Aboroth
Creature — Elemental
Cumulative upkeep—Put a -1/-1 counter on this creature. (At the beginning of your upkeep, put an age counter on this permanent, then sacrifice it unless you pay its upkeep cost for each age counter on it.)
- CMC
- 6
- Mana cost
- Color identity
- G
- Rarity
- rare
- Set
- Weatherlight
- Price
- $1.04
- EDHREC rank
- #26029
Aboroth hits the board as a 9/9 for six mana — one of the largest bodies you can slam at that cost — but it shrinks by three counters every upkeep, turning a threat into a liability inside a few turns. It belongs in decks that can exploit -1/-1 counters or reset the clock before the self-destruction kicks in; anywhere else, it's a countdown to a 0/0.
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 only realistic home for Aboroth, and even there it demands a specific shell — Hapatra, Vizier of Poisons or Iyanla, Great Mother of Beasts type builds that weaponize the -1/-1 counters it sheds every upkeep rather than watching them drain the card dry. In Legacy and Vintage it's legal but irrelevant; six mana for a self-destructing creature doesn't compete with what those formats are doing at any point on the curve. Aboroth is a build-around piece in one corner of Commander, not a cross-format staple.
Key Combos
Combo lines featuring this card
Price Context
Current price
$1.04 cheap tier
At $1.04, Aboroth sits in the bulk-rare tier — cheap enough that the financial risk of trying it is essentially zero. Demand is narrow enough that the price isn't going anywhere, so there's no urgency to buy in and no meaningful upside to sitting on copies.
Explore
Sources
Mentioned
Updated . Data from Scryfall, EDHREC, and Commander Spellbook.