Brain Maggot
Enchantment Creature — Insect
When this creature enters, target opponent reveals their hand and you choose a nonland card from it. Exile that card until this creature leaves the battlefield.
- CMC
- 2
- Mana cost
- Color identity
- B
- Rarity
- uncommon
- Set
- Magic Online Promos
- Price
- —
- EDHREC rank
- #15416
Brain Maggot strips a nonland card from an opponent's hand on entry and holds it hostage until the Maggot dies — that's a disruptive body that demands an answer. In Grist, the Hunger Tide builds, it doubles as an Insect for the mill-and-kill engine, which is why it shows up in roughly one in five Grist lists.
Best Commanders
Commanders with the highest synergy
Grist, the Hunger Tide
Grist, the Hunger Tide counts Brain Maggot as both a discard-on-entry threat and a free Insect body for its -2 ability, letting you strip a key piece from an opponent's hand while simultaneously fueling the graveyard engine.
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 |
In Commander, Brain Maggot is a role-player in aristocrats and Insect tribal shells — the discard effect is weaker against a table of three opponents, but the body being a permanent that triggers death-matters payoffs keeps it relevant. In Pioneer and Modern, it competes in a crowded two-drop discard slot against Thoughtseize effects that don't give the card back when they die, which limits Brain Maggot to niche creature-synergy strategies rather than pure hand disruption. Legacy barely tolerates it for the same reason — if you want to strip a card, you run something that doesn't leave a 1/1 on the board as collateral. Oathbreaker is where it quietly overperforms: the lower power threshold makes a recurrable discard body genuinely threatening, especially under black-green Planeswalker commanders that care about creatures entering and leaving play.
Key Combos
Combo lines featuring this card
Price Context
Current price
unknown tier
Current pricing data isn't available for Brain Maggot, so check Scryfall or TCGPlayer for a live number. Historically it's been a bulk rare — the kind of card you pick up as a throw-in without thinking twice about it.
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Sources
Mentioned
Updated . Data from Scryfall, EDHREC, and Commander Spellbook.