All 42 Oozes in Magic Ranked

Last updated on October 1, 2023

Slurrk, All-Ingesting | Illustration by Jehan Choo

Underrepresented creature types in Magic can often be some of the more exciting ones. There are thousands of humans in Magic, so it usually isn’t too big of a deal when a new one gets printed.

But when the number of creatures in a given type is only in double digits, each new addition can have a big impact on how players construct decks around that creature type. One of my favorite underrepresented groups in Magic is oozes.

Part of the appeal of oozes is that they’re visually very distinct from other creature types. Where elves and humans look largely similar, one isn’t likely to mistake a big pile of goo for anything but an ooze. Oozes also have some interesting signature effects that make them work well together when building a deck.

If you’re interested in building a deck around oozes or just want to see which ones might slot well into your existing decks, then take a look at the best oozes available to you! Most of these oozes have something to offer, so it’s worth checking out each one!

What Are Oozes in MTG?

Corrosive Ooze | Illustration by Daniel Ljunggren

Oozes are a creature type usually assigned to any gooey amorphous blob in Magic. Monocolored oozes are only found in red, black, and green, with multicolored oozes sometimes including blue. There aren’t any white ooze cards in Magic (yet).

There are some common themes among oozes. A lot of them involve distributing +1/+1 counters or growing the number of counters on themselves. There are also a good number of oozes that can split into multiple copies, similar to how the creatures work in D&D. And there are several oozes that have effects that interact with the graveyard.

Best Red Oozes

#4. Earthen Goo

Earthen Goo is a somewhat underwhelming card. Its main drawback is that it costs you a lot of mana to keep on the board for more than a few turns. You may be able to get some damage off from it early, but keeping it around slows you down when it comes to casting better cards.

#3. Primordial Ooze

Primordial Ooze is an interesting card. You can keep it around and let it get bigger without having to pay to untap it if you don’t mind taking some damage from it. Then you can untap it and swing for a good amount of damage if you have nothing better to do one turn.

It can also be a fun jank option if you run it with ways to give it lifelink, basically negating the damage cost to keep it around.

#2. Chaotic Goo

Chaotic Goo is a great card to include in Izzet () coin flip decks. It can help trigger Okaun, Eye of Chaos or Zndrsplt, Eye of Wisdom with its tosses, and it can help build towards a win with Chance Encounter.

Unfortunately it isn’t too great of a card outside this specific deck archetype.

#1. Bloodhall Ooze

Bloodhall Ooze can scale nicely in a Jund () deck. It’s cheap to put down so it also doesn’t feel like a waste of mana while you wait for it to get bigger.

You could do a lot worse than this card if you’re looking for a cheap creature for a Jund deck. Especially one that runs Fling.

Best Black Oozes

#7. Vile Bile

Vile Bile showcases the worst parts of Unhinged’s effects. Not only does it punish players for something as normal as touching the card, it also has the annoying fractional power and toughness which becomes annoying to deal with.

Luckily this card isn’t legal in any format, so you’ll likely never see it in action.

#6. Consumptive Goo

Consumptive Goo’s activated ability is a bit too expensive to be worth it. It can situationally help you remove a creature, but you’ll usually have a better use for four mana than giving a single creature -1/-1 for a turn.

Even increasing Consumptive Goo’s own power and toughness permanently likely isn’t worth the cost of activation.

#5. Mephitic Ooze

Mephitic Ooze is a decently tough deathtouch creature. You’ll want to make sure you have enough artifacts in your deck to ensure it consistently has at least one power if you’re including this, otherwise it basically just becomes a wall.

#4. Gelatinous Cube

Gelatinous Cube can be helpful to temporarily remove an obstacle from the board. It’s also nice that it exiles the creature in question, allowing you a roundabout way to take out indestructible creatures if you’re able to get off its activated ability.

The only downside is that this ooze can be a slow and expensive method of removal depending on what you’re trying to remove. But this aspect of the card also makes it very flavorful since it emulates how the creature slowly dissolves its prey.

#3. Necroplasm

Dredge decks can make good use of Necroplasm. It acts as a very oppressive form of removal for token and weenie decks, and it allows you the opportunity to fill your graveyard a little more and start the process over again when it destroys itself.

#2. Uchuulon

Uchuulon works very well in both ooze and horror decks. Its graveyard hate can also be very helpful to mess up your opponent’s reanimation strategies. You can remove even more of your opponent’s creatures from their graveyards each turn with each new copy of Uchuulon, and its own power continues to grow too.

