Growing Dread
Enchantment
Flash
When this enchantment enters, manifest dread. (Look at the top two cards of your library. Put one onto the battlefield face down as a 2/2 creature and the other into your graveyard. Turn it face up any time for its mana cost if it's a creature card.)
Whenever you turn a permanent face up, put a +1/+1 counter on it.
- CMC
- 2
- Mana cost
- Color identity
- GU
- Rarity
- uncommon
- Set
- Duskmourn: House of Horror
- Price
- $0.08
- EDHREC rank
- #10640
Growing Dread puts a cumulative-upkeep enchantment on an opponent's creature that, once the age counters stack up, destroys it — a removal spell on a delay that also taxes their mana. The cost is exactly that delay: patient tables will pay the upkeep and never let the trigger fire, which makes Growing Dread most dangerous when Zimone, Mystery Unraveler is turning surplus mana and card advantage into pressure fast enough that opponents can't afford to keep up.
Best Commanders
Commanders with the highest synergy
Zimone, Mystery Unraveler
Zimone, Mystery Unraveler's engine rewards flooding the board with cheap, high-velocity plays, and Growing Dread slips in as a low-cost answer that also drains opponent resources across the table — exactly the kind of incremental attrition Zimone decks want alongside their combo lines.
Kadena, Slinking Sorcerer
Kadena, Slinking Sorcerer decks lean on morph and facedown creatures to generate free card draw, and Growing Dread fills a removal slot at a mana cost that doesn't compete with the turn-two facedown curve — it threads onto a target and largely takes care of itself.
Vannifar, Evolved Enigma
Vannifar, Evolved Enigma cares about casting spells with unexpected or disguised identities, and Growing Dread provides soft removal that scales with game length, buying time for Vannifar's transform and tempo game to come online.
Format Analysis
Where it lives, where it can’t
| Format | Verdict |
|---|---|
| commander | legal |
| legacy | legal |
| modern | legal |
| pioneer | legal |
| standard | legal |
| vintage | legal |
| pauper | not legal |
| oathbreaker | legal |
Growing Dread is legal across every major Constructed format but is essentially a Commander card — cumulative upkeep removal is far too slow for Modern, Pioneer, or Legacy, where games end before the age counters matter. In Standard it occupies a niche at best, viable only in dedicated enchantment or stax builds that can exploit the upkeep drain. Commander is where Growing Dread earns its slot: longer games mean the clock actually runs, and multiplayer tables create real decisions about whether to pay the tax or let the creature die. In Oathbreaker the faster pace pushes it toward the fringe, but two-player pods with slower goldfish strategies can get real mileage from it.
Key Combos
Combo lines featuring this card
Price Context
Current price
$0.08 bulk tier
At $0.08, Growing Dread is deep bulk — you're paying less than a postage stamp for a card you'll almost always pick up as throw-in. Bulk enchantments with narrow homes don't appreciate, so treat this as a zero-cost slot-filler for the right deck rather than a pickup with any financial upside.
Explore
Sources
Mentioned
- Zimone, Mystery Unraveler
- Kadena, Slinking Sorcerer
- Vannifar, Evolved Enigma
Updated . Data from Scryfall, EDHREC, and Commander Spellbook.