Battle-Rattle Shaman
The trigger fires at the beginning of combat, before attackers are even declared, and that placement is the whole point: the +2/+0 lands when you still know nothing about how the defending player intends to block, so the bonus commits in the dark and telegraphs itself the moment it resolves. A pump spell waits in hand and sells the surprise; this announces its boost up front, letting the opponent factor the extra two power into every blocking decision they have not yet made. It exploits the window before damage rather than during it, so the bonus folds into the attack math you are about to declare instead of ambushing a committed blocker. The 2/2 body is incidental scaffolding; the value here is a recurring engine that hands two extra power to a creature of your choosing every turn it survives. The target line stays wide open (yours or an opponent's, though the upside almost always lives on your side, sharpening one threat or shoving a marginal attacker past a chump blocker). It sits in the line of Goblin Shamans built to make a thin red board hit above its stat lines: a repeatable pump priced as a creature rather than spent as a single spell, trading the burst and concealment of a one-shot trick for the slow accumulation of an effect that keeps firing.

Rules text
Format Status
More formatsFewer formats
Other printings
- Foundations#533
- Foundations Jumpstart#128
- Double Masters#116
- Core Set 2021#130
- The List#E01-40
- Battlebond#166
- Iconic Masters#117
- Archenemy: Nicol Bolas#40