This card pairs very well with the commander whose precon it comes in, Captain N'ghathrod.

#1. Necrotic Ooze

Necrotic Ooze can be incredibly powerful depending on when it’s played in the game. This can still be very helpful even if there isn’t a super powerful effect to copy, allowing you to copy things like mana abilities in the graveyard.

Best Green Oozes

#23. S.N.O.T.

S.N.O.T. is the kind of card you need to build a deck around to try and make good. You’d have to get lucky enough to draft four copies as well as other good green cards since it’s only legal in Unhinged Drafts.

#22. Mwonvuli Ooze

 Mwonvuli Ooze could be worth paying to upkeep in a Limited setting, but you won’t want to sink this much mana into a single creature in most formats. While it scales up correctly to be on the curve for the amount of mana you pay for it, you’ll have wasted a lot of resources if it gets removed.

#21. Experiment One

Experiment One could potentially scale pretty well in a deck built around playing increasingly stronger creatures if you draw it early enough. It’s nice that this card can also protect itself using only the resources it itself has generated.

While the card is solid for what it is, it isn’t likely to make a huge splash in a game. The biggest shame is that this card could have been a great target for mutate abilities if it wasn’t a human.

#20. Gobbling Ooze

Gobbling Ooze is often not worth playing unless you’re specifically looking for a way to sacrifice your own creatures. It’s underpowered in relation to its mana cost, so it feels bad having to sac two other creatures just to make this the 5/5 it should enter as.

This could potentially have a spot in a Jund aristocrats deck, but it still isn’t great.

#19. Ancient Ooze

Ancient Ooze can be hit or miss. It can be huge if you have a lot of creatures, but if you don’t then you’re getting very little out of your seven mana. You’re likely better off running a more powerful 7-mana creature that you know will always be good when you play it, regardless of your board state.

#18. Bioplasm

Bioplasm has the chance to be a very effective card, but it’s also very risky to play in a deck. You’re just swinging with a 4/4 if you whiff and you’ve now exiled what could have been an important card in your deck.

Make sure to include cards that let you scry or look at the top card of your deck on a consistent basis if you want to run this card more effectively.

#17. Gluttonous Slime

There are a few different situations where Gluttonous Slime can come in handy. If your opponent is about to exile one of your important creatures you can flash it in and sacrifice it instead, giving you a chance to retrieve it from the graveyard.

You can also flash Gluttonous Slime in when multiple of your creatures would be removed just to get some value out of them before they’re destroyed.

#16. Splitting Slime

Splitting Slime is a bit weak for its mana cost, but it serves as a really great mana sink. If you ever find yourself without much to do on a turn, making this card monstrous not only buffs it, it also creates another copy which can be another mana sink later on.

While you hopefully have a better use for six mana on your turns it’s still nice to know you always have an option to spend your resources if you get a bad draw or are forced to discard your hand.

#15. Corrosive Ooze

Corrosive Ooze can be a very effective way to take out threatening equipment attached to your opponent’s creatures. Even better, its abilities trigger when it blocks too.

#14. Manaplasm

Manaplasm can be good for some damage here and there early on, and it also gets a little extra buff from any combat tricks you play on it. It can get pretty huge as the game continues and you play more (or at least bigger) spells each turn.

It’s definitely worth keeping this creature around thanks to the potential it has.

#13. Inexorable Blob

Inexorable Blob’s delirium ability isn’t too hard to get online, meaning you can pretty quickly start dropping some Ooze tokens. Unfortunately this card doesn’t have any form of protection, so it’ll likely die to blockers before it can build you too big of an army.

#12. Oran-Rief Ooze

Oran-Rief Ooze can be a great card for decks that care about +1/+1 counters and modified creatures. It can continuously buff any creature that already has counters on it, and it works well with counter payoffs like Simic Ascendancy and The Ozolith.

#11. Aeve, Progenitor Ooze

Aeve, Progenitor Ooze is a very interesting idea for a commander. Putting storm on a commander and allowing the copies to not be legendary allows players to keep Aeve in the command zone until they know they can drop a ton of copies at once.

Aeve can also enter as a pretty massive creature depending on how many copies you have, allowing you to threaten players with commander damage.

#10. Acidic Slime

Acidic Slime is a classic green card that you’ll see in a decent number of Commander precons. It’s a good bit of removal and can also help take out one of your opponent’s creatures thanks to deathtouch.

