Caustic Wasps
Creature — Insect
Flying
Whenever this creature deals combat damage to a player, you may destroy target artifact that player controls.
- CMC
- 3
- Mana cost
- Color identity
- G
- Rarity
- uncommon
- Set
- Mercadian Masques
- Price
- $0.90
- EDHREC rank
- #14031
Caustic Wasps trades one artifact per swing for a 1/1 flying body — cheap, repeatable, and surprisingly hard to ignore at the table. At one green mana, the cost is negligible; the ceiling in Grist, the Hunger Tide or any insect-matters shell is high enough that cutting it is the wrong call.
Best Commanders
Commanders with the highest synergy
Grist, the Hunger Tide
Grist, the Hunger Tide's -2 mills and reanimates insects, meaning Caustic Wasps loops back from the graveyard to keep nuking artifacts turn after turn.
Zask, Skittering Swarmlord
Zask, Skittering Swarmlord triggers on insects dying and entering, so Caustic Wasps chips away at artifact-heavy opponents while feeding Zask's card-advantage engine every time it gets chumped or killed.
Xira, the Golden Sting
Xira, the Golden Sting cares about putting egg counters on opponents, and Caustic Wasps does that work in the air while also dismantling mana rocks — two jobs for one mana.
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 |
Caustic Wasps is a Commander card, full stop. In Legacy and Vintage, a 1/1 flyer that requires combat damage to destroy an artifact doesn't clear the bar — Null Rod and Force of Vigor are doing that job faster and more reliably. Commander is where the card earns its slot: multiplayer games run thick with Sol Rings and Skullclamps, evasion keeps Caustic Wasps swinging through the mid-game, and insect-tribal synergies multiply its value well beyond the rate on the card itself. Oathbreaker follows the same logic as Commander — playable in the right build, irrelevant outside it.
Key Combos
Combo lines featuring this card
Price Context
Current price
$0.90 bulk tier
At $0.90, Caustic Wasps sits at the top of bulk pricing — it's not a throw-in, but it's close. The price is stable because demand is narrow and consistent: insect commanders want it, everyone else ignores it, and that ceiling isn't changing.
Explore
Sources
Mentioned
- Grist, the Hunger Tide
- Zask, Skittering Swarmlord
- Xira, the Golden Sting
Updated . Data from Scryfall, EDHREC, and Commander Spellbook.