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Bristly Bill, Spine Sower

Legendary Creature — Plant Druid

Landfall — Whenever a land you control enters, put a +1/+1 counter on target creature.
{3}{G}{G}: Double the number of +1/+1 counters on each creature you control.

CMC
2
Mana cost
{1}{G}
Color identity
G
Rarity
mythic
Set
Outlaws of Thunder Junction
Price
$63.89
EDHREC rank
#890
Buy on TCGplayer
Bristly Bill, Spine Sower card art
Bristly Bill, Spine Sower turns every land drop into a +1/+1 counter engine, and in untap-abuse shells like Devoted Druid it snowballs out of hand fast. Kirri, Talented Sprout decks run it in over half their lists for a reason — the payoff is immediate and the two-mana body is easy to slot in.

Best Commanders

Commanders with the highest synergy

01
Kirri, Talented Sprout

Kirri, Talented Sprout

57.1% of decks · synergy 0.53

Kirri, Talented Sprout's landfall triggers stack directly with Bristly Bill, Spine Sower, turning each land drop into double value — counters from Bristly Bill plus whatever Kirri herself generates off the same trigger.

02
Cleopatra, Exiled Pharaoh

Cleopatra, Exiled Pharaoh

45.8% of decks · synergy 0.43

Cleopatra, Exiled Pharaoh rewards amassing permanents and distributing counters across the board, making Bristly Bill, Spine Sower a consistent counter printer that feeds directly into Cleopatra's scaling payoffs.

03
Toph, Earthbending Master

Toph, Earthbending Master

48.5% of decks · synergy 0.40

Toph, Earthbending Master's landfall-heavy gameplan treats every land as a resource, and Bristly Bill, Spine Sower converts each of those triggers into a permanent stat boost that compounds over a long game.

04
Tifa Lockhart

Tifa Lockhart

46.8% of decks · synergy 0.38

Tifa Lockhart rewards stacking +1/+1 counters on a single creature for outsized combat damage, and Bristly Bill, Spine Sower is one of the cheapest engines that keeps feeding her counter quota off ordinary land drops.

05
Reyhan, Last of the AbzanYoshimaru, Ever Faithful

Reyhan, Last of the Abzan // Yoshimaru, Ever Faithful

39.5% of decks · synergy 0.37

Reyhan, Last of the Abzan // Yoshimaru, Ever Faithful thrives on counter density across multiple creatures, and Bristly Bill, Spine Sower supplies that density for free every time a land enters play.

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

Commander is where Bristly Bill, Spine Sower does its best work — 99-card games go long enough for the counter accumulation to matter, and the density of landfall support and untap effects in green makes the ceiling genuinely high. In Constructed formats like Modern and Pioneer, it's legal but rarely sees play; two mana for a 1/2 that requires land drops to generate value is too slow against aggressive opposition and too fragile against targeted removal. Standard gives it the most hospitable Constructed environment if a landfall or counters synergy shell exists in the format, but it still competes against faster payoffs. Legacy and Vintage have no interest — the power ceiling isn't close to what those formats demand. Oathbreaker is a real home if you're pairing it with a counters-matter planeswalker, since the condensed game length still allows a few land drops to matter.

Key Combos

Combo lines featuring this card

327 decks
Lonis, Genetics ExpertBristly Bill, Spine SowerAcademy Manufactor

Lonis, Genetics ExpertBristly Bill, Spine SowerAcademy Manufactor

Infinite lifegain triggers; Infinite lifegain; Infinite card draw; Infinite draw triggers; Infinite Treasure tokens; Infinite Clue tokens; Infinite Food tokens; Infinite +1/+1 counters on creatures you control; Infinite colored mana

View on Commander Spellbook ↗

Budget Alternatives

Cheaper options that do most of the same work

Hardened Scales does the multiplicative counter work at one mana for under a dollar, and while it doesn't generate counters on its own, it dramatically amplifies any other counter source you're already running. Fertilid offers repeatable landfall triggering at three mana and synergizes with Bristly Bill, Spine Sower's engine, but it doesn't replicate the consistent per-land-drop counter generation — if you need the specific landfall-to-counter pipeline on a body, there's no direct swap under five dollars that matches it.

Price Context

Current price

$63.89 premium tier

At $63.89, Bristly Bill, Spine Sower sits firmly in premium territory, driven by its combo ceiling and concentrated demand from counter-synergy Commander builds. It holds value as long as that archetype stays popular, but it's a card you buy because you're building the deck, not as a spec.

Explore

Sources

Mentioned

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