Zodiac Monkey

Part of the Zodiac cycle of vanilla-ish beaters whose only trick is a single relevant landwalk keyword, this one is keyed to the most common land type in the game. Forestwalk on a green creature is the strange part: the ability only fires when the defending player also runs Forests, which in a green mirror is reliable and against anything else is dead text. The design reads as a deliberate compromise, a green two-drop that beats other green decks down but offers nothing extra into the field where green most wants reach. The 2/1 body sets the rate plainly: it dies to almost anything, attacks for two, and the evasion is conditional on a matchup that may never come up. What it documents is an older approach to creature design, when a keyword and a tribe were considered enough to fill a slot, and unblockable-against-mirrors was a real selling point rather than an afterthought. The Zodiac series itself is the kind of artifact that gets remembered for its theme more than its play: twelve creatures named for the lunar calendar, each handed one piece of evasion and a forgettable stat line.