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Aatchik, Emerald Radian

Legendary Creature — Insect Druid

When Aatchik enters, create a 1/1 green Insect creature token for each artifact and/or creature card in your graveyard.
Whenever another Insect you control dies, put a +1/+1 counter on Aatchik. Each opponent loses 1 life.

CMC
6
Mana cost
{3}{B}{B}{G}
Color identity
BG
Rarity
rare
Set
Aetherdrift
Price
$0.36
EDHREC rank
#7522
Buy on TCGplayer
Aatchik, Emerald Radian card art
Aatchik, Emerald Radian turns every insect death into a mana source, which in the right shell means your sacrifice outlets pay for themselves mid-loop. The cost is real — you need a critical mass of insect tokens and a payoff to close — but paired with Phyrexian Altar, Aatchik generates the kind of redundancy that makes Zask, Skittering Swarmlord decks genuinely threatening.

Best Commanders

Commanders with the highest synergy

01
Zask, Skittering Swarmlord

Zask, Skittering Swarmlord

70.7% of decks · synergy 0.67

Zask, Skittering Swarmlord is the natural home — over 70% of Zask lists run Aatchik, Emerald Radian because every insect Zask mills and returns feeds the death-trigger mana engine, turning the graveyard loop into a self-fueling machine.

02
Grist, the Hunger Tide

Grist, the Hunger Tide

63.6% of decks · synergy 0.60

Grist, the Hunger Tide mills insects constantly and then cashes them in as removal, so Aatchik, Emerald Radian converts each sacrifice into mana that powers the next activation — over 63% of Grist lists have made this connection.

03

Grist, Voracious Larva

41.2% of decks · synergy 0.38

Grist, Voracious Larva feeds on insect deaths directly, and Aatchik, Emerald Radian turns each of those deaths into float mana, keeping the chain moving without taxing your land base.

04
Xira, the Golden Sting

Xira, the Golden Sting

37.4% of decks · synergy 0.37

Xira, the Golden Sting needs a steady stream of insects to sting and sac, and Aatchik, Emerald Radian provides the mana cushion that lets Xira activate repeatedly in the same turn without stalling.

Format Analysis

Where it lives, where it can’t

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

Aatchik, Emerald Radian is a Commander card — full stop. The insect-death trigger is too conditional for the creature-dense, fast-paced environments of Modern or Pioneer, where you rarely control enough of the battlefield to profit, and the effect doesn't replace itself. In Legacy and Vintage, the competition for a three-mana do-nothing-on-entry slot is simply too stiff. Commander is where Aatchik earns its keep: slower games, tribal synergies, and sacrifice engines give the trigger time to fire repeatedly, and 100-card decks running insect themes have enough redundancy to make the mana generation feel inevitable rather than incidental.

Key Combos

Combo lines featuring this card

45 decks
Aatchik, Emerald RadianPhyrexian AltarTemur Sabertooth

Aatchik, Emerald RadianPhyrexian AltarTemur Sabertooth

Infinite LTB; Infinite ETB; Infinite colored mana; Infinite sacrifice triggers; Infinite death triggers; Infinite storm count; Infinite creature tokens; Infinite lifeloss; Infinite +1/+1 counters on a creature; Infinite blinking

View on Commander Spellbook ↗

Price Context

Current price

$0.36 bulk tier

At $0.36, Aatchik, Emerald Radian is deep bulk — easy to pick up as a four-of or stuff into any insect build without budget friction. Demand is narrow enough that the price is unlikely to climb unless a new high-profile insect commander drives fresh interest.

Explore

Sources

Mentioned

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