Rising Populace
Creature — Human
Whenever another creature or planeswalker you control dies, put a +1/+1 counter on this creature.
- CMC
- 3
- Mana cost
- Color identity
- W
- Rarity
- common
- Set
- War of the Spark
- Price
- $0.05
- EDHREC rank
- #21337
Rising Populace grows every time a nontoken creature dies on any side of the table, making it a passive threat that scales with the game's natural attrition. Two mana for a creature that routinely ends the game at 8/8 or larger is a genuine deal — run it in any deck that expects a board full of creatures dying.
Format Analysis
Where it lives, where it can’t
| Format | Verdict |
|---|---|
| commander | legal |
| legacy | legal |
| modern | legal |
| pioneer | legal |
| standard | not legal |
| vintage | legal |
| pauper | legal |
| oathbreaker | legal |
Commander is where Rising Populace earns its slot: four players means four boards worth of creatures dying, and a single wrath can push it from irrelevant to game-ending in one trigger. In Pauper it's legal and the common slot is competitive, but the format's faster clock means you need a shell that can protect it long enough to matter. Modern, Pioneer, Legacy, and Vintage all have the creature density to fuel it, but none have a reason to — there are simply better two-drops in every color combination available in those formats. Oathbreaker sits closer to Commander's dynamics, so the same logic applies: if your meta grinds through creatures, Rising Populace quietly becomes the biggest thing on the table.
Key Combos
Combo lines featuring this card
Price Context
Current price
$0.05 bulk tier
At $0.05, Rising Populace is bulk in the strictest sense — it costs less than a sleeve. That price is stable because supply is plentiful and casual demand is modest, not because the card is bad.
Explore
Sources
Mentioned
Updated . Data from Scryfall, EDHREC, and Commander Spellbook.