Elder Gargaroth is the New Monarch of Reach

I'm back to tell you which creatures have reach in Magic Core Set 2021, so that you can avoid the embarrassment of attacking your flying creature into them. Let's start with three simple green creatures.



Skyway Sniper
Snarespinner
Sporeweb Weaver
Rating: 0.0
These are the reach creatures we need. They all have higher toughness than power, a classic creature type, and both art and name that are highly suggestive of their anti-air use. While I usually approach this list in color, then alphabetical order, I wanted to start with this trio to emphasize how important all of these flavor hints are as we enter an increasingly digital game where card text is shrunk or absent until you hover. If you are staring at the Skyway Sniper on your opponent’s side of the screen, you can see in the art that they are getting ready to shoot an arrow at that passing Thopter. And spiders are spiders with the added benefit of having web-focused names.


Gnarled Sage
Rating: 3.0
While Gnarled Sage is not the most problematic card on this list, I do need to highlight that this card also exists in the set:


Look at these two cards, just the artwork, and tell me which of these is supposed to have reach. Heck, go beyond the art. The latter card is a warden, “a person responsible for the supervision of a particular place or thing or for ensuring that regulations associated with it are obeyed.” The Warden of the Woods does have vigilance, and that ability has been associated with sentries and guardians in the past, and now that I'm thinking about that, I don't know that I understand the flavor there either. What does that have to do with being able to attack and block? You still have to leave your post in order to attack.

It’s also noteworthy that this is the third treefolk with reach in Magic’s history, and that the previous two were oak trees (per their names, Cloudcrown Oak and Great Oak Guardian). There’s also no consistency in secondary typing with a warrior, druid, and single-typed treefolk. Oak is actually the most common type of tree to be in a card name, and based on my very rudimentary understanding of trees, appears to be the default treefolk in Magic.

What if they introduced a different type of tree as the treefolk with reach? I would suggest pine trees because they have a distinct look to them, and the flavor could be that they shoot their pine needles as anti-air projectiles akin to arrows. This would lean less on the trope of “tall things have reach,” which doesn’t make much sense when we start comparing treefolk. The other way to go would be redwoods, which are renown as super tall trees.


Turret Ogre
Rating: 3.0
Second time’s the charm? During its first printing in War of the Spark, I rated Turret Ogre a 3.0. There’s only one subtle change this time around, the reminder text on the reach ability itself. While that helps new players understand what the ability does, I think that it is a small hindrance for others as it adds some word soup into the mix, making the ability itself stand out less.


Elder Gargaroth
Rating: 5.0

Word soup, especially multiple keywords on the same line with reach buried. Even p/t. "Tall" flavor that isn't reflected in the name, and only somewhat reflected in the art. Luckily a mythic rare, but may have Constructed implications. Probably a 4.0 or 4.5 reach ambusher. https://t.co/ikgyEP7vxw

— Riki Hayashi (@mtgRikipedia) June 8, 2020

Excuse me?!

This card is ridiculous. Word soup with multiple keywords on one line, including having vigilance, so this will always be on defense to ambush you.

And while we’re on those keywords, what’s up with the order that they are printed on the card? I feel like there is some hierarchy of keywords, and this might be something that I spend some more time investigating. Totally get why trample is last. It only matters at the end of combat when it attacks. Basically every other keyword ever printed will be relevant before it. But if we’re talking about relevance of timing, surely reach should precede vigilance. Unless you give this haste through some outside means, Elder Gargaroth is going to be on blocking (and potentially reaching) duty before it goes on the attack and vigilance matters.

My ratings are made on a combination of how likely a creature is to reach ambush based on its flavor and art, and how punishing it is for said ambush to happen. With a 6/6 body, Elder Gargaroth is going to eat your flyer, and that’s plenty punishing enough to warrant a high rating, a 4.0 or 4.5 as I initially Tweeted, but what puts this card over the top is the triggered ability, which yes, triggers on attacking and blocking, something that I actually missed upon my first look.

Not only will Gargaroth eat an attacker, it will also generate an extra card’s worth of value in the deal. The old two-for-nothing. I’m stunned that I started writing these pieces because of Shifting Ceratops one year ago, and I thought that was one of the worst cases of this phenomenon ever. From the ambush side of things, it still might be because the reach is buried in an activated ability. But Gargaroth is now the top… elephant(?) for the maximum punishment it inflicts if you do fly into it. People talk a lot about power creep for things like Planeswalkers. I just never thought that I would see it so starkly in my niche genre.