The 28 Best Spellshapers in Magic Ranked

Kyren Flamewright | Illustration by Cristi Balanescu

Mercadian Masques block isn’t an MTG era that’s remembered for its awesome gameplay and game-breaking cards. In fact, it was just the opposite. But one element was created in that set that stood the test of time, and that’s the spellshaper creature type.

Spellshapers can discard any card from your hand to shape that card into a fixed effect. Some creatures allow you to make tokens, while others can turn lands into burn or removal spells. And MTG has developed plenty of ways to take advantage of discarded cards over the course of the years.

Today, we take a look at the best spellshapers MTG has designed, and which ones can fit your decks. Let’s dive in!

What Are Spellshapers in MTG?

Dreamscape Artist | Illustration by Jim Murray

Spellshaper is a creature subtype. They all have an activated ability in which you discard any card from your hand, and you get a specific spell effect. That’s why they’re spellshapers, they transform any card into that specific spell. Even the mana you pay for the ability is the same amount of mana as the referred spell. For example, some cards see play in the Pauper realm, like a Waterfront Bouncer that turns any card into an Unsummon, or an Undertaker that can Raise Dead at will, which is good for grindy self-mill decks.

Some spellshapers create tokens that remind us of specific creatures. Cloudseeder can create Cloud Sprite tokens, while Llanowar Mentor can create the iconic Llanowar Elves in a token version. At higher rarities, you get access to more powerful spells, like how Greel, Mind Raker emulates Mind Twist, or Jaya Ballard, Task Mage, which has potent spells in its “spellbook” like Pyroblast, Incinerate, and Inferno.

#28. Arc Mage

While the 2-damage effect Arc Mage provides isn’t that relevant, most of the time, it’s very strong if your opponent has 1/1 tokens, synergy creatures, or a bunch of small fliers. It’s a nice combo if you can give it deathtouch.

#27. Avenger en-Dal

Avenger en-Dal gives you access to a kind of Exile effect, mixed with Swords to Plowshares. There are better creatures that remove other creatures with activated abilities, like Intrepid Hero or Royal Assassin. That said, if you really need some exile removal or have exile synergies (Ketramose, the New Dawn), you may want to take a look at this card.

#26. Sliversmith

Sliversmith is a bad card, but it creates slivers on demand. The ability to instantly create 1/1 slivers is as good as the sliver buffs you have access to. It can also be good as a colorless discard outlet, if you’re playing some sort of discard synergies and don’t have that many ways to discard cards, or you’re playing Containment Construct.

#25. Latulla, Keldon Overseer

Sometimes you just need a way to win, or to turn a large amount of mana into enough damage. Latulla, Keldon Overseer allows you to channel all that mana into a hard-to-counter Blaze effect to finish an opponent.

#24. Seismic Mage

People aren’t going to be fond of you if you’re turning cards into Stone Rains, and Seismic Mage allows you to do just that. We don’t maindeck land destruction often, so this might annoy and surprise some players. It works well against creature lands, too.

#23. Devout Witness

Disenchant effects are everywhere nowadays between modal spells and ETB effects. But in the distant past, Devout Witness was a way to have this effect on an okay creature. And against a heavy enchantment or artifact deck, this card can do some work.

#22. Stronghold Machinist + Stronghold Biologist

I’ve put these two creatures together because you can choose between repeatable Essence Scatter or repeatable Negate. It depends on what you’re most scared of. Both Stronghold Machinist and Stronghold Biologist are equal 1/1 creatures for 3 mana and do the same thing. If you want to counter commanders, go with Biologist. If you want uncounterable Negates for combo, then Machinist is the better one.

#21. Silverglade Pathfinder

Rampant Growth is a playable card, and sometimes you want more of that. It’s ramp and color fixing while thinning out your deck. Silverglade Pathfinder is another way to ensure you have these tools. And in landfall decks, you can use this card to trigger your permanents on demand.

#20. Undertaker

Undertaker is a very grindy creature and perfect for Golgari () decks. It’s a nice way to recover your bomb or the creature you need most in a graveyard. It’s also redundancy if you want to build around Tortured Existence.

#19. Skirk Ridge Exhumer

Skirk Ridge Exhumer makes Festering Goblin, an excellent sacrifice fodder body. You get something you want to sacrifice, put a -1/-1 counter on some big creature or finish a small one, and reap the rewards. It also creates a goblin/zombie token, which are well-supported typal decks.

