The Grand Creature Type Update

Thetime has come! Over the past few years, we've been updating Magic cards to modern creature type standards in dribs and drabs. Rather than continuing to live with inconsistencies for the foreseeable future, we're going all out and updating everything in one fell swoop.

Why Update?

Initially, we weren't going to. Back in the Mirrodin set, we implemented the "race class" model for Magic creatures, and we made Human a creature type. At first, we had no plans to update cards from the past. Then you'd have to check Oracle to know what creature types your card is, and we felt that was best avoided.

We soon realized that policy would be impossible to support because we reprint cards. When Samite Healer showed up in Ninth Edition, was it supposed to remain a Cleric rather than a Human Cleric? No, of course not—the only way for it to make sense in Ninth Edition and in Standard was to make it a Human. So our policy was that we'd update creature types when we reprinted cards.

But we reprint cards in all sorts of weird ways. There are the core set cards. There are reprints that show up in expert-level sets (like Elves of Deep Shadow or Verdeloth the Ancient). A bunch of Ice Age and Alliances cards popped up in Coldsnap theme decks. Two expert-level sets (Mirage and Visions) have been digitally reprinted for Magic Online. Masters Edition is another set of online-only reprints, but that was a compilation, not a standard set.

As time went on, two things became clear to us:

1) It would be easier to look at the big picture and update everything than it would be to continually update small slices of the pie. Decisions made while looking at a tiny subset aren't necessarily the right decisions in the long run, so why not make the long-run decisions now?

2) Our hope that players would be able to avoid Oracle when they want to know what creature types their cards are was already torpedoed. If you're holding an Ice Age card, do you know whether it's been reprinted in Ninth Edition? Tenth Edition? Masters Edition? A Coldsnap theme deck? You've got to look it up if you really need to know. Once that's the case, then it's in everyone's best interests to make the creature types as sensible as possible.

Why Update Now?

The creature type update is synched to the Lorwyn release because Lorwyn is a tribal set. Those creature types matter! Updating the master creature type list that lives in the Comp Rules is especially important because all the Lorwyn creatures with changeling have all those types. So now is the best time to seriously streamline that list.

What's Changing?

There are four main categories of changes.

1) Creatures without creature types got some creature types. There are three types of cards that lacked creature types:

• Legendary creatures. Prior to the Mirrodin set, Legend was a creature type. Most legendary creatures were printed as "Summon Legend" or "Creature — Legend," and had no further creature types. (Some, like Sliver Queen, had creature types in their text box; others, like Rorix Bladewing, had extra types on their type lines.)
• Artifact creatures. Some artifact creatures had types like Golem, Gnome, or Chimera. But we didn't have an "every creature has a creature type" policy, so lots of artifact creatures were subtypeless.
• Cards that self-animate. Many cards that can turn into creatures, from Mishra's Factory to Opal Titan, listed the creature types they turn into. But some didn't.

2) Creatures that lacked races got a race. The vast majority of these are creatures that should be Human but were printed before Mirrodin. In fact, more than half of the cards involved in this update got "Human" added to them. Some cards got other races, like Dryad (Dawnstrider), Dauthi (Dauthi Marauder), Soltari (Soltari Crusader), Thalakos (Thalakos Sentry), Kor (Silkenfist Fighter), Merfolk (Ceta Disciple), and so on.

3) Creatures that lacked an obvious class got a class. If a class exists in a creature's name, like Dwarven Warriors and Elvish Archers, the creature got that class added to its types. Some other strong name cues led to type changes; for example, creatures with "Vandal" or "Bandit" in their names are now Rogues.

4) Obsolete creature types were eliminated. A number of completely bizarre creature types were still on the books. Being? Entity? Gaea's-Avenger? Gone, and their former owners now have more sensible types. In addition, there were a number of creature types that were too specific, and these have been folded into more standard types. For example, Erne and Vulture are now Bird, and Dragonfly and Ant are now Insect.

That covers most things. There were some other causes for change. For example, we've introduced Hellion and Homunculus as new creature types recently. Those types were propagated back to the three previous Hellions and two previous Homunculi. Also, we added a lot of animal types to Beasts that really look like those animals. For example, Anurid Brushhopper is now a Frog Beast and Battering Craghorn is now a Goat Beast.

This brings up an important point: Wherever possible, we added creature types to existing supported types rather than replacing those types. Take Brine Shaman, for example. It was printed as a Cleric. It should clearly be a Human, and it should clearly be a Shaman. But it says "Cleric" right there on the card! Our answer was to make it a Human Cleric Shaman. It's a little redundant, but if you're playing with the card and you have to guess whether it's a Cleric, you'll probably be right... and if you have to guess whether it's a Shaman, you'll probably be right too.

