Card Talk 12

Arni Metalbrow card art

Today is the twelfth post in my Card Talk series.

Reminder how Card Talk works:

• I go to Scryfall and select 'Random Card'
• I present and blog about the card. I could discuss any aspect: the art, abilities, cost, set, impact on the game, and so on. Stream of consciousness.

Card Talk is a fun, uncurated way to look at Magic's cards, mechanics, history, art, sets, and so on. And of course it exposes some of my own preferences, biases, and memories of the game. 

Today's card is . . .

Archivist

Hmmmm . . . Archivist. A rare blue creature from Eighth Edition.

Archivist is a wizard. Wizard is the most prevalent creature type in blue, with 514 unique ones printed to date (that are only blue; my 'prevalence' link incudes all wizards regardless of color). I love tribal decks, which is why I do a 'tribal month' each February (see posts from that month if interested), but I have yet to cover wizards there because I had difficulty figuring out a mono-blue wizard tribal deck (blue/red ones are more common).

Archivist's ability enables you to draw a card. Card advantage is very important in Magic, so this ability is coveted (and popular with this color and type: 78 blue wizard creature cards have some form of card draw). With a toughness of only one, though, and no other evasion abilities, this particular creature is easily destroyed.

Archivist is from Eighth Edition, which had some unique attributes that I discussed in Card Talk 9, so I won't repeat that here. Of 61 total blue cards in that set, only seven go for more than $1 today. At $0.47, Archivist sits at 11/61 in terms of value.