All 44 Oozes in Magic Ranked

Last updated on January 25, 2025

Slurrk, All-Ingesting | Illustration by Jehan Choo

One of the highlights of high school chemistry was learning about polymers, which my teacher demonstrated by having us mix borax, corn starch, and food coloring to make our own slime. We had a blast, and I still remember how alien the final product felt in my hands.

That slime is a lot safer than slimes and oozes in Magic, which are a lot more sinister than our classroom science experiment. Magic’s oozes have huge appetites, and they’ll eat anything on the battlefield or in the graveyard.

One thing’s for sure: Don’t snooze on ooze!

What Are Oozes in MTG?

Corrosive Ooze | Illustration by Daniel Ljunggren

Ooze is a creature type in Magic that represents amorphous, viscous, slimy creatures. Think monster movies like The Blob.

Most oozes are mono-green creatures, and they tend to grow and spread, which is why many oozes play with +1/+1 counters and/or tokens.

Thematically, oozes share a certain amount of space with shapeshifters. Some shapeshifters use +1/+1 counters, but others have abilities that either turn them into copies of other cards or borrow their abilities, and some oozes mimic other creatures too. Oozes sometimes play with or care about the graveyard, including with delirium abilities.

Unranked: Silver Borders, Acorns and Arena-exclusives

I just don’t find ranking these cards against most legal cards is a good apples-to-apples comparison. Mephidross Slime and Predatory Sludge are not available in Commander. S.N.O.T. and Vile Bile are relics of Un-sets of days of yore, but I might actually run a Commander deck around It Came from Planet Glurg.

#44. Earthen Goo

I mostly play Commander, and I can’t really see why I’d want cumulative upkeep cards in one of Magic’s slower formats overall. When’s the last time you sleeved up an Earthen Goo?

#43. Primordial Ooze

Give it away, give it away, give it away, now!

I may be quoting Anthony Kiedis and the Red Hot Chili Peppers, but I’d only play Primordial Ooze in decks that allow me to give it away to other players (oh, Zedruu!).

#42. Mwonvuli Ooze

Okay, well if you’re going to do cumulative upkeep… why am I trying to talk myself into Mwonvuli Ooze? No! (Do you think they should errata this to have the “balloon” creature type?)

#41. Mephitic Ooze

Darksteel’s Mephitic Ooze cares about artifacts, which makes a lot more sense when you remember the name of the MTG set it came from. It’s a big, mono-black creature with no real home, and that’s a shame.

#40. Bioplasm

X-card interactions are complex enough, so cards that ask me to keep track of both X and Y have to be good to be worth the headache. Bioplasm exiles the top card of your library every time it attacks for a temporary stat buff. Which… yeah, no. Not for me.

#39. Expanding Ooze

Real talk: Would you rather an Expanding Ooze or a Predator Ooze? Same total mana value, and they both dish out counters when they attack, though Expanding Ooze needs a modified creature to target. And it’s not indestructible. Yup, Predator Ooze is a nearly strictly better beater.

#38. Bloodhall Ooze

The rare oozing red creature, Bloodhall Ooze fizzles in mono-color builds. Jund () is the color combination that its rules text aims toward, but have you considered you can get multiple upkeeps in an Obeka, Splitter of Seconds deck?

#37. Consumptive Goo

I’d only actually play Consumptive Goo if I ran into it in a haul of random rares. Its mana pips are a bit restrictive to slot it into an ooze build since they tend to be green, but I like the symmetry of dishing out -1/-1 debuffs while gaining its own +1/+1 counters.

#36. Gobbling Ooze

Not quite. I wish Gobbling Ooze started off as a 1/1 and cost something like 3 mana, because I like the other parts of this creature well enough. As is? I’d slot it into an ooze deck with the goal of upgrading it as soon as possible.

#35. Gluttonous Slime

Design-wise, I like this ooze well enough. In a typal build? Most variants of Ooze tokens are made to be big, and it doesn’t feel profitable to sacrifice them to Gluttonous Slime’s devour ability.

#34. Corrosive Ooze

Reading this card, I instantly get a mental storyboard of an animatic where a knight in shining armor pokes a Corrosive Ooze and all their armor just shatters, leaving the knight in their skivvies. Cartoony, and I think I’ve found a new pet card.

#33. Invasion of Muraganda / Primordial Plasm

It’s a battle. It’s a fight spell. It’s a +1/+1 counter spell. Invasion of Muraganda gives you okay value on the front. I would probably use Primordial Plasm to strip a small indestructible creature or a hatebear of its abilities.

