by Richard Rowell, Gaming Successfully Staff
Probably not a lot of people have ever heard of Gorilla Shaman, but it’s an interesting card. Originally printed in Alliances, it was also reprinted in a Coldsnap Theme Deck. It’s a 1/1 creature for one red mana and has the ability: Pay X-X-1: Destroy target non-creature artifact with casting cost equal to X.
Double X costs are always kind of yucky, but on a one-drop creature, it’s not a bad ability. Say you wanted to destroy a two-drop artifact: it would cost you 5 mana to destroy that artifact. While that’s quite a bit of a mana investment to destroy one card, on a one-drop creature, it’s not bad at all. I could see this card being usable in Commander, even though there are far superior ways to destroy artifacts in red.
Being a 1/1 creature for 1 (and having been errata’d to a Shaman that is relevant for some cards), Gorilla Shaman is at least worth a look in the right deck. Reusable removal is always worth something. For Constructed purposes, though, it’s one to pass on – although it wasn’t bad in Ice Age Block Constructed.
Double X costs are always kind of yucky, but on a one-drop creature, it’s not a bad ability. Say you wanted to destroy a two-drop artifact: it would cost you 5 mana to destroy that artifact. While that’s quite a bit of a mana investment to destroy one card, on a one-drop creature, it’s not bad at all. I could see this card being usable in Commander, even though there are far superior ways to destroy artifacts in red.
Being a 1/1 creature for 1 (and having been errata’d to a Shaman that is relevant for some cards), Gorilla Shaman is at least worth a look in the right deck. Reusable removal is always worth something. For Constructed purposes, though, it’s one to pass on – although it wasn’t bad in Ice Age Block Constructed.
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