Text Changes

Goblin King never affected itself because it wasn't a Goblin for the first decade or so of its life. When it was reprinted in Ninth Edition as a Goblin, its template was changed so that it would continue to not affect itself—it now affected "other" Goblins. A number of cards got similar errata as part of this update to preserve their functionality as much as possible. They are: Zombie Master; Kobold Drill Sergeant; Kobold Overlord; Orc General; Anaba Ancestor; Faerie Noble; Thopter Squadron; Kangee, Aerie Keeper; and Lovisa Coldeyes. In addition, Elephant Graveyard now regenerates only Elephants because Mammoth no longer exists. (All Mammoths are now Elephants, so Elephant Graveyard interacts with the same cards that it always did.)

Three cards got more extensive changes.

Ivory Guardians
The "Guardian" creature type was eliminated in this update, for much the same reason that "Lord" was eliminated as a creature type. That left Ivory Guardians in a quandary, since its Oracle wording gives a bonus to all Guardians. But its printed wordings are much less clear. Compare Goblin Balloon Brigade. Its Alpha / Beta / Unlimited wording gave a bonus to "Goblins." This was interpreted as giving the bonus not to all Goblins, but just to Goblin Balloon Brigade. "Goblins" was shorthand for the creature's name. The same interpretation can be applied to Ivory Guardians, so it now gives the bonus to all creatures named Ivory Guardians. It's a bit of a kluge, but that's the story we're going with.

Aysen Crusader
Aysen Crusader's power and toughness are each equal to 2 plus the number of Heroes you control. Unfortunately for Aysen Crusader, "Hero" is also eliminated in this update. It hasn't been a supported type for years; if it were, Reborn Hero, Devoted Hero, Goblin Hero, and various others would all have the type. Instead, the only Heroes in existence were Benalish Hero, Beast Walkers, and Kjeldoran Warrior—and Benalish Hero became a Human Soldier in the Masters Edition update. Aysen Crusader lucks out, however—taking the spirit of its ability to heart, we determined that its power and toughness will now be determined based on the number of Soldiers and Warriors you control! At least that should make up for Ivory Guardians getting short shrift.

Wirefly Hive
Wirefly Hive produced Wirefly tokens. But just like The Hive (which originally made Wasps) and Giant Caterpillar (which originally made a Butterfly), this should make Insects. After the update, it'll make Insect tokens named Wirefly. The tricky part is that the artifact also destroys Wireflies. In the past, this would've destroyed Mistform Ultimus too, since it was also a Wirefly. After the update, Wirefly Hive will destroy only creatures named Wirefly.

Un- Types

None of the Unglued or Unhinged creature types were changed. I couldn't change them even if I wanted to, since those cards don't exist in Oracle! However, all creature types specific to Un- cards are being eliminated from the Comprehensive Rules list. In the land of silver bordered cards, fractions are legal numbers—but this is specifically prohibited by the Comp Rules. When playing with Un- cards, pink, brown, and hazel are legit colors—but they're not listed in the Comp Rules. So why are creature types like Gus, Paratrooper, and Donkey in the Comp Rules? As of the Lorwyn update, they're not.

Final Notes

Overall, this was a huge project. A total of 1197 cards changed in the creature type update. 146 creature types were eliminated, and 8 were added, to leave the final list at 216 creature types.

And you know what? We probably didn't do it perfectly. When you're updating nearly 1200 cards, there are probably some things that slipped through the cracks. There are certainly issues that are ambiguous. If you think we made a mistake, or left something out, or have any other comments you'd like us to see, please leave a note in the message boards. We'll be checking, and any oversights will be corrected in the next Oracle update. Please do not send me email on this topic. The only way to have your voice be heard is to post in the message boards.