#32. Chaotic Goo

Here’s an ooze for your chaos decks, specifically ones that play around with coin flipping. I wouldn’t run Chaotic Goo anywhere else, though.

#31. Ancient Ooze

Ancient Ooze needs other creatures on your side of the table to stay alive, since it doesn’t count its own 7-cost mana value. I’d consider cheating this out in a Kona, Rescue Beastie deck, though.

#30. Manaplasm

It’s like prowess but for an ooze!

Manaplasm definitely has a flavorful ability, but it’s vulnerable to pingers and all kinds of cheap removal on your opponents’ turns.

#29. Temperamental Oozewagg

It may be a common, but Temperamental Oozewagg can have a strong impact just by sitting on the battlefield. You’re more likely to use it in a +1/+1 counters build to give your creatures trample, a deck where you can use it like an Overrun without the stat buff. But of course, it dies to Doom Blade.

#28. Inexorable Blob

Enabling delirium means getting tokens from Inexorable Blob whenever it attacks. This Shadows over Innistrad offering is pretty much your bog-standard ooze.

#27. Gelatinous Cube

Gelatinous Cube has an interesting ability, but not one that I want to run anywhere but ooze decks. It gets really profitable when you use it to remove a huge token like Marit Lage or an Orc Army. Its controller/owner text means that you can also use it to put something your opponent stole from you into your graveyard, but I’m getting into the weeds of niche interactions here.

#26. Splitting Slime

You can look at Splitting Slime as a mana sink of sorts. While it’s expensive to cast, activating its monstrosity ability gives you a token copy of it. You can make that token monstrous and get another copy, and so on, but it’s a slow, 6-mana ability that you’re hopefully not activating more than once or twice in a match.

#25. Necroplasm

Necroplasm has an ability that slices the board based on mana values: Its first trigger usually gets tokens and 0-mana creatures, the second gets 1-mana creatures, etc. Its dredge ability makes it easy to recur, and plenty of oozes have delirium and similar abilities anyway. You’ll want proliferation or other +1/+1 counter abilities if you don’t want to constantly remove your Necroplasm when it’s at three counters.

#24. Consuming Blob

Despite its abilities, Consuming Blob doesn’t see a lot of play in delirium-style decks, at least not in Commander. Multiple card types is the path to having a huge Consuming Blob (and huge Ooze tokens on your end step), but I don’t hate it in a typal build that doubles those tokens.

#23. Ravenous Slime

Ravenous Slime takes on the ooze model by growing when your opponents’ creatures die and hating on their graveyards by preventing those creatures from going there in the first place. Bon appétit! Might not be one of the strongest slimes overall, but it’s a decent 3-drop for your ooze typal builds.

#22. Experiment One

Experiment One trades in +1/+1 counters to regenerate itself, which can make for a fairly persistent creature in the right build. Especially at 1 mana, that makes it a worthy consideration, at least in typal decks.

#21. Printlifter Ooze

Unlike other oozes, Printlifter Ooze’s main gig is outside of typal decks. Instead, it works in decks where you’re flipping creature cards, in the morph/manifest/cloak sense. You can disguise it and flip it to get the token generation started, or hard cast it for cheaper.

#20. Biogenic Ooze

Biogenic Ooze plays with both the growing (+1/+1 counters) and spreading (tokens) portrayals of oozes. It’s an auto-include in any ooze typal build, but its tokens fit in a Duskana, the Rage Mother build. and it’s a good ooze to consider as your only one in a Volo, Guide to Monsters deck.

#19. Mitotic Slime

If we ever get a Secret Lair x Minecraft product, Mitotic Slime is what they’ll reskin as the slimes from that blocky game. Token doublers work really well with this ooze and its tokens’ death triggers, which makes this more viable in non-ooze builds.

#18. Predator Ooze

Predator Ooze is the creature that taught me about indestructible and how important cards like Tragic Slip can be. It gains counters both when it attacks and when creatures it damages die, but the mana cost makes it harder to slip into multi-color builds (good for devotion, though!). It’s not the kind of creature that your opponents can leave unchecked.

#17. Biowaste Blob

This green creature cares about whether you control your commander, meaning the Commander formats are its natural homes. Biowaste Blob is an ooze lord that buffs all your slimy guys by +1/+1, although that’s pretty much all it does.

