Reaching into Magic the Gathering's History of Cards!

Take a deep dive into the weird and wonderful card in Magic the Gathering!

Card from the Box*

*the ManaBox

Magic: the Gathering has around about 30,000 unique cards in its database. Many of those cards are bad. Most of them are fine. A few of them are good. And then there is the rare card that perfectly fills the niche in your beloved janky combo. In this series, I will click the “Random Card” button on ManaBox, and we will hope to find such a card, come with me on our journey through 30 years of Magic history...

This card has only seen print in M20, and for good reason. It is a two-mana two/one with no evasion. It is a bog-standard draft-enforcer, encouraging you to play to the strengths of the set in Limited formats, but not great for much else. Even though the card rewards you for playing fly-ers, the fact that it doesn't even fly makes it a pretty unappealing pick, unless you are truly desperate for bodies on the board. Sometimes a two-drop that can take out a 2 toughness creature is better than not having a creature to play at all.

 

The artist, Yeong-Hao Han, is a fantastic artist who has a lot of iconic arts, including some of the “blueprints” from Brother's War and the Masterpiece Inventions from Kaladesh and Aether Revolt.

My favourite part of Waterkin Shaman is the story created by the combination of the art, the ability, and the flavour text. The joy that the birds bring give the Waterkin Shaman strength, and you know what? Same. I also love birds, and I'd say I definitely get stronger when I get to hang out with the birds in the Botanical Gardens aviary.