Mirri, Cat Warrior
The keyword-stacking poster child of the late-1990s green creature, and a tell about where the color's combat identity sat before power crept past it. Three mana for a 2/3 was a real body in its day, and the abilities are a study in how green earned evasion and reach without leaving its lane: first strike makes the small body a credible attacker and blocker, vigilance lets it hold the fort while still pressing, and forestwalk turns it into an unblockable clock against any opponent leaning on green's most basic land type. That last clause is the period detail. Landwalk was the era's standard nod to color-hosing and mirror-match incentives, and forestwalk specifically punished the green-on-green matchups that defined a lot of competitive tables when the card was new. The design reads as a checklist, but the choices are coherent: every keyword reinforces a creature meant to attack profitably and defend at the same time, the kind of two-way threat green rarely got at this cost. As a named legend, Mirri also did cultural work that outlasted the stat line, carrying through the Weatherlight saga and earning a later, very different incarnation in Mirri, Weatherlight Duelist. The original remains the cleaner expression of what she was built to be: a green combat utility creature from an age when stacking three keywords on a three-drop was a statement rather than a baseline.