#16. Oran-Rief Ooze

Oran-Rief Ooze is basically Predator Ooze, but less color intensive and less of an immediate problem for your opponents. I wouldn’t mind slotting in this ooze alongside Vorinclex, Monstrous Raider.

#15. Ochre Jelly

Must be jelly, because jam don’t shake.

Ochre Jelly takes the Mitotic Slime template and applies it to an X-spell creature. As with all other oozes in this mold, it synergizes with token and counter doublers, although its nature as an X-spell gives it a few extra use cases with Magus Lucea Kane, hydra commanders like Zaxara, the Exemplary, or Sovereign Okinec Ahau.

#14. Uchuulon

This scratches some itch in my brain. Batching crabs, oozes, and horrors onto one creature that also cares about those types is fun, and I like a creature that makes copies of itself. Uchuulon is just fun to me.

#13. Slurrk, All-Ingesting

Commander Legends gave us an ooze for a partner commander, meaning there’s lots of ways to configure a Slurrk, All-Ingesting deck. Its most frequent partner is Reyhan, Last of the Abzan for a Golgari () counters or ooze build. Both Slurrk and Reyhan have abilities that pass around +1/+1 counters, so it’s a natural fit. That said, Slurrk is my personal pick for the weakest legendary ooze.

#12. Umori, the Collector

Ah, Ikoria and its companions. Umori, the Collector’s companion requirement usually means that you’ll be building a creature-heavy deck. Given the number of enters abilities and activated abilities we’re getting, you should be able to build a somewhat viable deck that relies on its creatures for everything. You could also go artifacts or enchantments, since there are also many artifact creatures and enchantment creatures, especially ones that would give you additional cost reduction. You can also run Umori as your Golgari commander or in the 99, of course.

#11. Experiment Kraj

Experiment Kraj is from the shapeshifter adjacent school of ooze, the type of ooze that borrows all activated abilities that other creatures have. Is it politics or group hug if I’m putting +1/+1 counters on your creatures just so I can borrow their abilities with my ooze? I’d argue not, since I’m helping you with the aim of helping myself more.

#10. Slogurk, the Overslime

Whether leading a deck or in support, Slogurk, the Overslime plays more into a lands matter build. Milling, discarding, or sacrificing lands grow your slime, and you can trade in +1/+1 counters to protect Slogurk by bouncing it to your hand. It fills your hands with lands when it leaves the battlefield too, which either ramps you or gives you cards to discard once you cast it again.

#9. Felix Five-Boots

We like trigger doublers, and Felix Five-Boots does that for your saboteur effects. It’s a fun creature to run as a Sultai commander, it works in the Grand Larceny Commander precon from the Outlaws of Thunder Junction Commander lineup, and there’s plenty other homes where you can consider running this ooze rogue.

#8. Prime Speaker Vannifar + Vannifar, Evolved Enigma

If you’re like me, you’ve forgotten that Vannifar is both an elf and an ooze. Both Prime Speaker Vannifar and Vannifar, Evolved Enigma are viable, interesting commanders: The former works for a Birthing Pod or pod style deck, while the Murders at Karlov Manor printing is built for cloak, disguise, morph, manifest, and all those mechanics that play with colorless, face-down creatures.

#7. Green Slime

Not only is Green Slime a card that can remove enchantments and remove artifacts, but it also counters triggered abilities and activated abilities. You can foretell it too, which means it has synergies, both with cards that pay you off for casting cards from exile and commanders that enable or benefit from those strategies.

#6. The Mimeoplasm (Slimer, Voracious Apparition)

The Mimeoplasm hovers in around the top 10 of most-built Sultai commanders () according to EDHREC, and it’s also one of top ooze typal commanders. You can build this ooze as a self-mill deck if you’re not running a typal deck, which can lead to all kinds of creature combinations. Pack in your favorite good stuff, like Impervious Greatwurm, Sire of Seven Deaths, etc., and you’re in for a wild ride!

Slimer, Voracious Apparition is The Mimeoplasm’s Secret Lair x Ghostbusters printing, should you want to spend more time with Dr. Spengler & Co.

#5. Aeve, Progenitor Ooze

Storm in green? Yup! And it makes Aeve, Progenitor Ooze so good. Each copy of Aeve enters with one more +1/+1 counter than the previous one. You’ll want a lot of ramp in an Aeve, Progenitor Ooze deck so you can fuel your storm count before casting this 5-mana creature.

