Vanilla creatures are awesome! Just because a creature lacks rules text is no disparagement on the card itself. Many vanilla creatures have made the cuts in winning Constructed tournament decks. I’ve won tournaments myself with Grizzly Bears in tow, as well as a Hurloon Minotaur.

Yesterday, I looked at a fun casual variant using only vanilla creatures called Vanilla Wars which I haven’t seen mentioned in years and years, so I wanted to give it another day of fun in the sun. So with that vanilla stylings, I wanted to give you the Top Vanilla Creatures of All Time. Like all of my lists, this has a causal note, although I am rewarding good tournament players here as well.

Now there are a few quirks among vanilla creatures that I did not mention yesterday. Did you know that some creatures were printed as vanilla without any abilities, but have them now? And vice versa, some cards were printed with abilities that no longer have them.

Here let’s take a look.

Here is Wall of Ice

It looks like it fits our vanilla loving, right? No rules text, no abilities, nothing. It’s just an 0/7 creature. But, the issue with Wall of Ice and other Walls is that the creature type used to have rules language attached saying it couldn’t attack. So you didn’t need to print that on the card. But the rules have changed, and Walls no longer have that rule attached. Now they have the keyword, defender. So today, Wall of Ice, is no longer vanilla, because it has defender.

And this is true of a lot of Walls. In fact, twelve such Walls were printed like Wall of Ice that had no rules text, but are now Defender-ed, most of which are Red, including Glacial Wall, Wall of Stone, Wall of Heat, Carnivorous Plant, Blistering Barrier, Wall of Wood, Wall of Torches, Wall of Granite, Steel Wall, Fortified Rampart, and Wall of Earth.

However, some cards lost rules text as well. Namely, those cards that told you what color they were.

How do you know the color of a card? Originally, this was from the casting cost of the card. No matter what else was happening, you just referenced the casting cost. That’s how we knew this heavily misprinted card from Revised was Blue and not Green:

The Green border doesn’t matter, it’s a Blue creature, right?

But there are some cards that don’t have a casting cost. Now they used to feature text that told you their color, despite the color border, because the color border isn’t the rule. But since those cards were printed, we now have that color circle called the color indicator that is added to cards with no cost to show you their color.

Here’s an example of those two concepts in action.

Evermind is devoid of any casting cost, so it had rules text to tell you it is Blue, but that is gone. Now it just has a color indicator.

Here’s another example of the color indicator on a Modern card:

You can see the color indicator next to the “Instant” term telling you that Pact of Negation is a Blue card, thus removing the rules language. Thus, a few creatures have had rules texts removed and replaced with the color indicator.

For purposes of Vanilla Wars and this article, the current legal wording is what is being used. Wall of Heat is not a vanilla creature anymore. But some creatures are, and they will be found on the list below, hint hint.

10. Kraken Hatchling / Yoked Ox

These creatures are great 1-drops for their colors, as a powerful 0/4 barrier to entry. It can take four turns before someone can reliably punch through. It’s tough to swing through them. Now I have regularly extolled the virtues of cards like Steel Wall in my columns for multiplayer, and these are better. People don’t attack into them if there is nothing lost, but you can conceivably swing with them if you dropped Spear of Heliod or equipped them with something, so they can give you more of a board presence later as well. They are very valuable as a result.

9.Craw Wurm

Since antiquated by Cowl Prowler (which is also a Wurm) or Vorstclaw (which is even bigger than that, but lacks the Wurm type), Craw Wurm established its cachet alongside the best creatures from the early days of the game. You wanted cards like Serra Angel, Clockwork Beast, Air Elemental, and Craw freakin’ Wurm. It still has that strong sense of power ad mystery to it. Sure, other cards have since pushed it aside, but man, it was great to play Craw Wurm!

8. Indomitable Ancients

Arguably one of the best defensive creatures of all time is Indomitable Ancients, and I still lean on it in my deck-building. Take a look again at those numbers 2/10. It is blocking pretty much anything without dying. I have learned from personal experience that it is very tough to crack that 10 defense nut. It’s better than Cho-Manno, Revolutionary, because it absorbs trample damage better. And it has powerful synergies with cards like Assault Formation and Doran, the Siege Tower. The Ancients are going to rule indeed.

7. Metallic Sliver

By including this 1-drop with the right Sliver type at the right time, Metallic Sliver will always be this awesome spy that gave Volrath a creature accepted by the Hive. It’s a clever card, as the one Sliver that doesn’t give abilities to others, but just takes. (Sliver Queen, introduced the next set, would be another, but that is also in the flavor of the creature as well, as she is their ruler.)This card weds a simple design with total flavor perfectly.

6. Fusion Elemental

Based on pure math, I suspect Fusion Elemental’s 8/8 board presence for five mana is going to always be a watershed for vanilla creatures unless we get a 9/9 or 10/10 for this casting cost moving forward. Fusion Elemental has a huge board presence, and was printed in a set with a bit of a five-color theme, so there more reliable ways to cast it on curve introduced. And that’s nasty when you can reward that sort of dedication to a mana base. There are a lot of support cards for it in Magic and I am sure you can find a lot of cool ways to get it onto battlefield (hint . . . note that it is Green . . . ) Enjoy Fusioning your kitchen table this week!

