Scheming Aspirant
Creature — Phyrexian Advisor
Whenever you proliferate, each opponent loses 2 life and you gain 2 life.
- CMC
- 2
- Mana cost
- Color identity
- B
- Rarity
- uncommon
- Set
- Phyrexia: All Will Be One
- Price
- $0.20
- EDHREC rank
- #6624
Scheming Aspirant enters with a -1/-1 counter on it, then proliferates whenever you put a -1/-1 counter on a creature — which, in the right shell, means every Phyrexian Mite token Brimaz, Blight of Oreskos makes accelerates the counter engine across your whole board. The cost is real: a 2/3 for three mana that blanks itself until it has support is a do-nothing brick in the wrong deck, so you run it only if counters are the point.
Best Commanders
Commanders with the highest synergy
Brimaz, Blight of Oreskos
Brimaz, Blight of Oreskos generates a steady stream of Phyrexian Mite tokens pre-loaded with -1/-1 counters, which triggers Scheming Aspirant's proliferate ability repeatedly and fans those counters out to every other creature on the board — it's the most direct engine pairing the card has.
Agent Frank Horrigan
Agent Frank Horrigan cares about grinding opponents down through counters and attrition, and Scheming Aspirant plugs into that plan by turning each -1/-1 placement into a board-wide proliferate event that compounds pressure fast.
Toxrill, the Corrosive
Toxrill, the Corrosive puts -1/-1 counters on opposing creatures at the end of each turn, giving Scheming Aspirant a reliable trigger every rotation to proliferate those counters and accelerate the Slug token payoffs Toxrill rewards.
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 | not legal |
| oathbreaker | legal |
Scheming Aspirant is a Commander card through and through — the proliferate trigger only scales in games long enough to build a counter infrastructure, and multiplayer politics mean opponents often leave a 2/2 (after its own counter) alone until it's already done work. In Modern or Pioneer, three mana for a slow, conditional creature with no immediate impact is unplayable in any competitive context; the formats move too fast for a setup piece this passive. Legacy and Vintage are similarly hostile — the card doesn't cheat on mana, break a rule, or generate card advantage on its own. Oathbreaker is the one non-Commander format where it could see fringe play, specifically under a -1/-1 counter signature spell shell, but even there the competition at the three-drop slot is stiff.
Key Combos
Combo lines featuring this card
Price Context
Current price
$0.20 bulk tier
At $0.20, Scheming Aspirant is deep bulk — grab a copy without a second thought if the shell fits. Bulk rares with narrow synergy profiles rarely climb without a new pushed commander forcing the issue, so treat it as a cheap role-player rather than a spec target.
Explore
Sources
Updated . Data from Scryfall, EDHREC, and Commander Spellbook.