by Elton Gahr

Created on: October 29, 2009

Magic the gathering has always held the idea of tribes. Groups of cards from a specific group or race that are stronger when played together, but most of the time the best choice has been to pick the best cards from many tribes rather than trying to pick less powerful cards in order to stay in the same tribe, but in recent years the makers of magic the gathering have done a few things to make playing a deck based on a theme a little more tournament plausible. They have focused in on a few major tribes giving them more choices in tribe and creating abilities that give major advantages to playing a great many cards in the same tribe.

Wolf-Skull Shaman is one of these cards, an uncommon elf Shaman from the morningtide expansion set of magic the gathering. It costs one green and one colorless and is 2/2 creature.

Magic the gathering has a history of 2/2 creatures for two mana with no abilities that have been playable if not exciting creatures and so having one with a very useful ability is far better.

This ability reads "Kinship - At the beginning of your upkeep, you may look at the top card of your library. If it shares a creature type with Wolf-Skull Shaman, you may reveal it. If you do, put a 2/2 green Wolf creature token onto the battlefield."

This means that every time you reveal a shaman or an elf as the top card of your deck you get another creature of the same value as the Wolf-skull Shaman, and if this occurs even once you have gained value on the card.

The weakness of the card is that it is likely to change how you play it. There are other cards which are similarly weakened by their strength something a good player can overcome. This is because a player may be unwilling to risk the Wolf-Skull Shaman when he should. No matter the ability this is still at its core a 2/2 creature and if you have the opportunity to use it to get through with damage or to trade with another creature its ability shouldn't be a large factor.

This is a card that can fit well into the mana curve of a great many decks and if you are playing enough elves or Shaman for this to have a reasonable chance of being triggered it is a card that has to be considered.

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