Pensive Professor card art

Pensive Professor

Creature — Human Wizard MV 3

Tracked across real Commander games played through TurnZero HQ.

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What it doesCombosRulingsIn the 99Every version

What it does

Increment (Whenever you cast a spell, if the amount of mana you spent is greater than this creature's power or toughness, put a +1/+1 counter on this creature.)

Whenever one or more +1/+1 counters are put on this creature, draw a card.

Combos with Pensive Professor

Lines this card is part of — what it needs alongside it, and what the two of them do. An infinite result is the one that moves a deck's bracket.

Combo data from Commander Spellbook, the community-maintained database of Magic combos. Mirrored nightly.

Rulings

5 official rulings, in the order Wizards published them.

  • 2026-03-20

    Whenever you cast a spell, check the amount of mana you spent to cast it against the power and toughness of the creature with increment. If the amount of mana you spent isn't greater than either of that creature's stats, increment won't trigger at all.

  • 2026-03-20

    An increment ability will only trigger if the permanent it's on is a creature. Similarly, if the permanent is no longer a creature when its increment ability resolves, the ability won't do anything.

  • 2026-03-20

    The increment ability resolves before the spell that caused it to trigger. It resolves even if that spell is countered or otherwise leaves the stack.

  • 2026-03-20

    If increment triggers, the comparison will happen again when the ability tries to resolve. If the amount of mana spent to cast that spell isn't greater than either of that creature's stats anymore, the ability will do nothing.

  • 2026-03-20

    When comparing the mana spent to the creature's stats as the increment ability resolves, it's possible that the stat that is less than the mana spent changes from power to toughness or vice versa. For example, say you control a 1/3 creature with increment and you pay two mana to cast a spell. Since the amount of mana you spent is greater than the creature's power, increment will trigger. While the increment ability is on the stack, an effect gives the creature with increment +2/-2, making it a 3/1. When the increment ability resolves, the creature will still get a +1/+1 counter since the amount of mana you spent is greater than that creature's toughness.

Rulings are Wizards of the Coast's own, mirrored from Scryfall and refreshed nightly.

In the 99

Every deck whose current list includes Pensive Professor, whatever its commander.

Decks running it 2
Games played 0
Win rate — Fewer than 5 completed games — not enough to publish a rate yet.
Confirmed on board 0 Games where a board photo caught it actually in play.

Most played under

Commander Decks Games Win rate
Ms. Bumbleflower 1 0 —

Colors it shows up in

  • Bant 1 deck

Every version of Pensive Professor

3 printings, newest first. Prices are the market figures Scryfall publishes, refreshed nightly — a printing with no figure shows a dash rather than a zero, because Scryfall genuinely publishes none for some of them.

Prices from Scryfall, which tracks the TCGplayer and Cardmarket markets. They move daily and are a guide rather than a quote. Search TCGplayer for Pensive Professor — a name search across every version, for the printings TCGplayer publishes no direct link to.

Aggregated from Commander games tracked in TurnZero HQ. Every figure counts decks and games only — no individual deck list, player or playgroup is identified. Win rates are withheld below 5 completed games, where the sample is too small to mean anything.