Brood of Cockroaches
Creature — Insect
When this creature is put into your graveyard from the battlefield, at the beginning of the next end step, you lose 1 life and return this card to your hand.
- CMC
- 2
- Mana cost
- Color identity
- B
- Rarity
- uncommon
- Set
- The List
- Price
- $0.21
- EDHREC rank
- #16466
Brood of Cockroaches is a recursive 1/1 that returns to your hand from the graveyard whenever you lose life — free fodder for sacrifice loops, discard payoffs, and token-matters engines at the cost of just one black mana to replay. Fumulus, the Infestation is the natural home, but anywhere you need a creature that refuses to stay dead, this earns its slot.
Best Commanders
Commanders with the highest synergy
Fumulus, the Infestation
Fumulus, the Infestation triggers off creatures entering and leaving the battlefield, and Brood of Cockroaches practically automates that loop — every life payment bounces it back to hand, ready to be cast again for another trigger.
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 |
Brood of Cockroaches is legal in Commander, Legacy, Vintage, and Oathbreaker, but its real home is Commander, where recursive creatures compound over long games and sacrifice synergies run deep. In Legacy and Vintage it's outclassed — those formats demand more immediate impact than a 1/1 that requires life loss to recur. Oathbreaker can support the same aristocrats shells that Commander does, so it's a reasonable include there if your planeswalker cares about the graveyard or sacrifice loops. Anywhere else, it simply isn't available.
Key Combos
Combo lines featuring this card
Price Context
Current price
$0.21 bulk tier
At $0.21, Brood of Cockroaches is deep bulk — the kind of card you pick up as a throw-in without thinking twice. Bulk rares with narrow recursive utility rarely spike unless a new commander breaks them wide open, so treat it as a cheap enabler rather than a hold.
Explore
Sources
Mentioned
- Fumulus, the Infestation
Updated . Data from Scryfall, EDHREC, and Commander Spellbook.