griffins | Crooked Glasses

As part of my “unusual creature types” series, I’ll be reviewing the Griffins today. I started off this post believing that Griffins were merely uglier, stronger Birds, but as you’ll see, I soon found out how wrong I was about them!

What Do the Griffins Do?

First and foremost, the Griffins are flying combat creatures, as expected, and quite a few carry vigilance and/or first strike as well. They are mostly 2/2, 2/3, or 3/2 creatures (though there are a few Griffins with larger powers or toughnesses than that), which make them fairly strong contenders against other flying-based creature decks.

But aside from their combat prowess, the Griffins have another feature: possessing some of the most random and unusual creature abilities. Here’s just a sampler of some of the stranger abilities within the Griffin creature type:

Pay a snow land to gain first strike
Sacrifice to deal 3 damage to target attacking/blocking creature
Can be recast from exile
If no enchantments are in play under your control, the Griffin dies
Bounce back to hand to return another Griffin from grave to hand
Sacrifice to destroy target black creature
Gets a +1/+1 counter for each damage you were dealt from an opponent’s source

In essence, many of the Griffins carry abilities from other colors into White, since most of the Griffins are White, with only a few exceptions (a few Blue and one Red/Green/White). It makes them an interesting creature type to play in a Tribal deck, and makes them also suitable for playing in more generic White or multi-color decks as well.

With a mana curve running from 1 to 6 mana, most of them hovering around 3 or 4, the 33 Griffins printed so far in M:TG can make a pretty solid White creature-based deck. Give them a try–they’re a very different flavor from Birds!

Other Examples of the Griffin Creature Type