Mondronen Shaman from Dark Ascension - A Magic the Gathering Card Review

by ElspethFTW, Old School Duelist

To be fair, I was never really into the whole Werewolf archetype. Despite being a tribe that I would typically find some interest in, as far as Magic the Gathering was concerned, Werewolves didn't seem like a viable tribe to play just with Innistrad alone. However, the release of the Dark Ascension set seemed to promise Red/Green Werewolves becoming a viable archetype. (It really didn't.)

Vampires were shaping up pretty well in Innistrad, but Zombies became more of a force in Standard with the release of this set. Still, Dark Ascension released some fine Werewolf cards.

Mondronen Shaman is far from being one of the best Werewolf cards in this set, but if you get it to transform, it’s actually quite a decent play. A 3/2 for 4 mana is a little pricey, perhaps, but it’s 3R, so that’s not too bad considering when the flip-side is a 5/5 with a decent secondary ability. It transforms like most other Werewolves, on the condition that no spells are cast on the previous turn.

The flipside, Tovolar’s Magehunter is a fun little card. Whenever an opponent casts any sort of spell, the Magehunter deals 2 damage to that player. Pretty sweet. Trouble is, at the beginning of each upkeep, if a player cast two or more spells the previous turn, it flips back into being a vanilla 3/2. The hope was that you would have Immerwolf on the board.

Immerwolf is a little 3-drop uncommon from Dark Ascension that has Intimidate and gives all Wolves and Werewolves +1/+1. It also has a little ability that says that non-human Werewolves cannot transform. Once the Shaman becomes the Magehunter, as long as you control an Immerwolf, it stays that way. In a dedicated red/green Werewolf deck, the Magehunter could cause a lot of hurt.

In Constructed, though, Mondronen Shaman and even the Magehunter was still susceptible to Dismember still being in play at the time. Still, there was the hope that it would become a must-kill upon flipping, because it had the potential to whittle away your opponent until they potentially couldn’t even cast spells anymore!

I loved this card's potential. But as it was a four-drop that began as a 3/2 vanilla creature, it never worked its way into a competitive Werewolf deck. Another decent card called Huntmaster of the Fells took up that four-drop slot. If not for the Huntmaster, the Shaman may have actually seen some play.

As far as collectability, Mondronen Shaman is never going to be worth much in price. However, the Launch Party Mondronen Shaman foil promo is nice to look at and has some future value just for being a Werewolf.

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