Unlock the New Witherbloom’s Full Potential With These 5 Combo Cards

Last updated on March 31, 2026

Witherbloom, the Balancer | Illustration by Kev Walker

Witherbloom, the Balancer has been officially spoiled, so no more spoiler warnings! Let's see what happens when you slap affinity on a giant elder dragon and extend that cost reduction to your instants and sorceries.

Witherbloom, The Balancer

There will be new elder dragons in town once Secrets of Strixhaven launches, and one of them, now officially spoiled, is one of the strongest Golgari commanders we've seen in a long, long time: 

So much so that even the competitive cEDH community is interested! 

What makes Witherbloom, the Balancer so scary is pretty simple: it’s a massive Golgari Elder Dragon with affinity for creatures, and it gives your instants and sorceries affinity for creatures too, meaning they cost less for each creature (tokens included!) on your battlefield. And as we'll see in a bit, Witherbloom, the Balancer just needs four creatures and Sprout Swarm to go infinite.

“It gives an actual compact winline in the command zone,” writes u/Raevelry in one of the threads on the cEDH subreddit, noting that Witherbloom will also reduce the cost of X spells like Chord of Calling, tutors like Grim Tutor, etc.

Unlike a lot of Golgari commanders that care about sacrificing creatures or recurring them from the graveyard, Witherbloom, the Balancer looks more like a creature-based spell engine. You want a board full of mana dorks, tokens, and random bodies; then you cash that board in for gigantic discounts on your instants and sorceries.

Sprout Swarm

Sprout Swarm is the card that everybody noticed right away… to the point that it went up in price nearly ten times (from about sixty cents to over six bucks) as soon as Witherbloom, the Balancer was leaked.

Source: MTGStocks

Here's how it works: Once you have enough creatures in play (in Sprout Swarm‘s case, you'd need four), Witherbloom, the Balancer makes buyback and all generic mana costs effectively free. And since Sprout Swarm has convoke (on top of the affinity for creatures that Witherbloom, the Balancer gives it), then the saproling token lets you convoke for .

In short: Infinite Sprout Swarm‘s and tokens, which with Witherbloom, the Balancer means you effectively reduce all generic mana costs to zero.

One way to win on the spot is some other card that turns tokens into pain, like  Mirkwood Bats or Blasting Station…

… and of course if you have a sac outlet and a Blood Artist you can cause even more pain. But Witherbloom, the Balancer can do a lot more than that, and without going the aristocrat route.

Beseech the Queen… For Free!

If you pull the Witherbloom, the Balancer + Sprout Swarm, then Beseech the Queen becomes a free tutor because you can cast it for (which Witherbloom, the Balancer discounts to zero).

X Spells, like Nature's Rhythm

Here's where Witherbloom, the Balancer goes really crazy: X-cost spells. With Witherbloom, the Balancer's discount, you can make X arbitrarily large, and then slam something like Nature's Rhythm.

And as long as you have access to , you can cast Nature's Rhythm twice (first casting it normally, then via Harmonize). 

Increasing Ambition

Increasing Ambition is like Nature's Rhythm, but in black, and a card that sees a lot of competitive play in  Rowan, Scion of War decks. And something similar happens with Diabolic Revelation.

Your deck still needs a way to win, but Witherbloom, the Balancer gives you tons of ways to find it.

And speaking of which…

Torment of Hailfire and Finale of Devastation

With X being as big as you want, Torment of Hailfire is game over on the spot. And if you want to give the table a more of a classic green ending, then there's of course Finale of Devastation:

You get your best creature, and an infinite army of X/X saproling tokens with haste.

Wrap Up

Finale of Devastation - Illustration by Bayard Wu

Witherbloom, the Balancer looks like the kind of commander that allows for a lot of deckbuilding flexibility, without pushing you towards the usual sac or graveyard shenanigans that Golgari is known for.

And this is just with what's been leaked of officially spoiled so far. There may be even more black or green toys in Secrets of Strixhaven that Witherbloom, the Balancer can play with!