The 38 Best Creaturefall Cards in Magic Ranked

Last updated on September 8, 2025

Garruk's Uprising | Illustration by Wisnu Tan

If you’ve ever played an Etali, Primal Conqueror or Atraxa, Grand Unifier and wished you got even more value outside of the ETB trigger, creaturefall’s likely the mechanic for you. Why should your 7-mana play only cast four spells or refill your hand?

The Commander format’s all about building a thriving economy of resources that overwhelms your opponents. As that often involves playing a bunch of creatures, especially at casual EDH pods, creaturefall cards are a great way to accrue the value you need to overcome the pod.

Let’s check out the best creaturefall cards in Magic!

What Is Creaturefall in MTG?

Cathars' Crusade | Illustration by Karl Kopinski

Creaturefall cards are any permanent with an effect that cares about creatures coming into play; like landfall, but for creatures! “Creaturefall” isn’t an ability word Wizards prints on cards, just the MTG community’s term for the mechanic.

Creaturefall cards appear in all colors, though they tend to focus around the Naya shard, as those colors care the most about creatures. While the majority of creaturefall abilities reward you for playing creatures, there are a handful of symmetrical ones that punish players for playing creatures; I included those for some spice.

#38. Faramir, Steward of Gondor

Faramir, Steward of Gondor has hefty requirements for its creaturefall ability, but this man of men provides the value. Taking the monarchy gives you plenty of card advantage, and lots of creatures give it to you on ETB. But Faramir is one of the few monarch enablers that you can trigger multiple times, making it easier to maintain the crown.

#37. Glaring Fleshraker

The colorless mana pip in Glaring Fleshraker’s mana cost might look daunting, but this powerful effect is worth the effort. Since this triggers off colorless spells, don’t feel restricted to Eldrazi; this would deal plenty of damage in an artifact deck.

#36. Surrak and Goreclaw

Though there are cheaper ways to give your creatures +1/+1 counters when they enter (Good-Fortune Unicorn comes to mind), Surrak and Goreclaw distinguishes itself by giving them haste. This works best for decks going tall so cards like Ghalta, Primal Hunger and Apex Devastator swing as soon as they hit the board.

#35. Coercive Recruiter

Coercive Recruiter requires a critical mass of pirates to work, but repeated Threaten triggers take over games by enabling aggressive plays. You can always sacrifice the creature so your opponent never gets it back (or use Conjurer's Closet to keep it forever!).

#34. Ephara, God of the Polis

Ephara, God of the Polis has a slightly different take on creaturefall since it checks for it at the beginning of the next upkeep rather than the moment the creature enters. Don’t let that turn you off from this god, however; drawing an extra card each turn is still pretty nice.

One common application of Ephara involves playing it in the command zone as a flicker commander that draws less hate than something like Brago, King Eternal.

#33. Pantlaza, Sun-Favored

A prominent typal-based creaturefall card, Pantlaza, Sun-Favored gives you a fantastic reward for going all-in on dinos. Getting a free spell with the first creature lets you go way over the top of your opponents, especially once your Ghalta, Stampede Tyrant discovers into Gishath, Sun's Avatar.

#32. Overburden

Overburden exists for those of us who wish they could do something about the go-wide player who dumps their hand of creatures every turn. You need a really creature-light strategy to break the symmetry here, but the effect is pretty unique. 

#31. Authority of the Consuls

Authority of the Consuls doesn’t care about your creatures but rewards you when your opponents drop them into play. This white enchantment pulls lots of weight in lifegain decks, where you get three-quarters of a Soul Warden. 

The tapped clause disrupts certain infinite combos and helps aggressive strategies since it messes with your opponents’ ability to block.

#30. Fecund Greenshell

Fecund Greenshell has an awfully specific requirement to trigger its creaturefall ability, but who am I to argue with the elemental that gives me so much mana and card draw? Not to mention a giant anthem! You can’t just slot this green creature into any deck, but I’d be willing to change a few cards to maximize this turtle’s potential.

#29. Tainted Aether

Overburden’s older brother with two jobs, Tainted Aether takes a little longer to get going but is uncompromising when it comes to shredding opposing mana bases. You can build a nasty board with cards like Mayhem Devil and Tergrid, God of Fright that reward you for making your opponents sacrifice permanents.

