Kederekt Parasite
Creature — Horror
Whenever an opponent draws a card, if you control a red permanent, you may have this creature deal 1 damage to that player.
- CMC
- 1
- Mana cost
- Color identity
- B
- Rarity
- rare
- Set
- Duskmourn: House of Horror Commander
- Price
- $6.48
- EDHREC rank
- #2011
Kederekt Parasite drains each opponent for 1 life every time they draw a card — pair it with a wheel effect like Windfall and the table loses a chunk of life in a single trigger chain. The cost is a real one: you need another red permanent in play, which means it's dead on entry if your board is empty, making Valgavoth, Harrower of Souls the ideal home where that condition is almost always satisfied.
Best Commanders
Commanders with the highest synergy
Valgavoth, Harrower of Souls
Valgavoth, Harrower of Souls naturally enables Kederekt Parasite's red-permanent requirement while also rewarding opponents losing life, so every card draw punishes and every point of drain feeds the overall engine.
Ob Nixilis, Captive Kingpin
Ob Nixilis, Captive Kingpin triggers whenever an opponent loses exactly 1 life, and Kederekt Parasite deals exactly 1 per draw — each card an opponent draws is a free +1/+1 counter and an extra card for Ob Nixilis.
Nekusar, the Mindrazer
Nekusar, the Mindrazer already makes opponents pay life for every card drawn, and Kederekt Parasite stacks another point of damage on top of each draw trigger, compressing opponents' life totals twice as fast per wheel.
The Lord of Pain
The Lord of Pain converts every point of damage opponents take from any source into a ping to all players, so Kederekt Parasite's per-draw drains feed a secondary damage multiplier across the entire table.
Winter, Misanthropic Guide
Winter, Misanthropic Guide forces extra draws and wants opponents bleeding from each one, making Kederekt Parasite a natural inclusion that turns Winter's draw-forcing effects into life loss at scale.
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 | not legal |
| oathbreaker | legal |
Kederekt Parasite is legal in Commander, Legacy, Modern, Vintage, and Oathbreaker, but Commander is where it actually earns a slot. In Legacy and Vintage the effect is too slow and conditional — competitive lists have faster, unconditional damage engines — so Kederekt Parasite sees essentially no play there. Modern has enough wheel-adjacent shells to imagine it, but the red-permanent dependency is a meaningful liability in a format where boards are disrupted constantly. Commander is the format where the card is at its ceiling: multiplayer math means three opponents drawing from a single Windfall translates to a lot of drain, and the red-permanent condition is easy to satisfy in the decks that want it.
Key Combos
Combo lines featuring this card
WindfallGrafted ExoskeletonKederekt Parasite
Each opponent loses the game
View on Commander Spellbook ↗
Budget Alternatives
Cheaper options that do most of the same work
Spiteful Visions and Fate Unraveler both deal damage for each card drawn without requiring a second permanent in play, making them more reliable in shells that can't guarantee a red permanent on board. Kederekt Parasite has higher ceiling in the right deck — one point per draw across three opponents adds up faster than a symmetric effect — but if your list can't consistently meet the condition, either of those will outperform it in practice.
Price Context
Current price
$6.48 mid tier
At $6.48, Kederekt Parasite sits in the mid tier — meaningful enough to think twice about buying a playset, but not so expensive it should deter you in Commander where you only need one. The price is driven almost entirely by Valgavoth demand; if that commander's popularity cools, so will the price tag.
Explore
Sources
Updated . Data from Scryfall, EDHREC, and Commander Spellbook.