Viral Spawning
Sorcery
Create a 3/3 green Phyrexian Beast creature token with toxic 1. (Players dealt combat damage by it also get a poison counter.)
Corrupted — As long as an opponent has three or more poison counters and this card is in your graveyard, it has flashback 
. (You may cast this card from your graveyard for its flashback cost. Then exile it.)
- CMC
- 3
- Mana cost
- Color identity
- G
- Rarity
- uncommon
- Set
- Phyrexia: All Will Be One
- Price
- $0.05
- EDHREC rank
- #16042
Viral Spawning puts two 1/1 Phyrexian Mite tokens with toxic 1 onto the battlefield and proliferates — three distinct effects on one card. Five mana at sorcery speed is the price, and it's steep enough that you only run it in dedicated proliferate or poison-counter shells where every effect compounds.
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 |
Viral Spawning is a Commander card through and through — the only format where the game runs long enough for poison counters and proliferate triggers to accumulate into a win condition. In Legacy, Modern, and Pioneer it's technically legal but wholly unplayable; those formats end too fast for a five-mana sorcery with no immediate board impact to matter. Commander is where the token generation, the toxic triggers, and the proliferate all stack with cards like Atraxa, Praetors' Voice or Vishgraz, the Doomhive, turning Viral Spawning into a legitimate engine piece rather than a novelty.
Key Combos
Combo lines featuring this card
Price Context
Current price
$0.05 bulk tier
At $0.05, Viral Spawning is deep bulk — a penny-bin staple for any player building around infect or proliferate on a tight budget. That price is unlikely to move; the card's narrow application caps demand, but it means you can slot in a playset for the cost of a pack of gum.
Explore
Sources
Mentioned
Updated . Data from Scryfall, EDHREC, and Commander Spellbook.