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Moxonomy

Zask, Skittering Swarmlord

Legendary Creature — Insect3 generic manaGreen manaGreen mana

Green rarely gets to treat its graveyard as a second hand, which is what makes this design the odd one out among Insect payoffs. The recursion clause lets you replay lands and cast Insect spells from the yard, but the death trigger works against pure graveyard value on purpose: when another Insect you control dies, it goes to the bottom of its owner's library rather than staying available, and you mill two as compensation. That bottoming is the balancing wrinkle. It converts a would-be graveyard engine into a churn engine, refilling your yard with fresh Insect spells even as it recycles the dead ones back into the deck, so the loop never stalls out on the same handful of bodies. The hybrid activation, payable with either black or green, hands out +1/+0 and deathtouch to any Insect, letting the swarm trade up in combat and making each attacker a threat no blocker survives. What results is a rare fusion of two tribal traditions green usually keeps apart: the recursive value commander and the go-wide aggressor. The self-mill fuels the recursion; the recursion feeds the board; the deathtouch buff makes every Insect a liability to block or to be blocked by. It is a self-contained aristocrats loop that happens to wear green's clothes, with the black hybrid cost quietly acknowledging where this kind of grind usually lives.

Zask, Skittering Swarmlord (j22)
J22 · #47rare
Pricing
Normal: $33.31
Foil:
Oracle Text

Rules text

You may play lands and cast Insect spells from your graveyard. Whenever another Insect you control dies, put it on the bottom of its owner's library, then mill two cards. (Put the top two cards of your library into your graveyard.) 1 generic manaBlack or Green mana: Target Insect gets +1/+0 and gains deathtouch until end of turn. (Black or Green mana can be paid with either Black mana or Green mana.)
Legalities

Format Status

Standard
N/A
Pioneer
N/A
Modern
N/A
Legacy
Legal
Vintage
Legal
Commander
Legal
Pauper
N/A
Brawl
N/A
Historic
N/A
Alchemy
N/A
Timeless
N/A
Standard Brawl
N/A
More formats
Old School
N/A
Premodern
N/A
PreDH
N/A
Pauper Commander
N/A
Oathbreaker
Legal
Gladiator
N/A
Penny Dreadful
N/A
Duel Commander
Legal
Future Standard
N/A
COMPETITIVEBRAWL
N/A
TLR
N/A
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