L. Walser
A. L. Walser – also known as nissaflamecaller online – has been playing Magic since 2009 and the release of the original Zendikar set. An avid drafter with a bit of a Vorthos streak, his favorite aspect of playing Magic comes from the act of building a deck from nothing.