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Chasm Skulker

Creature — Squid Horror

Whenever you draw a card, put a +1/+1 counter on this creature.
When this creature dies, create X 1/1 blue Squid creature tokens with islandwalk, where X is the number of +1/+1 counters on this creature. (They can't be blocked as long as defending player controls an Island.)

CMC
3
Mana cost
{2}{U}
Color identity
U
Rarity
rare
Set
Pioneer Masters
Price
—
EDHREC rank
#719
Buy on TCGplayer
Chasm Skulker card art
Chasm Skulker turns every card drawn into a growing threat — in a dedicated draw deck, it routinely becomes a 10/10 or larger before opponents can answer it, and when it dies it floods the board with Squid tokens proportional to those +1/+1 counters. Three mana is the right price for that payoff, and commanders like Arjun, the Shifting Flame or O'aka, Traveling Merchant make the counter accumulation happen faster than most tables expect.

Best Commanders

Commanders with the highest synergy

01
Arjun, the Shifting Flame

Arjun, the Shifting Flame

68.8% of decks · synergy 0.65

Arjun, the Shifting Flame replaces your hand every time you cast a spell, meaning Chasm Skulker piles up counters at a frankly unreasonable rate — a single turn of storm-lite casting can add eight or more counters before the combat step.

03
Vnwxt, Verbose Host

Vnwxt, Verbose Host

62.7% of decks · synergy 0.49

Vnwxt, Verbose Host rewards drawing cards repeatedly, and Chasm Skulker converts each of those triggers into a permanent counter that stays on the battlefield, giving the deck a scalable finisher that opponents have to respect alongside Vnwxt's other threats.

04
Sokrates, Athenian Teacher

Sokrates, Athenian Teacher

52.3% of decks · synergy 0.48

Sokrates, Athenian Teacher builds around group-draw and opponents drawing cards, and Chasm Skulker grows on every draw trigger regardless of who draws — the combination turns table-wide cantrip effects into accelerated counters that Sokrates decks are already incentivizing.

05
Captain N'ghathrod

Captain N'ghathrod

51.8% of decks · synergy 0.47

Captain N'ghathrod mills opponents and draws cards off successful attacks, and Chasm Skulker provides a secondary win condition that scales with all that card draw while producing blockers or sacrifice fodder when it eventually hits removal.

Format Analysis

Where it lives, where it can’t

FormatVerdict
commander legal
legacy legal
modern legal
pioneer legal
standard not legal
vintage legal
pauper not legal
oathbreaker legal

Commander is where Chasm Skulker belongs — 100-card singleton decks built around draw synergies give it the consistent counter accumulation it needs, and multiplayer threat density means opponents can't always prioritize a three-mana creature before it spirals out of control. In Modern and Pioneer it's legal but rarely sees play; those formats move too fast for a creature that takes multiple turns of setup to become threatening, and the payoff isn't explosive enough to justify the investment against efficient removal. Legacy and Vintage have the raw card-draw density to make Chasm Skulker large quickly, but the formats' speed and answer quality mean it still doesn't make competitive cuts. Stick it in Commander.

Key Combos

Combo lines featuring this card

Price Context

Current price

unknown tier

Pricing data for Chasm Skulker isn't currently available through this listing, so check Scryfall or your preferred vendor for the current market rate. It has been reprinted multiple times, which historically keeps copies accessible — it's rarely a budget obstacle for Commander players.

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Sources

Mentioned

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