Erhnam Djinn
The original drawback card, and the template every "efficient body with a cost" green fatty since has had to answer for. The math in 1993 was stark: a 4/5 for four mana broke every curve Wizards had drawn, so the design paid for the rate with a recurring upkeep gift that handed an opponent's creature forestwalk pointed straight at the deck most likely to play it. The elegance is in how binary the cost is. Forestwalk checks the defending player's lands, so the gifted creature is completely unblockable the moment that player controls a single Forest, and entirely harmless if they control none. That turns the drawback into a referendum on the matchup rather than a constant tax: when your own Forests turn the gifted creature loose it can swing games, while if you control no Forests it does nothing at all. The non-Wall clause is the other quiet tell: it exists because handing forestwalk to a creature that never attacks would render the drawback inert, so the designers steered the gift toward a creature that can actually punish you. Generations of green beaters (Blastoderm, Loxodon Hierarch, Tarmogoyf, Steel Leaf Champion) have walked the path this card cut, trading some form of restriction for a stat line ahead of the curve. The drawback-for-rate dial that defines green creature design starts here.

Rules text
Format Status
More formatsFewer formats
Other printings
- Mystery Booster 2#133
- Vintage Masters#207
- Judgment#113
- Beatdown Box Set#54
- Anthologies#54
- Pro Tour Collector Set#et64
- Pro Tour Collector Set#pp64
- Pro Tour Collector Set#bl64













