Magic: The Gathering – The 10 Best Creatures Of 2022

2022 has been a banner year for Magic: The Gathering, with tons of new sets, products, and cards for players to battle with. Creatures got a particularly powerful wave of cards that impacted several formats in Magic. Some creatures took off immediately while others were sleeper hits.

Whether you’re looking for the next best Commander tech or want to pick up a few Standard bombs, these creatures can find a place in your deck. Let’s take a look at some of the strongest creatures to be released in 2022 and see how they stack up.

10/10 Ancient Copper Dragon

Ancient Copper Dragon is a respectable 6/5 flying creature for six mana, nothing too special as far as dragons go. The real power behind this dragon comes from the fact it can generate anywhere between one and twenty Treasure tokens every time it connects with a player.

With an average of ten Treasures being created, you can ramp out your even larger spells or token shenanigans quickly. Flying makes it hard to deal with already, but there are plenty of ways to ensure you can sneak that damage through with cards like Key to the City and Whispersilk Cloak.

9/10 Woodcaller Automaton

Sometimes a card is printed that you know is going to be trouble. Woodcaller Automaton is fairly innocuous, it can turn a land into a creature with a power and toughness equal to Woodcaller Automaton’s. The key feature is that it untaps that land. Combine it with Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx in Pioneer and suddenly you’re generating tons of mana.

You don’t even need to play it in your main deck, with Karn, the Great Creator you can pull it from your graveyard and likely cast it all in the same turn.

8/10 Third Path Iconoclast

Going straight from Standard to Legacy is Third Path Iconoclast. This two-mana creature creates a 1/1 Soldier token whenever you cast a noncreature spell, similar to the other spell-based creature token card, Young Pyromancer.

What makes Third Path Iconoclast such an easy inclusion is since it is a blue card, you can discard it as part of Force of Will’s alternate casting cost. Toss Third Path Iconoclast into a blue-red or a Grixis deck and double up with your army of tokens.

7/10 Rootpath Purifier

Rootpath Purifier does something extremely unique in Magic, it turns all lands you control and lands in your library into basic lands. While it might seem a little underwhelming at first, the power of this card cannot be overstated. Rootpath Purifier allows all your fetch lands to grab any land they want now.

Rootpath Purifier is a great way to counter Blood Moon-like effects since it turns your nonbasic lands to basics. This means Blood Moon isn’t making them Mountains, so they retain their abilities, they are basic lands, and they cannot tap for red mana.

6/10 Greasefang, Okiba Boss

Greasefang, Okiba Boss could have easily been a card you might have looked over, thought it sounded neat, and promptly forgot about. In Standard, where there are plenty of Vehicles but none that stood out, that would be the case.

Except in other constructed formats like Historic and Pioneer, where the Parhelion II is legal, Greasefang is extremely powerful. Put the Parhelion II in your graveyard, or some other extremely powerful Vehicle like Skysovereign, Consul Flagship, and you can quickly run down your opponent.

5/10 White Plume Adventurer

This card has a unique mechanic called initiative, which functions similarly to the monarch mechanic and looks like the venture into the dungeon mechanic. White Plume Adventurer has you take the initiative when it comes into play, which provides a unique dungeon card to follow.

The first step is to search your library for a basic land, which helps to smooth out your land drops. White Plume Adventurer has found a home in a Legacy Stax list alongside other initiative cards and Stoneforge Mystic.

4/10 Phyrexian Fleshgorger

Turns out a mythic rare card loaded with keywords and a staggeringly painful ward ability is pretty darn good. Phyrexian Fleshgorger also comes with the new prototype alternate casting cost, modifying its power and toughness as well.

While Phyrexian Fleshgorger has been primarily seeing play in mono-black decks nothing is stopping it from easily moving into other decks that splash black. As far as finishers go, Phrexian Fleshgorger is one of the best 2022 has to offer.

3/10 Myrel, Shield Of Argive

A uniquely powerful card, Myrel, Shield of Argive puts a stop to anything your opponents want to do on your turn. No more pesky counterspells stopping your creatures, don’t have to worry about flashing anything in, and you certainly don’t have to worry about any vehicles being crewed defensively.

Even better, Myrel is an army all on her own, creating Soldier tokens every time it attacks and doubling up every subsequent attack. If left alone, Myrel can quickly take over a match after just a few attacks.

2/10 Raffine, Scheming Seer

Raffine is a card that continuously generates value the longer its left in play. For just three mana you get a 1/4 flying creature that can grow larger the more it attacks. It is also very difficult to deal with thanks to it having evasion with flying, and taxes your opponents with its ward 1 ability.

Raffine has quickly become a feature in Esper Midrange decks in Standard. These decks swarm the board with highly efficient creatures with a wide range of abilities that are difficult to deal with.

1/10 Sheoldred, The Apocalypse

Quite possibly the best card released in 2022 is Sheoldred, the Apocalypse. At just four mana Sheoldred is the cheapest Praetor and as a 4/5 with deathtouch, makes it very efficient on mana and allows it to take out larger threats.

It very quickly can swing the game in your favor after just a few turns of drawing cards and controlling the board. Better yet, the more cards you draw with Sheoldred in play means the more life you’re going to gain.

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