Awesome Witherbloom Synergy Causes Forgotten Old Sorcery to Spike

Last updated on May 14, 2026

Wurmcalling Illustration by Jeff Easley

Witherbloom, the Balancer has quickly become the break-out Secrets of Strixhaven commander, accruing over 9,000 decks, and that popularity has made a major impact on the secondary market. The newest card to see a massive spike is Wurmcalling, a rare from Time Spiral nobody has thought about since the design file was signed off. The synergy with Witherbloom has driven a large price spike:

Source: TCGPlayer.com

Part of the price spike can be attributed to the card’s scarcity: It has never seen a reprint, presumably due to a lack of interest until Witherbloom’s affinity ability dredged up synergy.

Why Does Witherbloom, the Balancer Play Wurmcalling?

Roaring Slagwurm | Illustration by David Martin

The primary reason to play Wurmcalling is similar to that of Sprout Swarm: Buyback and Witherbloom go hand in hand, especially when the buyback cost is mostly generic mana. Wurmcalling doesn’t produce an infinite combo like Sprout Swarm, but that just means it’s appropriate for the Bracket 3 players (if you can tune Witherbloom down that far).

If you control 3 creatures, at least one of them being Witherbloom, you can make a 1/1 Wurm token for . Pretty unremarkable, but you get to do it again, and each time you cast the card it scales: Once you make the 1/1, your next Wurm is a 2/2 since the new token stacks more cost reduction. It’s also worth noting that Witherbloom very rarely has just three creatures in play with cards like these:

It’s also just incredible card advantage as you build a board without committing a card from your hand. Even if you catch an unfortunate, if well deserved, board wipe, Wurmcalling sits in your hand until you can drop Witherbloom later. It even makes bodies to help pay for the commander tax!

Ultimately, Wurmcalling works best as a top-end card. Once you have a bunch of creatures and six or eight green mana, you can swarm the board with massive bodies to overtake your opponents. Of course, that doesn’t mean you can’t find ways to make this really great.

How To Break Wurmcalling in Witherbloom, the Balancer

Tyvar, Jubilant Brawler | Illustration by Victor Adame Minguez

To be clear, Wurmcalling is a great card you don’t need to build around with anything more than great staples for Witherbloom. But you could maybe, just maybe, surround it with a few really solid cards to make it better.

At its heart, Witherbloom is a token commander, so it wants token support. Insidious Roots and Jaheira, Friend of the Forest are excellent because they result in even more mana. That’s always good with tokens but especially with Witherbloom as they add two mana for instants and sorceries. Toss in Tyvar, Jubilant Brawler and your tokens make mana immediately, which leads us to a great synergy with Wurmcalling.

Since your Wurms become mana dorks that Tyvar gives pseudo-haste, each token you create produces , paying for half the Wurmcalling with its buyback cost. So, having available would make 3 total Wurms rather than 2 since the Wurms start adding mana.

If you wanted to get extra spicy, toss in a token doubler like Doubling Season or Parallel Lives—though Chatterfang, Squirrel General is probably the best. Once you do that, each cast of Wurmcalling generates , so you get to go infinite, getting not only infinite tokens but infinitely large tokens. While that’s a very convoluted combo compared to, say, Sprout Swarm, it’s fiddly enough to keep the power level friendly to the lower Brackets.