#18. Waterfront Bouncer

Waterfront Bouncer has some nice things going for it. First, you need to pay only 1 mana to activate its ability. Players won’t be too keen on playing vanilla cards or +1/+1 counter cards in the face of this. You can mess around with auras, gain some time while discarding a flashback spell or a key threat to reanimate, or bounce a token. It’s fragile, but it’s at least a 2-mana creature to compensate.

#17. Hammer Mage

Hammer Mage offers a repeatable artifact wrath in the form of a Meltdown that’ll sometimes be a Vandalblast. I mean, if your opponents have lots of Treasure and mana rocks, it’s not hard for this creature to do its thing, and just paying to destroy all artifact tokens isn’t the worst.

#16. Toymaker

Toymaker’s best use is repeatable artifact destruction. Most tokens that have 0 mana value, and artifact lands and moxen instantly die. Yes, Karn, Silver Golem does that for without the need to discard cards. In some rare games, you can use Toymaker to attack someone with a 9/9 Darksteel Forge.

#15. Stampede Driver

Stampede Driver offers a nice, repeatable, mini Overrun effect. If you have a 6/6 and a 5/5 on your board, giving them both trample and +1/+1 is huge. And for just 2 mana, this is also easy to activate.

#14. Alexi, Zephyr Mage

Alexi, Zephyr Mage has a very powerful ability. Usually, bounce spells are one-for-one, not considering cards like Cyclonic Rift or Aetherize. But here, you can turn two cards and some mana into a multi-bounce effect.

#13. Bog Witch

Bog Witch is Dark Ritual on a stick. If your black deck needs discard outlets, one that generates 2 black mana might do the trick. This card can be great in black EDH decks with expensive commanders, or ones that allow you to cast spells you’ve just discarded.

#12. Overtaker

Ray of Command is a very powerful and deceiving effect in combat. Especially in blue. You can steal a creature mid-combat and get a two-for-one or better. I know this effect works much better if you opponent doesn’t know you have it in your hand. It can be a player in the weird UB or UR Steal and Sac deck.

#11. Divining Witch

Divining Witch is combo on a stick. Many EDH decks that win on empty libraries, like with a Thassa's Oracle combo, can make use of this card. You just name a card that you don’t have in your deck, and you exile your whole library. You can use it as a bad, repeatable tutor of sorts, but the main application is to be another Demonic Consultation/Tainted Pact card.

#10. Dawnstrider

Fog is a bad card, I think we all agree on that. But turbo fog decks need as many redundant fog effects as they can possibly find, and Dawnstrider delivers that. Having one of these on the battlefield means that players think twice before they alpha strike you. It’s a nice combination with Questing Beast because you can get one-sided combat damage prevention.

#9. Greel, Mind Raker

Instant Mind Twist is a scary effect, even if it costs you two cards to do it. Greel, Mind Raker is expensive, and it takes a while to get going, but its ability is very powerful. In Commander, I’d use that as a political tool: Hey, I can make you lose some very relevant cards from your hand….”

#8. Llanowar Mentor

Some decks just want to have an army of Llanowar Elves so you can ramp 6- or 7-drops ahead of time, and Llanowar Mentor does exactly that for you. In decks that have synergies with elves, or that do something when elves hit the battlefield, this is a very playable card. This card sees some play in EDH, considering the popularity of decks like Voja, Jaws of the Conclave and High Perfect Morcant.

#7. Icatian Crier

If your goal is to go wide, then making two tokens every turn is very strong. Icatian Crier makes the math very hard with surprise blockers. And considering the many ways white decks have to double the number of tokens they create, this card may very well be creating 4+ tokens with one activation.

#6. Dreamscape Artist

Dreamscape Artist doesn’t do anything legendary, but it’s a blue card that gives you access to ramp and the ability to fetch lands. Just casting a card like Harrow every turn ramps you and thins your deck, on top of allowing you to play three+ colors much more easily. And this is killer in GU landfall decks.

#5. Invasion of Mercadia / Kyren Flamewright

You can completely ignore the spellshaper part here and just think about this as a playable Tormenting Voice. But since we care about spellshapers, once you attack your battle and flip it into Kyren Flamewright, you get a card that can cast mini Heroic Reinforcements, a very powerful card in any sort of go-wide deck. It’s a menacing effect even if you have a small board, and you can use it for defense as well.

#4. Mageta the Lion

The most interesting thing about Mageta the Lion is that its ability destroys every creature but this card. You can devise a plan where you put some auras and equipment on Mageta, take a turn to destroy every creature, then attack. Yes, you don’t want to discard two cards that often, but it’s a powerful effect.

