Caustic Caterpillar
Creature — Insect
, Sacrifice this creature: Destroy target artifact or enchantment.
- CMC
- 1
- Mana cost
- Color identity
- G
- Rarity
- common
- Set
- Jumpstart 2022
- Price
- $0.38
- EDHREC rank
- #3161
Caustic Caterpillar is a one-mana artifact and enchantment answer that costs you nothing to include and a single green mana to cash in — the floor is a 1/1 body, the ceiling is disruption on demand. In insect-tribal shells like Zask, Skittering Swarmlord it pulls double duty as both a creature type and a removal piece, which is the cleanest two-for-one a utility slot can offer.
Best Commanders
Commanders with the highest synergy
Zask, Skittering Swarmlord
Zask, Skittering Swarmlord runs Caustic Caterpillar in 85% of decks because it checks every box the commander wants: it's an insect, it dies on command to trigger graveyard and death synergies, and it removes a problem permanent in the process.
Grist, the Hunger Tide
Grist, the Hunger Tide is an insect-tribal mill-and-sacrifice engine, and Caustic Caterpillar feeds it on two axes — it's an insect for Grist's ability and a self-sacrificing removal piece that fills the graveyard.
Aatchik, Emerald Radian
Aatchik, Emerald Radian cares about creatures entering and leaving the battlefield, so Caustic Caterpillar's optional self-sacrifice is a free trigger that also doubles as targeted removal.
Xira, the Golden Sting
Xira, the Golden Sting rewards packing insects throughout the deck, and Caustic Caterpillar earns its slot by being cheap enough to cast under almost any mana constraint while still answering enchantments and artifacts on its way out.
Meren of Clan Nel Toth
Meren of Clan Nel Toth wants creatures that want to die, and Caustic Caterpillar is a recurring removal piece — sacrifice it to strip an artifact or enchantment, let Meren bring it back, repeat.
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 | legal |
| oathbreaker | legal |
Commander is where Caustic Caterpillar earns its reputation: enchantments and artifacts are everywhere, the one-mana cost clears almost any mana situation, and the sacrifice is optional, meaning it sits on board as insurance until you need it. In Pauper it competes with similarly costed removal like Gleeful Sabotage, but the creature type and on-demand timing give it a real case in slower sideboards. Modern and Legacy have access to strictly more efficient hate pieces, so Caustic Caterpillar doesn't register in those formats outside of highly specific insect synergy builds. Pioneer sits in a similar spot — playable in niche shells, invisible in the broader metagame.
Key Combos
Combo lines featuring this card
Price Context
Current price
$0.38 bulk tier
At $0.38, Caustic Caterpillar is pure bulk — you're paying almost nothing for a card that shows up in over 20,000 Commander decks across EDHREC. Bulk commons and uncommons at this utility level don't appreciate, but they also don't need to; the value is in what it does on the battlefield, not in the card itself.
Explore
Sources
Mentioned
- Zask, Skittering Swarmlord
- Grist, the Hunger Tide
- Aatchik, Emerald Radian
- Xira, the Golden Sting
- Meren of Clan Nel Toth
Updated . Data from Scryfall, EDHREC, and Commander Spellbook.