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Insidious Roots

Enchantment

Creature tokens you control have "{T}: Add one mana of any color."
Whenever one or more creature cards leave your graveyard, create a 0/1 green Plant creature token, then put a +1/+1 counter on each Plant you control.

CMC
2
Mana cost
{B}{G}
Color identity
BG
Rarity
uncommon
Set
Murders at Karlov Manor
Price
$1.96
EDHREC rank
#1337
Buy on TCGplayer
Insidious Roots card art
Insidious Roots turns every creature leaving your graveyard into a free plant token, then threatens to make those tokens enormous the moment you dump a full graveyard in one shot. Pair it with Tortured Existence to cycle creatures in and out repeatedly, and the token generation becomes effectively free and infinite — The Mycotyrant loves this for obvious reasons.

Best Commanders

Commanders with the highest synergy

01
The Mycotyrant

The Mycotyrant

56.8% of decks · synergy 0.46

The Mycotyrant doubles down on every creature entering from your graveyard, and Insidious Roots fires on the same trigger — every discard-and-recur loop produces both a plant token and a fungus from The Mycotyrant, creating a board state that scales exponentially with each activation.

03
Tayam, Luminous Enigma

Tayam, Luminous Enigma

53.7% of decks · synergy 0.44

Tayam, Luminous Enigma grinds creatures through the graveyard turn after turn, and Insidious Roots converts that attrition into a creature advantage that compounds — the plants themselves can fuel Tayam's counters cost if you're running token-based permanents.

04

Grist, Voracious Larva

51.7% of decks · synergy 0.41

Grist, Voracious Larva mills insects into the graveyard and recurs them repeatedly, and Insidious Roots tags along on every recur trigger, building a token army alongside the insect count that Grist, Voracious Larva already wants.

05
Zask, Skittering Swarmlord

Zask, Skittering Swarmlord

45.7% of decks · synergy 0.35

Zask, Skittering Swarmlord casts insects from the graveyard, and each cast triggering Insidious Roots means the deck generates plant tokens on top of the insect swarm it's already assembling — efficient use of a slot that would otherwise need to justify itself.

Format Analysis

Where it lives, where it can’t

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

Commander is where Insidious Roots does its best work — graveyard-centric strategies are everywhere, recursion loops are easy to assemble, and the card's ceiling of generating dozens of tokens in a single turn is genuinely game-ending. In Modern and Pioneer, Insidious Roots sees fringe play in dedicated graveyard shells, but the lack of redundancy and the vulnerability to graveyard hate make it a build-around rather than a staple. Legacy has the tools to abuse it, but faster linear decks don't need it. Standard gives it the most curated home for casual deckbuilding, where the graveyard synergies are slower and Insidious Roots can snowball without the hate.

Key Combos

Combo lines featuring this card

721 decks
Peregrin TookCauldron FamiliarAshnod's AltarInsidious Roots

Peregrin TookCauldron FamiliarAshnod's AltarInsidious Roots

Infinite colorless mana; Infinite creature tokens; Infinite death triggers; Infinite ETB; Infinite lifegain; Infinite lifegain triggers; Infinite lifeloss; Infinite LTB; Infinite sacrifice triggers; Infinite +1/+1 counters on certain creatures; Infinite card draw; Infinite draw triggers; Infinite Food tokens

View on Commander Spellbook ↗

Price Context

Current price

$1.96 cheap tier

At $1.96, Insidious Roots is firmly in the cheap tier — strong enough to anchor a Commander strategy, priced low enough that there's no reason to cut it on budget grounds. Cards with this combination of combo potential and cross-archetype demand rarely stay under two dollars permanently, so picking up copies now is straightforward value.

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Sources

Mentioned

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