Eliminated Types

Abomination, Aladdin, Albatross, Alchemist, Ali-Baba, Ali-from-Cairo, Alligator, Ambush-Party, Ant, Asp, Bandit, Banshee, Bee, Being, Bodyguard, Brownie, Bull, Bureaucrat, Caravan, Carnivore, Carriage, Cave-People, Cheetah, Chicken, Child, Clamfolk, Cobra, Constable, Cow, Crusader, Designer, Devouring-Deep, Dinosaur, Dog, Donkey, Dragonfly, Drill-Sergeant, Eel, Effigy, El-Hajjâj, Enchantress, Entity, Erne, Essence, Exorcist, Expansion-Symbol, Farmer, Fiend, Frostbeast, Fungusaur, Gaea's-Avenger, Gamer, General, Ghost, Ghoul, Guardian, Gus, Gypsy, Harlequin, Heretic, Hero, Hipparion, Hornet, Horseman, Hyena, Infernal-Denizen, Inquisitor, Island-Fish, Jackal, Keeper, Kelp, King, Lady-of-Proper- Etiquette, Legionnaire, Leper, Lord, Lurker, Lycanthrope, Mage, Maiden, Mammoth, Marid, Master, Medusa, Merchant, Mime, Minor, Miracle-Worker, Mold-Demon, Monster, Mummy, Murk-Dwellers, Nameless-Race, Narwhal, Niall-Silvain, Noble, Paladin, Paratrooper, Penguin, People-of-the-Woods, Phantasm, Pig, Pikemen, Pixie-Queen, Poltergeist, Pony, Priest, Pyknite, Ranger, Robber, Roc, Rock-Sled, Sage, Scavenger, Shark, Ship, Shyft, Sister, Smith, Sorceress, Spuzzem, Spy, Stangg-Twin, Tactician, Tarpan, Teddy, Thief, The-Biggest-Baddest-Nastiest-Scariest-Creature-You'll-Ever-See, Twin, Viper, Vulture, Waiter, Walking-Dead, Whippoorwill, Wight, Wiitigo, Wirefly, Wolverine-Pack, Wolves-of-the-Hunt, Wretched

Added Types

Anemone, Anteater, Elk, Harpy, Nautilus, Scarecrow, Squid, Thalakos

New List of Creature Types (a.k.a., What Mirror Entity Is)

Advisor, Anemone, Angel, Anteater, Antelope, Ape, Archer, Archon, Artificer, Assassin, Assembly-Worker, Atog, Aurochs, Avatar, Badger, Barbarian, Basilisk, Bat, Bear, Beast, Beeble, Berserker, Bird, Blinkmoth, Boar, Bringer, Brushwagg, Camarid, Camel, Caribou, Carrier, Cat, Centaur, Cephalid, Chimera, Citizen, Cleric, Cockatrice, Construct, Coward, Crab, Crocodile, Cyclops, Dauthi, Demon, Deserter, Devil, Djinn, Dragon, Drake, Dreadnought, Drone, Druid, Dryad, Dwarf, Efreet, Egg, Elder, Elemental, Elephant, Elf, Elk, Eye, Faerie, Ferret, Fish, Flagbearer, Fox, Frog, Fungus, Gargoyle, Giant, Gnome, Goat, Goblin, Golem, Gorgon, Graveborn, Gremlin, Griffin, Hag, Harpy, Hellion, Hippo, Homarid, Homunculus, Horror, Horse, Hound, Human, Hydra, Illusion, Imp, Incarnation, Insect, Jellyfish, Juggernaut, Kavu, Kirin, Kithkin, Knight, Kobold, Kor, Kraken, Lammasu, Leech, Leviathan, Lhurgoyf, Licid, Lizard, Manticore, Masticore, Mercenary, Merfolk, Metathran, Minion, Minotaur, Monger, Mongoose, Monk, Moonfolk, Mutant, Myr, Mystic, Nautilus, Nephilim, Nightmare, Nightstalker, Ninja, Nomad, Octopus, Ogre, Ooze, Orb, Orc, Orgg, Ouphe, Ox, Oyster, Pegasus, Pentavite, Pest, Phelddagrif, Phoenix, Pincher, Pirate, Plant, Prism, Rabbit, Rat, Rebel, Reflection, Rhino, Rigger, Rogue, Salamander, Samurai, Sand, Saproling, Satyr, Scarecrow, Scorpion, Scout, Serf, Serpent, Shade, Shaman, Shapeshifter, Sheep, Skeleton, Slith, Sliver, Slug, Snake, Soldier, Soltari, Spawn, Specter, Spellshaper, Sphinx, Spider, Spike, Spirit, Splinter, Sponge, Squid, Squirrel, Starfish, Survivor, Tetravite, Thalakos, Thopter, Thrull, Treefolk, Triskelavite, Troll, Turtle, Unicorn, Vampire, Vedalken, Viashino, Volver, Wall, Warrior, Weird, Whale, Wizard, Wolf, Wolverine, Wombat, Worm, Wraith, Wurm, Yeti, Zombie, Zubera

So that's the overview. This is your last chance to escape before we get to the giant table.

• Go to Comprehensive Rules Changes.

• Go to Normal Oracle Changes.

What follows is a set-by-set breakdown of every card that got a new creature type. Changes in bold are those that feature the new creature types in rules text rather than on the type line.