the wise mothman card art

the wise mothman

Legendary Creature — Insect Mutant MV 4

Tracked across real Commander games played through TurnZero HQ.

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What it doesCombosRulingsIn the 99Every version

What it does

Flying

Whenever The Wise Mothman enters or attacks, each player gets a rad counter.

Whenever one or more nonland cards are milled, put a +1/+1 counter on each of up to X target creatures, where X is the number of nonland cards milled this way.

Combos with the wise mothman

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.

  • Benthic Biomancer Life from the Loam Infinite
    • Infinite self-mill
    See the steps on Commander Spellbook →
  • Moss-Pit Skeleton Altar of Dementia Herd Baloth Infinite
    • Infinite +1/+1 counters on a creature
    • Infinite death triggers
    • Infinite creature ETB
    • Infinite creature LTB
    • Infinite creature sacrifice triggers
    • Infinite self-mill
    • Near-infinite +1/+1 counters
    See the steps on Commander Spellbook →
  • Moss-Pit Skeleton Altar of Dementia Scurry Oak Infinite
    • Infinite +1/+1 counters on a creature
    • Infinite death triggers
    • Infinite creature ETB
    • Infinite creature LTB
    • Infinite creature sacrifice triggers
    See the steps on Commander Spellbook →
  • Blood Pet Altar of the Brood Evolution Witness Bruvac the Grandiloquent Infinite
    • Near-infinite creature ETB
    • Near-infinite storm count
    • Near-infinite creature LTB
    • Near-infinite mill
    • Near-infinite death triggers
    • Near-infinite creature sacrifice triggers
    • Near-infinite +1/+1 counters on a creature
    See the steps on Commander Spellbook →

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

Rulings

9 official rulings, in the order Wizards published them.

  • 2024-03-08

    If more than one player is instructed to mill at the same time (by the activated ability of Raul, Trouble Shooter, for example), as long as at least one nonland card is milled, The Wise Mothman’s last ability will trigger just once.

  • 2024-03-08

    Any effects (such as proliferate) that interact with counters a player gets, has, or loses can interact with rad counters.

  • 2024-03-08

    Keep track of how many rad counters each player has. Potential ways to track this include writing them down on paper or using dice, but any method that is clear and mutually agreeable is fine.

  • 2024-03-08

    In a game using the shared team turns option, such as an Archenemy or Two-Headed Giant game, the inherent triggered ability associated with rad counters triggers once for each player on the active team that has rad counters. Each instance of that ability is controlled by one of those players.

  • 2024-03-08

    Rad counters are a kind of counter that a player may have. They’re not associated with any specific permanents.

  • 2024-03-08

    If a player has fewer cards remaining in their library than the number of rad counters they have when the triggered ability resolves, they’ll mill as many cards as they can.

  • 2024-03-08

    There is an inherent triggered ability associated with having rad counters. This triggered ability has no source and is controlled by the active player. The full text of this ability is “At the beginning of the precombat main phase of a player with rad counters, that player mills cards equal to the number of rad counters they have. For each nonland card milled this way, that player loses 1 life and removes one rad counter from themselves.”

  • 2024-03-08

    Rad counters don’t go away as steps, phases, or turns end. They only go away when an effect instructs a player to remove rad counters from themselves.

  • 2024-03-08

    The cards are milled all at once, which means abilities that trigger “whenever one or more nonland cards are milled” will trigger exactly once as long as at least one nonland card was milled.

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

Covered in our set guide Magic: The Gathering Fallout Rad counters, Junk tokens and four Commander decks. Released Mar 8, 2024 Read the guide →

In the 99

Every deck whose current list includes the wise mothman, 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
Teval, the Balanced Scale 1 0 —

Colors it shows up in

  • Sultai 1 deck

Every version of the wise mothman

6 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 the wise mothman — 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.