Contaminant Grafter
Creature — Phyrexian Druid
Trample, toxic 1
Whenever one or more creatures you control deal combat damage to one or more players, proliferate.
Corrupted — At the beginning of your end step, if an opponent has three or more poison counters, draw a card, then you may put a land card from your hand onto the battlefield.
- CMC
- 5
- Mana cost
- Color identity
- G
- Rarity
- rare
- Set
- Phyrexia: All Will Be One Commander
- Price
- $11.11
- EDHREC rank
- #3818
Contaminant Grafter puts a poison counter on every creature that deals combat damage to an opponent — not just yours, everyone's — which means it accelerates infect wins without requiring an all-in poison strategy. Ixhel, Scion of Atraxa decks run it in nearly 79% of lists because it does real work on a 2/3 body for four mana, and that number is honest.
Best Commanders
Commanders with the highest synergy
Ixhel, Scion of Atraxa
Contaminant Grafter is essentially a core piece for Ixhel, Scion of Atraxa — Ixhel's corrupted trigger requires opponents to have three or more poison counters, and the Grafter's global combat-damage trigger gets the table there faster than almost anything else at this price point.
Vishgraz, the Doomhive
Vishgraz, the Doomhive wants the table poisoned quickly so its Mite tokens enter with relevant stats, and Contaminant Grafter's passive applies to every swinging creature, not just your own, making it a reliable poison accelerant even in combat-heavy metas.
Fynn, the Fangbearer
Fynn, the Fangbearer already kills with deathtouch creatures dealing combat damage, and Contaminant Grafter layers extra poison counters onto those same hits — opponents racing to stabilize against Fynn now take collateral poison from any creature that gets through.
Agent Frank Horrigan
Agent Frank Horrigan's toxic and menace package wants opponents poisoned early for maximum pressure, and Contaminant Grafter adds a global poison trigger that compounds the threat without requiring additional combat steps.
Ezuri, Stalker of Spheres
Ezuri, Stalker of Spheres cares about proliferate and counters broadly, and Contaminant Grafter feeds that engine by distributing poison counters across the table through normal combat, giving Ezuri more targets to proliferate up toward the ten-poison threshold.
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 |
Contaminant Grafter is where it belongs: Commander. The card's strength scales with the number of players, multiple combatants, and the longer time horizon needed to accumulate poison counters — a four-player pod is exactly the right environment. In Legacy and Vintage it's technically legal but has no competitive application; dedicated infect strategies in those formats win far faster through direct pump spells and evasive one-drops. Oathbreaker could theoretically host it in a poison shell, but the two-player default shrinks the upside of a global trigger. Play it in Commander or don't bother.
Key Combos
Combo lines featuring this card
Budget Alternatives
Cheaper options that do most of the same work
Generous Ent and Ichor Rats each spread poison counters more efficiently at lower mana costs — Ichor Rats in particular poisons every opponent the moment it enters, with no combat step required, for under a dollar. The trade-off versus Contaminant Grafter is durability: the Grafter sits on the board and keeps generating poison through future combat, while one-shot ETB effects front-load their value and disappear.
Price Context
Current price
$11.11 mid tier
At $11.11, Contaminant Grafter sits in the mid tier — expensive for a single creature in a support role, but justified by the 79% inclusion rate in its premier home. Cards with that kind of adoption in a high-volume commander archetype tend to hold this price floor rather than crater.
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Sources
Updated . Data from Scryfall, EDHREC, and Commander Spellbook.