#28. Blasting Station

Blasting Station mostly sees play as a combo piece, where its creaturefall ability combines with the activated ability and a creature that comes back into play to ping your opponents to death. A common version of this combo includes Kitchen Finks and Solemnity, allowing you to sacrifice the Finks forever.

Even outside of combo shells, token decks can use Blasting Station to get the last few points of burn damage they need if red spells aren’t available to them. 

#27. Devilish Valet

Devilish Valet’s exponential growth goes nuts, especially if you can make a burst of tokens with cards like The Locust God and Rionya, Fire Dancer. How do you feel about putting your opponents to -450?

#26. Molten Echoes + Reflections of Littjara

You need to be in a typal strategy for Molten Echoes, but the immense reward of hasty pressure makes up for it. This works especially well in typal decks built around big, meaty creatures, like demons and dragons.

Reflections of Littjara strikes a similar note, though you trade hastiness for permanence. I generally prefer this blue enchantment, though both are functionally similar enough to swap out.

#25. Intruder Alarm

Intruder Alarm goes infinite with almost no effort. Want a quick one? Two mana dorks and a Shrieking Drake for infinite mana. A really funny combo would be Intruder Alarm plus Torpor Orb, which keeps creatures tapped down.

#24. Mana Echoes

If you want to make a broken Magic card, either make it free or have it give a player a bunch of mana for relatively little effort. Mana Echoes falls into the latter category.

It doesn’t do much on its own, but it goes out of control with several cards. Commonly seen paired with Krenko, Mob Boss, it works best in similarly token-filled strategies, but it works well in a variety of typal decks.

#23. Gyre Sage

Gyre Sage is one of my favorite mana dorks in decks that use +1/+1 counters, but you can just run it in any green deck. It kind of fuels itself; it evolves when you play a bigger creature, which lets it tap for more mana, allowing you to play a bigger creature to trigger evolve again, so you can tap it for even more mana, and so on. 

#22. Canoptek Spyder

Drawing a card is among the best creaturefall payoffs since playing a creature pressures your opponents and drawing cards helps maintain said pressure. Canoptek Spyder lets your artifact deck go nuts with card advantage while serving as a pretty stout flying body.

#21.  Kindred Discovery

If you asked me what I thought the best typal support card was, I’d happily say Kindred Discovery, at least for Commander. One of blue's best ETB cards if you're focusing on typal strategist, this enchantment triggers when your creatures attack as well as when they enter and you mitigate the risk of an expensive do-nothing enchantment since it replaces itself several times over the turn it comes into play.

#20. Champion of Lambholt

There's a lot of competition for card slots these days, but Champion of Lambholt still earns its spot in many decks. It's becomes a progressively bigger beater the more creatures you play, and often makes blocking either difficult or straight-up impossible once it's accumulated enough +1/+1 counters. You can also stack counters on it from other sources to turbo up the evasion ability.

#19. Ezuri, Claw of Progress

Experience counters are rather broken. Your opponents can’t really interact with them outside some hyper-narrow cards, so commanders that benefit from them don’t lose any steam by being removed.

Ezuri, Claw of Progress is one of the more potent examples of this. You rarely see it outside of the command zone, though it works in any strategy that cares about proliferation or +1/+1 counters. It only takes a few turns for Ezuri to spiral out of control; it even rebuilds well after a board wipe since you just need to play this and another cheap creature to get four or five counters at once.

#18. Lonis, Cryptozoologist

Lonis, Cryptozoologist boasts a pretty nuts ability. The card is fine in its own right—a cheap creature that produces Clue tokens replaces itself several times over, and it has a high ceiling with its sacrifice ability.

But those Clues do far more than draw cards or enable Lonis. Creating a steady stream of artifacts enables busted cards like Shimmer Dragon and Urza, Lord High Artificer. Since they’re tokens, they interact with powerful threats like Adrix and Nev, Twincasters and Jaheira, Friend of the Forest. This triple-typed threat hides lots of potential in its coils, and is one of the best Clue commanders in the game.

#17. Welcoming Vampire + Enduring Innocence + Toskia’s Welcome

Even the meekest among us love card draw. Welcoming Vampire and Enduring Innocence help the smallest creatures reap the biggest rewards. Tocasia's Welcome casts a wider net since it cares about mana value rather than power, but the creatures have the benefit of being creatures, which works well since these cards often go into creature-centric decks.

