What it does
Scavenge is an activated ability that works only from your graveyard. By paying the scavenge cost and exiling the creature card from your graveyard, you put a number of +1/+1 counters equal to that creature's power onto a target creature on the battlefield. You can only scavenge at times you could cast a sorcery (your main phase, empty stack).
The big nuance: scavenging is not casting the creature, so the creature never enters the battlefield—it's exiled from the graveyard as a cost. That means counterspells can't stop it, and "when this creature enters" effects don't trigger. The counters are permanent on the target, but if that creature leaves, the boost is gone.
In Commander, scavenge gives graveyard value to creatures that already died, fueling +1/+1 counter synergies or proliferate decks. It's a flexible way to recover a beater's stats without re-exposing it to removal, though it's a one-shot use since the card is exiled.
Iconic cards with Scavenge
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