Vat Emergence
Sorcery
Put target creature card from a graveyard onto the battlefield under your control. Proliferate. (Choose any number of permanents and/or players, then give each another counter of each kind already there.)
- CMC
- 5
- Mana cost
- Color identity
- B
- Rarity
- uncommon
- Set
- Phyrexia: All Will Be One
- Price
- $0.31
- EDHREC rank
- #4748
Vat Emergence returns a creature from your graveyard to the battlefield and proliferates on the way out — two meaningful effects on one card for four mana. In Ixhel, Scion of Atraxa builds, that proliferate isn't a bonus rider; it's the whole reason the card earns a slot.
Best Commanders
Commanders with the highest synergy
Ixhel, Scion of Atraxa
Ixhel, Scion of Atraxa poisons opponents and loads the board with -1/-1 and poison counters that proliferate scales directly — Vat Emergence recurs a threat and advances the poison clock in the same action, which is exactly the density Ixhel lists want.
Vishgraz, the Doomhive
Vishgraz, the Doomhive enters with Mite tokens whose size scales off poison counters on your opponents, so every proliferate effect compounds the whole board state — Vat Emergence rebuys a threat while pushing those counters higher.
Karumonix, the Rat King
Karumonix, the Rat King wins through poison accumulation, and Vat Emergence slots in as a recursive threat that also ticks every opponent's poison counter up when it resolves.
Minthara, Merciless Soul
Minthara, Merciless Soul rewards stacking counters on permanents, and Vat Emergence's proliferate spreads existing counters while returning a creature — efficient enough to justify the four-mana ask in counter-hungry shells.
Skithiryx, the Blight Dragon
Skithiryx, the Blight Dragon closes games on poison alone, and Vat Emergence doubles as a Skithiryx recursion spell and a proliferate trigger that can push opponents from survivable poison counts to lethal.
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 |
Vat Emergence is a Commander card through and through — the proliferate rider is nearly irrelevant outside of poison or counter-focused strategies, and those strategies live almost exclusively in Commander. In Modern and Pioneer the four-mana graveyard recursion rate is too slow for formats where threats need to be efficient on their own, and the proliferate doesn't slot into any established competitive shell. Legacy and Vintage have access to far more broken things at four mana. Vat Emergence is legal across those formats but will see no play there.
Key Combos
Combo lines featuring this card
Price Context
Current price
$0.31 bulk tier
At $0.31, Vat Emergence is bulk — an easy include that costs less than a sleeve. Bulk rares with narrow homes tend to stay cheap, so there's no urgency to stock up, but there's also no reason to hesitate if you're building the relevant archetype.
Explore
Sources
Updated . Data from Scryfall, EDHREC, and Commander Spellbook.