Bitterblossom
Kindred Enchantment — Faerie
At the beginning of your upkeep, you lose 1 life and create a 1/1 black Faerie Rogue creature token with flying.
- CMC
- 2
- Mana cost
- Color identity
- B
- Rarity
- mythic
- Set
- Double Masters 2022
- Price
- $36.46
- EDHREC rank
- #610
Bitterblossom puts a 1/1 flying Faerie Rogue on the board every upkeep — in a multiplayer game, that's three tokens before most decks hit their fourth land drop. The one-life-per-turn cost barely registers when you're at 40, and Alela, Cunning Conqueror turns every one of those tokens into an additional trigger, compounding the engine faster than opponents can answer it.
Best Commanders
Commanders with the highest synergy
Alela, Cunning Conqueror
Alela, Cunning Conqueror triggers off each nontoken Faerie entering — Bitterblossom produces one every upkeep, so the two cards form a self-sustaining loop that floods the board with evasive bodies without requiring any additional spell investment.
Obyra, Dreaming Duelist
Obyra, Dreaming Duelist deals damage whenever a Faerie enters under your control, and Bitterblossom delivers that trigger on a fixed schedule every single turn, turning a passive enchantment into a reliable source of repeatable chip damage.
Tegwyll, Duke of Splendor
Tegwyll, Duke of Splendor draws a card and costs each opponent a life whenever a Faerie you control dies — Bitterblossom keeps the board stocked with expendable Faeries, making Tegwyll's death-triggered engine much harder to starve out.
Maralen, Fae Ascendant
Maralen, Fae Ascendant cares about building up a Faerie army at scale, and Bitterblossom is one of the few unconditional token producers that runs entirely on autopilot, supplying bodies every turn regardless of what else is happening in the game.
Alela, Artful Provocateur
Alela, Artful Provocateur creates Faerie tokens whenever an artifact or enchantment enters under your control — Bitterblossom is itself an enchantment that triggers her on the way in, then keeps adding Faeries to the swarm every subsequent turn.
Format Analysis
Where it lives, where it can’t
| Format | Verdict |
|---|---|
| commander | legal |
| legacy | legal |
| modern | legal |
| pioneer | not legal |
| standard | not legal |
| vintage | legal |
| pauper | not legal |
| oathbreaker | legal |
In Commander, Bitterblossom is a staple rather than a build-around — it slots into any black deck that wants a steady stream of evasive bodies, and Faerie tribal lists treat it as a near-mandatory inclusion. In Legacy, it was historically a pillar of Faeries tempo strategies, pairing with Mistbind Clique and Spellstutter Sprite to lock opponents out of the game; it still sees fringe play in that shell. Modern is where Bitterblossom has faded most — the format's clock is too fast for a one-token-per-turn enchantment to matter without dedicated tribal support, though it occasionally surfaces in slower midrange builds. It's legal in Vintage but rarely worth a slot in a format defined by turn-one threats and free interaction. Oathbreaker mirrors its Commander role at a smaller scale, and any Faerie-adjacent signature spell makes it a natural fit.
Key Combos
Combo lines featuring this card
Budget Alternatives
Cheaper options that do most of the same work
Mirkwood Bats and Faerie Formation both generate Faerie tokens at a fraction of the price, but neither operates on autopilot the way Bitterblossom does — they require mana or setup each turn, which makes them far more interruptible. For a true set-and-forget replacement under a few dollars, Dreadhorde Invasion is the closest functional analog, producing a token each upkeep at the cost of life, though it only ever makes one creature and that creature isn't a Faerie.
Price Context
Current price
$36.46 premium tier
At $36.46, Bitterblossom sits firmly in premium enchantment territory — comparable to other eternal staples that have been reprinted but never lost demand. It has held near this price band through multiple reprints precisely because Faerie tribal keeps attracting new players and the card has no real functional replacement.
Explore
Sources
Updated . Data from Scryfall, EDHREC, and Commander Spellbook.