Mono green control makes good use out of deathtouch creatures since combining them with bite cards is a great way to add creature removal to a green deck.

#9. Predator Ooze

Predator Ooze may not start strong, but it can get there over time. You can safely swing with it each turn and continue to buff it thanks to indestructible.

This is also a great way to keep some pressure on your opponent. When they become forced to chump block this card you start buffing it twice as fast, making it a serious threat.

#8. Consuming Blob

Consuming Blob might not be the most powerful card, but it’s pretty effective at cloning itself. This works really well in green token decks that make use of token doublers like Parallel Lives.

It’s also a useful tool for sacrifice or aristocrats decks since it provides sacrifice fodder each turn.

#7. Mitotic Slime

Mitotic Slime is a fun and flavorful card because it splits several times, similar to how slimes work in D&D and video games.

It also gives you a good amount of value out of the mana you spend on it since you end up getting seven creatures out of it overall. This makes it a great inclusion for sacrifice or aristocrats decks since it perfectly fuels cards like Korvold, Fae-Cursed King.

#6. Ochre Jelly

Ochre Jelly is a nice flexible card that works very well later in the game but can still be an early body if you need one. This card’s ability to split itself is also useful, so you still have something to show for it if you sink a lot of mana into the X cost and it gets removed.

#5. Slurrk, All-Ingesting

Slurrk, All-Ingesting can be a very good commander in a +1/+1 counter-themed deck. You can also find the best color combinations for the theme thanks to the partner ability, as well as a partner commander that nicely complements Slurrk’s abilities.

#4. Biowaste Blob

Biowaste Blob is one of the best supports for an ooze tribal deck available. It acts as an anthem for the rest of your oozes, which only gets stronger the more turns its out thanks to its ability to copy itself.

Your opponents have to spend a decent amount of resources trying to get rid of this card and its clones if it’s not immediately dealt with.

#3. Biogenic Ooze

Biogenic Ooze is the greatest ooze commander that never was. But it can still be an incredibly powerful game piece in an ooze deck. It not only makes itself and all your oozes more powerful each turn, it also drops extra oozes if you don’t have other ways to spend your mana.

#2. Green Slime

Green Slime is a very unique card not just for slimes, but in green in general. Mono green doesn’t have a ton of options when it comes to countering abilities, meaning your opponents likely won’t see this coming.

You can easily toss this into exile and keep it around for when you need it thanks to its foretell ability, making sure it doesn’t eat up space in your hand or get discarded while you wait to cast it. It’s also still a creature on top of its great abilities, making it a great value for its cost.

#1. Scavenging Ooze

Scavenging Ooze gives you a lot of value for a small amount of mana. Having the ability to exile creatures from graveyards at instant speed is a great way to shut down any strategy that involves reanimating powerful creatures or spells.

This ooze also buffs itself and gains you some life while also hindering your opponents as a bonus.

Best Multicolored Oozes

#6. It Came from Planet Glurg

It Came from Planet Glurg has a very fun and very powerful ETB ability. You can pick and choose some of the best creatures on the board to combine into a super creature, and the mana cost won’t be as restrictive in Simic () as it would in colors that are worse at ramp.

This ooze has one main drawback, and that’s the fact that it isn’t legal in any format outside of Unfinity Draft. Talk to your playgroup and see if they’re okay with it if you have your heart set on using this as a commander.

#5. Slogurk, the Overslime

Slogurk, the Overslime’s abilities all work really well together. I enjoy running it in dredge or self-mill decks as a way to get some lands back if needed. It can also pack a punch depending on how many of your own lands you mill, so it pairs well with a self-targeting Fleet Swallower.

It can also discourage your opponents from playing cards like Armageddon as an added bonus.

#4. Umori, the Collector

Umori, the Collector’s companion requirements are pretty restrictive, but it still works well in your deck or as your commander. Its cost reduction can be a very helpful tool to speed up your game, and this is a solid choice for an ooze tribal commander since most oozes are in Golgari () anyway.

#3. Prime Speaker Vannifar

Prime Speaker Vannifar is relatively popular as a pod commander or in certain pod decks. Its mana cost is reasonable and it doesn’t cost any extra mana to activate, which is very helpful.

Vannifar can even activate multiple times a turn if you include ways to untap it, really speeding up the process of finding your best creatures.