#3. Notorious Assassin

Notorious Assassin offers Doom Blade/Dark Banishing on demand, so big creatures can now die to this card’s activated ability as well. Having this card in play might change some of your opponents’ plans, and sometimes you can take advantage of a slower game.

#2. Jolrael, Empress of Beasts

I’m sure the intended objective of this card was to turn your lands into creatures and attack in a kind of Rude Awakening effect. But Jolrael, Empress of Beasts can be a one-sided Armageddon if you combine its ability with a red wrath. You just need some buff to save Jolrael, of course. This card can be insurance against a wrath because you can respond by nuking all lands a given player controls.

#1. Jaya Ballard, Task Mage

Jaya Ballard, Task Mage is at the top of our list because it has three relevant abilities, and none of them require you to discard two cards. Poor blue mage gets Pyroblasted again and again. The other abilities are very good, too, and you can have a sweeper/win condition tacked onto a creature, which can also be your commander.

Best Spellshaper Payoffs

Now that we’ve taken a look at spellshapers, let’s see how we can synergize with their unique discard effects.

Spellshapers allow you to discard cards, so obviously, cards with madness and flashback fit a spellshaper strategy. Cards that trigger when you cycle or discard like Drake Haven, Faith of the Devoted, or Archfiend of Ifnir work well with spellshapers. MTG has many discard payoffs, like Brallin, Skyshark Rider, Glint-Horn Buccaneer, or Monument to Endurance, so you can consider these as well.

You can build Commander decks that benefit from spellshapers, like Mairsil, the Pretender. You’ll want to discard creatures with good activated abilities, and Mairsil can learn these spellshaper abilities, too. Another interesting one is Damia, Sage of Stone, because you can discard your hand to spellshapers and draw up to seven each turn. Reanimation is also good, since you can discard a big guy that’s doing nothing in your hand, get a good effect, and Reanimate it later.

Commanders like Hashaton, Scarab's Fist rely on you to discard creature spells via various effects. Oskar, Rubbish Reclaimer and Norman Osborn / Green Goblin can recast the spells that were just discarded.

Are Spellshapers Good?

It depends on the specific design and what you aim for. Spellshapers are very good in Limited, and they’re flexible cards in lower-power Cubes. The ability to turn excess lands into spells is strong, preventing mana flood, and in Constructed you can build around their specific effects.

Another interesting aspect is that in Time Spiral block, particularly in Planar Chaos, cards like Dreamscape Artist gave blue players access to a typical green effect in Harrow. You can activate spellshapers at instant speed, so some designs are particularly interesting if you can maximize that.

An interesting note: These cards turn other cards into abilities, so they can’t be countered by Counterspell and friends, and you can play around countermagic with these guys around.

Why Doesn’t Magic Print Spellshaper Creatures Anymore?

Spellshapers were first designed in Mercadian Masques block, and that block wasn't very popular with players.

Spellshapers are confusing for newer players, and they often create complicated, grindy board states, especially if there are multiples across the board. Deciding which spell to discard to activate a spellshaper isn’t the easiest decision, and WotC wants players to cast their spells from their hand primarily. Imagine a new player hearing something like: “Hey, if you discarded your Serra Angel to your spellshaper on turn 3, you would win that game.” Wizards want players to cast their angels, not discard them for value.

Another aspect that WotC wants to avoid in modern MTG is repetitive play, be it with tutors or spellshapers. Variance is part of the game, after all.

The last spellshaper printed in MTG was in March of the Machine in 2023 as a one-off, in a specific homage to the Mercadian Masques block – Invasion of Mercadia. WotC will use these designs from time to time in small numbers. I wouldn’t be surprised if specific discard-related Commander precons print some new spellshapers in the near future.

Wrap Up

Jolrael, Empress of Beasts | Illustration by Matthew D. Wilson

Spellshapers are weird creatures from MTG’s past. Most of them shine in specific, low-powered synergy environments, like Limited, Cube, or rarity-restricted formats. You’ll see these cards mainly in formats like low-bracket EDH, Premodern, or Pauper/Peasant Cubes. And if you want to see spellshapers in all their former glory in a Limited set, try Time Spiral Remastered. Trust me, it’s one of the least strange mechanics Time Spiral block has to offer.

Do you play any spellshapers in your decks? Which commanders are the best to lead these creatures? Let me know in the comments section below, or let’s discuss it over on the Draftsim Discord.

Until next time, stay safe!