Phyrexian Swarmlord
Creature — Phyrexian Insect Horror
Infect (This creature deals damage to creatures in the form of -1/-1 counters and to players in the form of poison counters.)
At the beginning of your upkeep, create a 1/1 green Phyrexian Insect creature token with infect for each poison counter your opponents have.
- CMC
- 6
- Mana cost
- Color identity
- G
- Rarity
- rare
- Set
- Phyrexia: All Will Be One Commander
- Price
- $3.04
- EDHREC rank
- #4746
Phyrexian Swarmlord generates a Phyrexian Insect token for each poison counter your opponents have at the start of your combat — in a dedicated infect deck, that's a board-wide flood of bodies every single turn. The cost is real: six mana is a heavy ask, and the card does nothing until poison is already on the table, but shells like Ixhel, Scion of Atraxa spread counters fast enough to make that engine ignite, and token payoffs like Time Sieve turn the flood into something immediately lethal.
Best Commanders
Commanders with the highest synergy
Ixhel, Scion of Atraxa
Ixhel, Scion of Atraxa poisons every opponent on attack, which means Phyrexian Swarmlord can hit the table on turn six and immediately start printing insects off the work Ixhel already did.
Vishgraz, the Doomhive
Vishgraz, the Doomhive enters with Mites scaled to the poison count on the table, so both cards reward the same game state — Phyrexian Swarmlord turns that shared poison accumulation into a repeating token engine rather than a single entry.
Fynn, the Fangbearer
Fynn, the Fangbearer kills players in two deathtouch hits, and Phyrexian Swarmlord converts those early poison counters into an army that keeps the pressure up once Fynn gets answered.
Agent Frank Horrigan
Agent Frank Horrigan spreads poison and -1/-1 counters on combat damage, giving Phyrexian Swarmlord the raw counter count it needs to produce tokens while Frank handles the attacking.
Ezuri, Stalker of Spheres
Ezuri, Stalker of Spheres proliferates whenever you cast a spell with three or more power, which can tick poison counts up passively and fatten the Phyrexian Swarmlord trigger each turn.
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 |
Commander is where Phyrexian Swarmlord actually lives — four opponents means poison counters accumulate across multiple targets, and the token trigger scales with the total, so a table three turns into an infect game can produce a dozen insects in a single combat step. In Legacy and Vintage it's technically legal but functionally irrelevant: six mana is an eternity in those formats, and dedicated infect strategies there want to kill on turn one or two, not build a board. Oathbreaker shares enough of Commander's multiplayer dynamics that the card is at least conceivable there, though the lower starting life total shifts the focus away from poison as a kill condition.
Key Combos
Combo lines featuring this card
Phyrexian SwarmlordTime SieveEncroaching Mycosynth
Infinite turns; Lock
View on Commander Spellbook ↗
Price Context
Current price
$3.04 cheap tier
At $3.04, Phyrexian Swarmlord sits in the cheap tier — high enough to signal real demand from infect players, low enough that picking up a copy is a no-brainer if you're building in the archetype. It's a narrow card in a narrow archetype, so the price is unlikely to climb unless infect gets a significant new commander push.
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Sources
Updated . Data from Scryfall, EDHREC, and Commander Spellbook.