#2. The Mimeoplasm

The Mimeoplasm is a wonderfully unique commander that works really well with a dredge theme. Filling your own graveyard up with powerful creatures allows you to create a powerful hybrid that best fits your need depending on how the game is going.

You can also basically shop your opponents’ boards for the best creatures to destroy and then steal with The Mimeoplasm if you run a lot of removal in your deck.

#1. Experiment Kraj

What makes Experiment Kraj a fun card is the freedom; it allows you to pick and choose your strategy as you go. You can obviously build in some powerful interactions and combos into your own deck if you’re running it as a commander, but you can often also assemble your own combos by dropping +1/+1 counters on your opponent’s creatures.

Your opponents might be forced to sacrifice or destroy their own permanents to keep you from having a commander that’s too powerful if you find a good way to protect Kraj.

Best Colorless Ooze

#1. Hanweir, the Writhing Township

You can’t actually play Hanweir, the Writhing Township. You have to meld it together using Hanweir Battlements and Hanweir Garrison. Once it’s on the field this ooze is a pretty powerful creature, definitely worth the five mana from Hanweir Battlements to bring it out.

It’s also just a lot of fun to have a massive meld creature on the field.

Best Ooze Payoffs

It’s important to look at what oozes do best when it comes to finding a good payoff for oozes. They’re good fuel for Simic Ascendancy since they’re great at creating +1/+1 counters, and they pair well with The Ozolith. If a bunch of oozes with +1/+1 counters die, you can make a massive creature by moving their counters around.

Oozes are also good at making more of themselves, so tribal payoff cards like Coat of Arms can be an effective way to buff them up.

A good number of oozes have effects that care about other oozes on the field. Dropping a Maskwood Nexus makes cards like Biogenic Ooze incredibly powerful in decks that aren’t strictly dedicated to ooze creatures.

Is Scavenging Ooze Good?

Scavenging Ooze is a very effective tool because it allows you to remove cards from graveyards at instant speed. This can help shut down your opponent’s powerful reanimation spells, or spells with flashback.

This card is a very great resource to have on the battlefield, and it won’t take away much from the rest of your deck.

What Are Ooze Tokens?

There are a couple different types of Ooze tokens. A lot of ooze creatures have abilities that create an Ooze token, and the type it creates is specified by the card.

Oozes are probably one of the most variable tokens, so make sure you’re playing the one that’s described by your card and not just a generic Ooze token.

How Does Necrotic Ooze Work?

Necrotic Ooze is incredibly powerful because it steals the activated abilities of all cards in all graveyards. This means anything from a Llanowar Elves’ ability to tap for green mana to Ugin, the Spirit Dragon’s ability to deal out three damage.

When it comes to activating planeswalker abilities you have to start with positive loyalty abilities to put loyalty counters onto Necrotic Ooze. It can then take loyalty counters off to pay for the cost of negative loyalty abilities.

You can still only activate loyalty abilities once per turn since it’s tied to the permanent using the ability and not the source of where the abilities come from. You also don’t have to sacrifice Necrotic Ooze when it runs out of loyalty because it isn’t a planeswalker, even though it can use their abilities.

How Does Aeve, Progenitor Ooze Work?

When you cast Aeve, Progenitor Ooze its storm ability copies it for each spell cast before it that turn. The copies go on the stack before the original Aeve and then enter one by one.

This means the first copy only gets counters if you already control other oozes. Each subsequent copy gets counters for the oozes that entered before it since they were on the battlefield when the new copy entered, so the original Aeve enters with counters equal to the number of Aeve copies and other oozes you already controlled.

How Does Umori, the Collector Work?

To use Umori, the Collector as a companion you have to build a deck that only includes one type of nonland card. Umori sits in the companion zone until you pay three mana to add it to your hand. Because the companion zone is considered as being outside the game, you can use a card type other than creatures to build your deck. You can also have other types of cards in your sideboard.

Umori, the Collector can also be played in your deck or as a commander without having to meet its companion requirements.

Wrap Up

Biogenic Ooze | Illustration by Lake Hurwitz

Oozes are one of the more interesting creature types in Magic. These gooey little blobs may not look like much, but some of them can make a big impact on the game. Ooze commanders like The Mimeoplasm and Experiment Kraj offer unique gameplay experiences that are definitely worth checking out.

Which ooze card is your favorite? Where do you think the unofficial holiday ooze, Yule Ooze, would fit on this list? Let me know in the comments below or on Draftsim’s Twitter.

Thanks for reading, and I look forward to seeing you at the next one!