Termagant Swarm
Creature — Tyranid
Ravenous (This creature enters with X +1/+1 counters on it. If X is 5 or more, draw a card when it enters.)
Death Frenzy — When this creature dies, create a number of 1/1 green Tyranid creature tokens equal to this creature's power.
- CMC
- 1
- Mana cost
- Color identity
- G
- Rarity
- rare
- Set
- Warhammer 40,000 Commander
- Price
- $3.13
- EDHREC rank
- #6277
Termagant Swarm enters the battlefield already carrying counters equal to the mana spent on X, then grows every time another creature with counters enters under your control — the board presence compounds fast. The Swarmlord is the obvious home, but any deck that floods the board with +1/+1 counter creatures turns this into a threat that demands an answer.
Best Commanders
Commanders with the highest synergy
The Swarmlord
The Swarmlord puts +1/+1 counters on every Tyranid that enters, which means every new creature you play feeds Termagant Swarm another trigger — the two cards form a self-reinforcing engine that snowballs without additional setup.
Magus Lucea Kane
Magus Lucea Kane copies spells with X in their cost, so casting Termagant Swarm once can net two massive bodies at once; the copied token enters with its own counters, then immediately grows the original.
Rosheen, Roaring Prophet
Rosheen, Roaring Prophet's ability to tap for four colorless mana on X spells means Termagant Swarm enters with a significantly larger base, making it a reliable mana sink for the surplus Rosheen generates each turn.
Thromok the Insatiable
Thromok the Insatiable needs a wide board of creatures to devour for a lethal-sized attack, and Termagant Swarm efficiently converts mana into multiple counter-laden bodies that both pad that headcount and grow alongside everything else entering the battlefield.
Format Analysis
Where it lives, where it can’t
| Format | Verdict |
|---|---|
| commander | legal |
| legacy | legal |
| modern | not legal |
| pioneer | not legal |
| standard | not legal |
| vintage | legal |
| pauper | not legal |
| oathbreaker | legal |
Termagant Swarm is a Commander card through and through — its payoff scales with the longer game and the density of creatures with counters that a 100-card singleton deck can assemble. In Legacy and Vintage it is technically legal but has no competitive home; the mana investment required to make it threatening is simply too slow against those fields. Oathbreaker is the one non-Commander format where a dedicated X-spell or counter-based build could extract real value from it, especially with a planeswalker commander that generates tokens.
Key Combos
Combo lines featuring this card
Price Context
Current price
$3.13 cheap tier
At $3.13, Termagant Swarm sits at the high end of the "cheap" tier — reasonable for a card with a clear best home in The Swarmlord and meaningful overlap in Magus Lucea Kane's large installed base. It holds that price on the back of two high-volume commanders, so it is unlikely to crater as long as those decks stay popular.
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Sources
Updated . Data from Scryfall, EDHREC, and Commander Spellbook.