5. Savannah Lions / Elite Vanguard / Expedition Envoy

Savannah Lions were the best 1-drop that shipped with the game. Sure, some cards got played more because of their tap ability, like Llanowar Elves or Birds of Paradise, but this was the best 1-drop around, and it’s 2/1 aspect just looked strong in comparison to creatures like Merfolk of the Pearl Trident and Pearled Unicorn. This was powerful. But, rather than push creatures to this level, Wizards of Coast feared its power. After Fourth Edition, Savannah Lions were removed from Standard, and nothing similar hit the game. It wasn’t until 6 years later that they returned, as one of the iconic cards returning. It was eventually replaced in the Core Set by Elite Vanguard, which has a more pertinent Soldier type and was dropped to uncommon. Savannah Lions and their later inspiration had a big impact on the game, from the beginning through today.

In fact, I would argue that Savannah Lions is one of the best creatures from that era, because it remains printable and valuable. You could have Savannah Lions printed in Amonkhet, and with its Cat lords, it would fit, and you would have a creature that is not to week nor too strong for Standard. In retrospect, Wizards eventually moved to Savannah Lions. Speaking of moving to a new power and toughness curve . . . 

4. Watchwolf / Kalonian Tusker

Watchwolf was proof that Magic was moving to a more creature-focused direction, and led the way for other aggressively-priced creatures to follow. I mean, you used to have Trained Armodon get played because it was on curve so nicely. But now the curve was moving up. I cannot better what Zvi wrote when he reviewed Watchwolf.

Well said Zvi! This card was the introduction of serious power to your format, and Kalonian Tusker came along later and certified that Watchwolf style beats were no exception, but the new rule. The goal post was moved for three mana for a strong vanilla 3/3 to 2 mana.

3.14 Vizzerdrix

This awesome 6/6 winner is one of the best ways to end a game in Blue! I’ve often dropped it after gaining control with my counter magic, card drawing, bounce and tapping. You can lock down their side of the board with great cards like Capsize, Mind Games, Ertai, Wizard Adept and more, and then swing away with this awesome creature to end the game quickly. Nothing says, “I’m about to kill you hard!” than this 6/6 Rabbit Beast! (Although, to be fair, why doesn’t it have the “Fish” type? Flavor text: A bored wizard once created a vizzerdrix out of a bunny and a piranha. He never made that mistake again. They added Rabbit later, so why not Fish too?)¹

3. Woolly Thoctar/ Leatherback Baloth

These are the best, most abusive vanilla creatures of all time in terms of power. The Thoctar is a little better, and both harder and worse to cast. Both give you nine total power and toughness for three mana. Both of these are nasty creatures that end the game quickly, and the Thoctar was played in Standard quite a bit during its run. In a way eerily reminiscent of Watchwolf and the Tusker above, we saw the Thoctar first, and the Baloth followed as a Mono-Green entry as well, showing that Green is, in fact, all about that base. Both do a lot of damage, and are fast out of the gate. I think you can see how Watchwolf led directly to the Thoctar.

2. Crimson Kobolds / Crookshank Kobolds / Kobolds of Kher Keep

These are the cards I was referring to above I my rules explanation. Just three expansion sets into the game and we are already experimenting with colored free creatures (Ornithopter was printed the set before). Now, the Kobolds aren’t the strongest creatures in the world, but their free-ness led to play in many Tammy-friendly decks that wanted to play them early, and then build them up with Orcish Oriflamme, Gauntlet of Might, and Kobold Taskmaster. Kobolds have always carved out an interesting niche, and then they are often used as combo fodder as well, so they have double value. Now they ruined any sort of limited value from Legends It wasn’t printed for Limited, but many of the colors have something useful to draft in the lower rarities, but not Red.

Here are your common Red creatures:

• Blazing Effigy
• 3 Kobolds
• Raging Bull
• Wall of Earth
• Wall of Heat

That’s right, of the seven common creatures Red has, two are Walls that can’t attack, four have no power, and the last is a Grey Ogre reprint. You over-valued Raging Bull because it was your only win condition. Don’t do that. Friends don’t let friends draft Legends.

1. Isamaru, Hound of Konda

Duh. Isamaru is the only vanilla creature to ever be used to sell a set. Champions of Kamigawa was a legendary heavy set, and this was intentionally pushed to illustrate what you could do with a Hound of Konda. It’s the best p/t 1-drop in vanilla-dom, and without a disadvantage other than its legendary status, it retains to this day a powerful board presence in a lot of decks and formats. The Hound of Konda for the win.

And there we are! 10 vanilla creatures from Fusion Elemental to Isamaru, Hound of Konda to Watchwolf! So what did you think of my list? Anything missing? Anything you wanted to change? Just let me know in the comments below!

¹ Note, that for those of you who may not recognize, the Vizzerdrix is a joke entry, thus it’s entry number. However, note that I am also sending up the “once you gain control, you can win with anything” concept that Blue often has. And hey, if you ran the Spike-iest meanest Blue deck ever, but won with Vizzerdrix, I’d give you mad props.