Gnat Miser
Creature — Rat Shaman
Each opponent's maximum hand size is reduced by one.
- CMC
- 1
- Mana cost
- Color identity
- B
- Rarity
- common
- Set
- Saviors of Kamigawa
- Price
- $0.87
- EDHREC rank
- #7390
Gnat Miser cuts every opponent's maximum hand size by one the moment it enters — in a four-player game, that's three fewer cards your opponents can hold at end step for zero additional cost. At one black mana for a 1/1, the rate is poor, but Karumonix, the Rat King turns it into a Rat tribal piece that stacks with every other hand-size reducer in the deck.
Best Commanders
Commanders with the highest synergy
Karumonix, the Rat King
Karumonix, the Rat King's poison strategy wants Rats for the tribal count, and Gnat Miser slots in as a one-drop that pulls double duty — contributing to the Rat census while chipping away at opponent hand sizes in a deck already running Miser effects.
Marrow-Gnawer
Marrow-Gnawer floods the board with Rat tokens, and Gnat Miser is a cheap Rat that stacks hand-size pressure alongside every other discard and disruption piece the archetype runs.
Ashcoat of the Shadow Swarm
Ashcoat of the Shadow Swarm cares about small black creatures dying and returning, and Gnat Miser is a cheap, recursion-friendly Rat that keeps the hand-size squeeze active through multiple loops.
Wick, the Whorled Mind
Wick, the Whorled Mind rewards piling on hand-size and hand-disruption effects, making Gnat Miser a natural fit as a one-mana piece that contributes to the cumulative pressure strategy.
Winter, Misanthropic Guide
Winter, Misanthropic Guide leans into making opponents discard and struggle to rebuild, and Gnat Miser compounds that by ensuring opponents hit end step with a smaller maximum hand than they planned around.
Format Analysis
Where it lives, where it can’t
| Format | Verdict |
|---|---|
| commander | legal |
| legacy | legal |
| modern | legal |
| pioneer | not legal |
| standard | not legal |
| vintage | legal |
| pauper | legal |
| oathbreaker | legal |
Gnat Miser is a Commander card — full stop. In 60-card formats like Legacy and Pauper, one-mana 1/1s that don't apply immediate pressure are too slow to matter, and hand-size reduction only punishes opponents holding cards rather than depleting the hand directly. In Pauper specifically, aggressive black decks have more efficient one-drops and discard spells that do the job faster. Commander is where Gnat Miser earns its slot: multiplayer math means one copy shrinks three opponents' hand sizes simultaneously, and in a Rat tribal shell the tribal type covers the cost of running a 1/1 with no other text.
Key Combos
Combo lines featuring this card
Price Context
Current price
$0.87 bulk tier
At $0.87, Gnat Miser sits at the high end of bulk — not a throw-in, but not an investment either. The price is narrow-deck premium: it's bought almost exclusively by Rat tribal players, so supply stays low enough to avoid true bulk pricing despite being a fringe card.
Explore
Sources
Updated . Data from Scryfall, EDHREC, and Commander Spellbook.