10 MTG creatures that are incredibly overpowered

For a big chunk of Magic: The Gathering’s existence, creatures just weren’t that big a thing. Most of the really strong ones were hard to put in play, and many came with crippling drawbacks. Times have changed, and non-creature spells no longer rule the game.

MTG is now home to a bunch of extremely powerful creatures no one would’ve believed could see competitive play 20 years ago. Let’s look at the best of the best.

Morphling

I summoned Morphling here to give you perspective. He’s not a really powerful creature by today’s standards, but he was the first amazing creature the game had ever seen. Though it came at a high cost for a 3/3 creature, itdidn’t have to stay a 3/3, and came packed with abilities that made him both extremely hard-hitting and nearly unkillable. This kind of versatility was a never-before-seen thing back in the day and is rare even in today’s absolutely roided-up MTG creatures.

Progenitus

Summoning Progenitus in the OG way might prove a challenge. It’s as specific as it gets in its incredibly high mana cost, but he’s more than worth it. “Protection from everything” is an absurd ability that, outside of a forced sacrifice, will not only make it impervious to any threat but also pretty much guarantees it will always deal 10 damage if it decides to attack.

If that weren’t enough, even after being sacrificed, Progenitus doesn’t really die. It will always make it back into your deck right before it reaches the graveyard. Progenitus is just like us in one of those nightmares that you wake up from right before you die, except it’s a 5-headed world-eating serpent.

Snapcaster Mage

This wizard doesn’t hit hard but will lead the way to pure immediate destruction. He might not look like much for newcomers who think strength and toughness are what makes a creature strong, but this one comes with a much more important ability.

Not only is Snapcaster Mage capable of showing up at any time courtesy of “flash,” but he also has the ability to bring any spell from the graveyard and give it that ability as well. MTG has a lot of very specific combos, but Snapcaster mage is the rare card you can use in combination with pretty much any non-creature spell you’d like. Go crazy — or go lethal.

Whenever you find “Eldrazi” in the creature type box, you know you’re about to see something wild. Remember Morphling? He had five abilities and required a lot of mana to achieve his famous peak versatility. Ulamog requires twice as much mana as Morphling to come into play, but we have many more mana options available nowadays and alternative ways to get a creature into play. Also, Ulamog features four game-ending abilities that don’t really need its owner to move a muscle—or land.

Blightsteel Colossus

If you think nothing can look scarier than Progenitus, then I need you to meet Blightsteel Colossus. I don’t mean that because it has one more point in strength, but because on top of it being indestructible, it features both trample and infect.

That’s a very dangerous combo, as infect causes poison damage to other players, and it only takes 10 of those to kill someone. This means that if you get hit by the Blightsteel Colossus’ full might, you will always die in one hit, regardless of how much HP you have.

Meddling Mage

Though it comes from Planeshift, arguably the dumbest, wackiest and most confusing set in the modern history of the game, Meddling Mage is one of the best creatures in the game. For two mana, you get a 2/2 creature that prohibits the adversary from playing any one nonland card of its owner’s choosing.

That’s an extremely powerful ability made even better by the fact that the Meddling Mage isn’t a legend, meaning that you can have four in play at the same time, which allows you to ban the adversary from playing up to 4 different cards. Most decks rely on one mechanic that hinges on a specific card, so it’s highly likely that you’ll lose against someone playing under such prohibitive conditions.

Back in the old days, getting a 4/5 for four mana without a massive drawback would have certainly been attributed to a typo. On top of not having any drawbacks, Sheoldred has three excellent abilities that require nothing from the player. Having Sheoldred on your battlefield is a blessing, and having it on your opponent’s battlefield is a guaranteed headache. No wonder why this is one of the most valuable creature cards nowadays.

Griselbrand

At 8 mana, Griselbrand might feel too costly for a 7/7 creature in the world of today’s MTG, but he’s not. Not only is Griselbrand incredibly strong physically, he’s an absolute game-changer. Griselbrand gives you the ability to draw seven cards if you pay 7 health. This might also look like a steep price to pay, but Griselbrand is also great at giving you life back, not to mention that Griselbrand’s ability doesn’t require you to tap it, meaning that you can spam it until you get whatever card you want so long as you still have HP to pay for it.

Tarmogoyf

This Lhurgoyf is as simple as it gets. For just two mana, you get a creature that will inevitably grow to humungous proportions, even when it’s not in a deck meant to send as much stuff as possible to the graveyard just to feed it.

Tarmogoyf might not look like much at first glance, but Tarmogoyf nearly broke Magic when it first showed up and has the distinct honor of standing at the top of MTG‘s podium of best creatures in the game for the longest time.

There are a few versions of Emrakul, each more powerful than most creatures in MTG, but Emrakul, the Aeons Torn is, without a doubt, tops all the charts. Putting it into play by paying its mana cost is quite a challenge, but there are other ways to do so. Emrakul isn’t just great at killing its opponents via its immense brute strength, it’s also fantastic at destroying everything they own, and even at messing with time itself by giving its owner extra turns. Oh, it’s also not very keen on dying, as hitting a graveyard will cause it to go back into the deck.

Sending Emrakul back in time to show it to the people playing MTG back in the early ’90s would likely cause a reaction no less shocking than what you’d get from showing Cyberpunk 2077’s first trailer to a caveman.

If you’re not too big on MTG lore, think of Emrakul as basically Sin from Final Fantasy X, a huge flying sentient stronghold that’ll inevitably destroy everything for reasons we cannot comprehend.