#4. Necrotic Ooze

This black ooze borrows abilities from any creature in any graveyard. Necrotic Ooze fits into graveyard, reanimator, sacrifice, and self-milling decks, basically anything that looks to fill its own graveyard or its opponents’. It doesn’t color-fix your mana to use those activated abilities, so you’re probably going to copy your own creatures’ abilities most often.

#3. Hanweir, the Writhing Township

You have to meld Hanweir Battlements and Hanweir Garrison to get to this legendary ooze, but Hanweir, the Writhing Township gets to attack as a hasted 7/4 trampler that brings a pair of Eldrazi Horror tokens along for the ride. That’s 13 total damage that your opponents have to contend with. You can use the ooze’s tokens or Hanweir Garrison’s tokens as sacrifice fodder, you can double their attack triggers with Isshin, Two Heavens as One… there’s just lots of places you can slot these cards into in the hopes of melding them into one massive threat.

#2. Acidic Slime

Acidic Slime is emblematic of contemporary Magic: We like creatures that give us value when they enter the battlefield. Acidic Slime is removal on a body, though it’s “only” a 2/2 deathtoucher. Still, it’s useful in all kinds of builds, especially if you can cheat it out or reanimate it.

#1. Scavenging Ooze

Deathbonnet Sprout’s got nothing on this. Scavenging Ooze is simple and elegant, with a repeatable activated ability that composts your opponents’ graveyards to feed itself. This ooze can quickly gain counters, which you can either use to attack with a big creature or trade into other cards’ abilities, like using them to cast cards from the top of your deck with Falco Spara, Pactweaver. The lifegain is also really appealing. Strong 2-mana 2/2. I like it!

Best Ooze Payoffs

Doubling Season, full stop. Whether your oozes deal with +1/+1 counters or tokens, this green enchantment’s got you covered. It’s one of the best counter doublers and token doublers out there, especially since it does both.

Aside from that, the following cards mention oozes in their rules text, including a few token generators:

• Convert to Slime
• Gelatinous Genesis
• Corrupted Zendikon
• Gutter Grime
• Miming Slime
• Mystic Genesis
• Ooze Flux
• Ooze Garden
• Slime Against Humanity
• Slime Molding

Gutter Grime is a strong enchantment for a typal build, but Slime Against Humanity is fun since it lets you break deckbuilding rules. Can’t seem to finish your ooze deck? Slot into however Slime Against Humanity cards you have lying around as placeholders!

Is Ooze Tribal Good?

At a base level, no. There just aren’t enough total oozes in the game (without including shapeshifters) to give you much choice when you’re running them.

You also aren’t benefitting the most from oozes that mimic other creatures’ abilities or that base their power and toughness on your other creatures MV, P/T, etc. You aren’t using The Mimeoplasm’s ability to its fullest potential if you’re just copying oozes, for example.

Oozes don’t tend to have flying or reach either, so you’ll rely on spot removal and sweepers to deal with evasive threats.

Are There Any Ooze Commanders?

There are a few legendary ooze creatures that can be your commander. They are:

• Aeve, Progenitor Ooze
• Experiment Kraj
• Felix Five-Boots
• Prime Speaker Vannifar
• Slogurk, the Overslime
• Slurrk, All-Ingesting
• The Mimeoplasm
• Umori, the Collector
• Vannifar, Evolved Enigma

Aside from them, there are other commanders that synergize with oozes and their abilities, including:

• Atraxa, Praetors' Voice: Proliferate
• Muldrotha, the Gravetide: Reanimation
• Adrix and Nev, Twincasters: Token doubling
• Xavier Sal, Infested Captain: Proliferate and populate
• Morophon, the Boundless: 5-color shapeshifter commander
• Yidris, Maelstrom Wielder: Cascade
• Shalai and Hallar: +1/+1 counters

Wrap Up

Biogenic Ooze | Illustration by Lake Hurwitz

Woof. I don’t know about you, but I’m going to be scrubbing gunk out of every pore after this one.

Oozes straddle the natural and the unnatural. They usually appear in fantasy, sci-fi, and horror settings, and they can come just as much from organic chemistry as from synthetic. We won’t see oozes every Magic set, but it’s one of those creature types that Wizards leans on from time to time for a little extra flavor.

Which oozes do you like to run in your typal Commander decks? In which other formats do you run oozes? Which planes and potential Universes Beyond products do you think will be our next sources of ooze creatures? Let me know your thoughts in the comments below, or leave a trail on the Draftsim Discord.

And with that, I’m in the mood for anime. How about That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime?