Price$5.60 – $9.76
Buy on TCGplayerScrawling Crawler
Artifact Creature — Phyrexian Construct
LegalRank #680
At the beginning of your upkeep, each player draws a card.
Whenever an opponent draws a card, that player loses 1 life.
3/2
Why is this card good?
Scrawling Crawler is a colorless symmetric draw engine with a punishing twist — it turns every opponent's card draw into life loss, which adds up fast across three players in a long game.
The free upkeep card is genuinely strong, and the colorless cost means any deck can run it. But the real payoff is in decks built to weaponize the life-loss clause:
- Wheel/group-draw decks (Nekusar, Niv-Mizzet) that force opponents to draw huge — this stacks beautifully as redundancy for those payoffs.
- Aristocrats or "punisher" shells that already lean on incremental life drain.
- Forced-draw control decks using cards like Howling Mine effects, now with teeth.
When NOT to play it: in any deck without a way to capitalize on the life loss or out-draw your opponents, the symmetric draw just helps the table dig toward answers and combo pieces. You're refilling three enemy hands for ~1 damage each — a bad trade if you can't close out the game. It's a build-around, not a generic value piece.
Related cards
Underworld Dreams
Punishes opponents losing life for each card drawn, similar wheel payoff.
Fate Unraveler
Same effect: opponents lose life on each draw.
Sphinx's Tutelage
Punishes draws with mill instead of life loss.
Howling Mine
Group-draw symmetric card advantage to enable the punisher engine.
Temple Bell
Each player draws, fueling symmetrical card draw engine.
Font of Mythos
Doubles draws each turn, accelerating life-loss punishment.
Nekusar, the Mindrazer
Classic commander for forced-draw life-loss strategies.
Kederekt Parasite
Damages opponents whenever they draw additional cards.