Spinal Parasite

Spinal Parasite card image

Spinal Parasite: Artifact Creature - Insect, Fifth Dawn. Sunburst. MTG card printings, market prices, rulings, and format legality on Mana Grove.

Mana cost
{5}
Mana value
5
Type
Artifact Creature - Insect
Colour identity
Colourless
Power / toughness
-1/-1
Rarity
Uncommon
Set
Fifth Dawn (5DN)
Released
2004-06-04
Collector number
155
Artist
Cyril Van Der Haegen
Commander rank
26,551 (by how often it appears in Commander decks)
Keywords
Sunburst

Build around this card with Grover

About Spinal Parasite

Spinal Parasite is a Magic: The Gathering card, an uncommon colourless artifact creature from Fifth Dawn (5DN), an expansion set released in June 2004. It is collector number 155 in that set, with art by Cyril Van Der Haegen. It costs {5} (five generic mana) to cast, for a mana value of 5. It is a -1/-1 creature. It has no colour identity. It is legal in Modern, Legacy, Vintage, Commander, Duel Commander, Oathbreaker, PreDH and Penny Dreadful. Fifth Dawn is its only printing so far. The latest aggregated market price for this printing is $0.18 (normal finish, as of 2026-11-13).

Card text

Sunburst (This creature enters with a +1/+1 counter on it for each color of mana spent to cast it.)

Remove two +1/+1 counters from this creature: Remove a counter from target permanent.

Market price

Latest aggregated market price for the normal finish of this printing: $0.18 (as of 2026-11-13).

The figure covers this printing only; other printings carry their own price on their own page.

Format legality

Legality of Spinal Parasite by format. Formats in which it is not legal are not listed.

ModernLegal
LegacyLegal
VintageLegal
CommanderLegal
Duel CommanderLegal
OathbreakerLegal
PreDHLegal
Penny DreadfulLegal

Official rulings

Three official rulings apply to Spinal Parasite, newest first.

  • Yes, this card’s base power/toughness is -1/-1. If it has five +1/+1 counters on it, it’s a 4/4 creature.
  • If Spinal Parasite is a 1/1 because it has two +1/+1 counters on it, you can remove both counters to pay for its activated ability.
  • Any permanent is a legal target for Spinal Parasite’s ability, not just one with a counter on it. The player who controls Spinal Parasite chooses which counter to remove from the targeted permanent.

Similar cards

Other artifact creature cards with no colour identity, ranked by how often they appear in Commander decks.

Mentioned in these guides

These guides mention Spinal Parasite.

Explore Mana Grove