Bilious Skulldweller
Creature — Phyrexian Insect
Deathtouch
Toxic 1 (Players dealt combat damage by this creature also get a poison counter.)
- CMC
- 1
- Mana cost
- Color identity
- B
- Rarity
- uncommon
- Set
- Phyrexia: All Will Be One
- Price
- $0.35
- EDHREC rank
- #4667
Bilious Skulldweller is a one-mana 1/1 with toxic 2 — it poisons opponents out faster than its body suggests, and in a dedicated infect or poison-counter shell it pulls real weight. Ixhel, Scion of Atraxa decks run it because two poison counters on turn one forces opponents to respect the clock immediately.
Best Commanders
Commanders with the highest synergy
Ixhel, Scion of Atraxa
Ixhel, Scion of Atraxa wins by stacking poison counters, and Bilious Skulldweller's toxic 2 means a single unblocked hit on turn one puts any opponent 20% of the way to dead before Ixhel even hits the board.
Vishgraz, the Doomhive
Vishgraz, the Doomhive cares about opponents having poison counters to scale its own token production, and Bilious Skulldweller is one of the cheapest ways to land those counters early and turn Vishgraz's enter-the-battlefield trigger into a flood of Mites.
Skithiryx, the Blight Dragon
Skithiryx, the Blight Dragon is the infect endgame, and Bilious Skulldweller fills the one-drop slot that keeps early pressure on while Skithiryx waits in the command zone for the kill swing.
Agent Frank Horrigan
Agent Frank Horrigan rewards running a wide threat suite with toxic creatures, and Bilious Skulldweller is a near-free inclusion that contributes poison counters without asking much of the mana base.
Grist, the Hunger Tide
Grist, the Hunger Tide is an Insect tribal engine, and Bilious Skulldweller qualifies as an Insect — it earns its slot by doubling as a poison threat while feeding Grist's mill and token generation.
Format Analysis
Where it lives, where it can’t
| Format | Verdict |
|---|---|
| commander | legal |
| legacy | legal |
| modern | legal |
| pioneer | legal |
| standard | not legal |
| vintage | legal |
| pauper | not legal |
| oathbreaker | legal |
Bilious Skulldweller is a Commander card in practice — toxic is a mechanic designed for multiplayer poison-counter accumulation, and the payoff doesn't translate to one-on-one formats where infect's ten-counter threshold is far more efficient. In Modern and Legacy, a one-mana 1/1 with toxic 2 competes against Glistener Elf and Blighted Agent, both of which are strictly faster kills; Bilious Skulldweller doesn't make that cut. Pioneer has no meaningful infect shell to support it. Commander is where Bilious Skulldweller actually belongs — three opponents mean three poison clocks running simultaneously, and a turn-one drop that forces an early trade or lands two counters is legitimate tempo in a poison deck.
Key Combos
Combo lines featuring this card
Price Context
Current price
$0.35 bulk tier
At $0.35, Bilious Skulldweller is firmly bulk — pick it up without thinking about it. Bulk poison creatures rarely spike unless a new pushed commander drags the whole archetype up, so don't expect the price to move.
Explore
Sources
Updated . Data from Scryfall, EDHREC, and Commander Spellbook.