#16. Samwise Gamgee

Samwise Gamgee looks unassuming, but this little halfling fits so much Food into one card. Food tokens aren’t on the same level as Treasure or Clues, but Master Samwise kindly provides an outlet for them in its recursive ability. While you can use this fairly to grind out your opponents by recurring cards like Elspeth Conquers Death, it also serves a critical piece in a variety of infinite combos. 

#15. Bramble Sovereign

Bramble Sovereign asks you for a large mana investment, but the reward spirals out of control. Copying any creature you play for (presumably) a fraction of its mana cost, like a Simic deck might with Mystic Reflection, builds a terrifying army, especially if you copy creatures like Avenger of Zendikar and Eternal Witness with impactful ETBs.

#14. Soul Warden + Soul’s Attendant + Essence Warden

Soul Warden and Soul's Attendant form the core of the Soul Sisters deck in Modern. But these 1/1s excel in any lifegain deck since they trigger so many times, typically multiple times in a turn cycle. Planar Chaos gave us a color-shifted version in Essence Warden which isn’t quite as powerful, as green cards care less about lifegain than white cards do, but it still sees plenty of play. Any deck that wants one of these likely wants all three. If you go with an Orzhov commander or Abzan commander to include black in your deck, Ayara, First of Locthwain is also a good creaturefall card since this black noble can be your non-combat win condition.

#13. Enduring Courage + Ogre Battledriver

If you want your creaturefall card to be less cumulative and more aggressive, you can’t do better than the classic Ogre Battledriver and its power crept cousin Enduring Courage, which distinguishes itself by being harder to kill.

These work best in token decks where you cast something like March of the Multitudes or Secure the Wastes to dump a ton of threats into play, winning out of nowhere with the right board state.

#12. Aura Shards

One of the most brutal creaturefall cards, Aura Shards warps EDH games. The prolific nature of mana rocks means that most decks have at least a few targets and blowing up mana rocks can severely hamper a player’s ability to curve out cleanly—I can’t tell you how many hands I’ve had fall apart because my Signet got destroyed. Toss in the incidental edge against strategies like enchantress and artifice that are harder to interact with, and you have a winner!

#11. Warstorm Surge

One of the best enchantments you can play in red, Warstorm Surge dominates games, assuming it sticks around. Playing an enchantment that probably doesn’t impact the board the turn it comes down risks a big tempo loss, but the payoffs don’t get much better than this.

#10. Galadriel, Light of Valinor

What a silly card. Why yes, Galadriel, Light of Valinor, I would love to turn my Llanowar Elves into Dark Ritual. And what’s the harm of turning Shrieking Drake into Preordain?

Even the worst mode, the one that distributes counters, helps you turn the corner and win the game! This card is Bant good stuff all the way.

Fun fact: Flickering Galadriel gets around the “choose one that hasn’t been chosen” clause since it counts as a new instance of the permanent!

#9. Garruk’s Uprising

Garruk's Uprising draws plenty of cards in most green decks. There are a couple of similar cards, including Outcaster Trailblazer and Garruk's Packleader, but this one works far better because it’s harder to remove and often replaces itself the turn it comes into play.

#8. Selvala, Heart of the Wilds

The most important resources in Magic are mana and cards, so any card that gives you an advantage in both regards becomes quite strong. Selvala, Heart of the Wilds has proven that ever since its printing in Conspiracy: Take the Crown. Though it’s one of green’s best commanders, don’t be afraid to slot it in the 99 for some great value. 

#7. Cathars’ Crusade

Cathars' Crusade is one of white’s best finishers, assuming you don’t mind moving around a dozen dice each turn. The annoyance that comes with tracking this card is actually a testament to its strength; you know a counter distributor’s good when it requires manipulating enough dice to give you carpal tunnel syndrome.

#6. Elemental Bond + Tribute to the World Tree

Elemental Bond versus Garruk's Uprising sparks an interesting discussion, but I favor Elemental Bond as it has a lower threshold for that juicy card draw. Tribute to the World Tree is an absurdly power-crept version of the same green enchantment since it gives you value for smaller creatures, but its daunting mana cost makes it hard to call it “strictly better.”

#5. Purphoros, God of the Forge + Impact Tremors variants

Impact Tremors doesn’t look like much of a card, but the damage adds up quickly in go-wide decks, especially thanks to all the similar cards we can stack! Warleader's Call gets us an anthem, Agate Instigator an extra body, and so on.

The king of these effects is Purphoros, God of the Forge, which deals twice the damage most other variants do while being far harder to remove. The activated ability does tons of work since you want to play these effects in a go-wide deck.

#4. Guardian Project

Remember when I mentioned card draw being the best creaturefall payoff? Green excels at it, with Guardian Project being a prominent card in this space. Playing enchantments that don’t do anything the turn they enter always has risks, but it’s pretty easy to sequence this into a turn where you play something like Birds of Paradise or Paradise Druid to get a card straight away. This generates enough card advantage to be worth the risk.

#3. Vaultborn Tyrant

While Vaultborn Tyrant costs more than Garruk's Uprising, it’s a far more threatening card. You just get a giant dinosaur to go along with your card advantage, and combining the pressure of a 6/6 with your card draw is nearly as strong as pairing it with ramp. And your opponents have to kill this twice!

#2. Terror of the Peaks

You might wonder why Terror of the Peaks wasn’t with the other Impact Tremors effects, especially since dealing damage to something equal to a creature’s power often exceeds dealing 1-2 damage. I ranked it separately since this is a far superior red card, largely due to its flexibility.

Impact Tremors and friends only work in go-wide strategies. You don’t want them in your Miirym, Sentinel Wyrm deck that plays one large threat each turn. But Terror of the Peaks excels in both strategies while being a well-statted threat without other creatures.

#1. The Great Henge

A marquee example of F.I.R.E. design gone over the top, The Great Henge combines a potent creaturefall ability with ramp and an absurdly consistent mana reduction ability. You often cast this for 4 mana or less, at which point it really only costs 2 since it taps for .

Once it hits the battlefield, it wins if it sticks around for any amount of time. Each creature cantripping and growing larger generally gives you a dominant board position and better card advantage than the rest of the table. You’ll have no trouble closing things out with such a powerful value engine going.

Does Creaturefall Trigger for Each Creature Entering the Battlefield at The Same Time?

Unless otherwise specified, then yes!

If you have three creatures enter at the same time while controlling, say, The Great Henge, then each of those creatures will get a counter and you draw three cards. 

There are two phrases that indicate a card will not trigger off multiple creatures entering. The first is the phrase “when one or more creatures enter,” as we see on Bess, Soul Nourisher. No matter how many 1/1s enter at a time, Bess only gets one +1/+1 counter.

The other exception is cards like Pantlaza, Sun-Favored or Welcoming Vampire that only trigger once per turn; no matter how many creatures enter that meet the requirement for these abilities, you only get one trigger.

Does Creaturefall Trigger With Token Creatures?

This depends on the card; if it doesn’t specify “nontoken creatures,” then it will. For example, Samwise Gamgee’s creaturefall ability only triggers when “another nontoken creature enters,” so you don’t get any Food off Raise the Alarm. But Enduring Courage has no such text, so your tokens trigger it.

Does a Flicker or Blink Effect Trigger Creaturefall?

Yes! As long as the flicker or blink effect puts the creature directly into play, you get a creaturefall trigger.

Can Creaturefall Trigger When an Opponent’s Creature Enters the Battlefield?

This works if your creaturefall card doesn’t specify that it only triggers when a creature enters the battlefield under your control. Some examples of creaturefall cards that trigger whenever a creature enters under any player's control include Soul Warden, Overburden, and Rampaging Ferocidon. 

How Do Morph and Manifest Creatures Work With Creaturefall?

When you morph or manifest a creature face-down, it counts as a creature entering the battlefield, and will trigger creaturefall. However, turning a face-down creature face-up doesn’t cause it to leave or enter the battlefield, so it won’t trigger creaturefall.

Does Creaturefall Trigger If the Creature Is Countered?

No. The creature spell needs to resolve on the stack so that the creature enters the battlefield to trigger creaturefall. If your opponent plays a counterspell or otherwise removes your creature from the stack, you won’t get a trigger.

Wrap Up

Ayara, First of Locthwain | Illustration by Ryan Pancoast

If you want to build powerful engines in Commander (and other formats) to out-grind your opponents and give yourself inevitability, creaturefall cards are one of the most consistent ways to do so. With a variety of payoffs from card draw to damage to interaction, any deck can find the perfect creaturefall card to enhance their strategy.

What’s your favorite creaturefall card? Do you prefer damage or card draw as a payoff? Let me know in the comments below or on the Draftsim Discord!

Stay safe and keep playing creatures!