When I saw that the Ferrett was starting up weekly contests for multiplayer Magic writers, I knew I had to respond. I’ve been playing Magic since Revised, with a two-year hiatus spanning Homelands through the Mirage block and part of the Tempest block; I got back into the game when Exodus came out (and I remember being astonished at the power of the cards in the Tempest block, since part of the reason I left the game was disappointment over Ice Age, Fallen Empires, and Homelands). I play multiplayer with my friends, all long-time players, every Sunday night. Usually we play free-for-all, with occasional variants like Emperor or Hunter-and-prey. I’m not a tournament player — I’ve haven’t entered a Constructed tournament since I started playing again, and I’m a pretty mediocre Limited player — but I’ve been playing multiplayer for years, so I’ve got a pretty good handle on the format.

In answering our beloved weasel’s call for an article on the best creatures in multiplayer Magic, I’m going to highlight three categories of creatures, and pick the five best creatures in each. The “best” creature in multiplayer — or any environment, for that matter — depends on a number of factors. For example, Akroma, Angel of Wrath rips it up in any environment where you can get her into play, but her high casting cost can be a real hindrance; if you can’t cheat her into play with reanimation or effects like Show and Tell, the game could well end before you get to eight mana. So my three categories will be:

Utility Creatures
These are small- to mid-size creatures whose effectiveness comes not from attacking or blocking, but from some other ability; for example, a "comes into play" ability or a tap ability. This gives you a creature and a spell in one neat package — but unlike instants and sorceries, it gives you the opportunity to reuse that ability (or at least gives you a body to attack and block with after the ability resolves).

Big Hitters
These are probably what most of you are thinking about when you think of the “best” multiplayer creatures — high-casting cost creatures with high power and toughness, with additional abilities that make them fearsome in combat, possibly also combined with tremendously strong abilities. If it makes everyone at the table go “whoa...” when you bring it out, it’s a Big Hitter.

Combo Creatures
This allows me to spotlight cards I really like that don’t fit into either of the above categories. These are cards that may be mediocre on their own, but if you build a deck around them they can become tremendously powerful.

Without further ado, I’ll start the list....

The Five Best Utility Creatures

5. Withered Wretch
Many, many casual and multiplayer decks feature graveyard recursion. It doesn’t have to be the central focus of a deck, but a lot of black creature decks will run a Gravedigger or Zombify, just for a little staying power; any color can recur something (black has dozens of ways to recur creatures; red has the Anarchist, Trash for Treasure, and a lot of good flashback spells; blue has Relearn and Argivian Restoration; white has a number of spells to recur artifacts and enchantments).

This will stop any recursion in its tracks. All you need is one lousy mana, and you don’t even need to tap the Wretch. With a lot of extra mana, you can very rapidly strip all your opponents’ graveyards.

To top it off, the Wretch is an efficient beatdown machine, at 2/2 for two mana. The only graveyard-stripping card that approaches it for sheer efficiency is Fallen Empires’ Night Soil, which can only strip creatures (but also leaves you an army of Saprolings behind; you will see Night Soil again later on in this article). Tormod’s Crypt is free, but only hits one player once. The Wretch survives to erase graveyards whenever you need it.

4. Tradewind Rider
At first glance, the Rider’s ability seems to be too hard to use; you have to tie down two other creatures. Then until you play with it and realize its tremendous power. Without spending any mana, you can send back any card on the board (and make token creatures disappear into thin air, as well).

The reason it’s on the multiplayer list is that it functions as a “rattlesnake” card; having the Rider and two other creatures up will make your opponents look elsewhere. (“Why should I bother attacking? He’ll just bounce me.”) Then, right before your turn, you either bounce a threatening permanent (say, the Darksteel Colossus that just got Tinkered out) or your own CIP creature (Wall of Blossoms is always a good choice), and untap, and you’re all set to do it again next turn.

Incidentally, if you’re up against a Tradewind, work with another player to keep it occupied. Send in your guys, replay them when they get bounced, and tap down his creatures so the next player can clock ‘im.

3. Soul Warden
If you play multiplayer, you know what this does. In constructed, there are many possible answers to the question, “what’s white’s best one-drop ever?” (Soltari Foot Soldier, Mother of Runes, Savannah Lions, Ramosian Sergeant, etc.). In multiplayer, there really is no question. Just this past week, my friend T. gained at least forty life off a single pesky Soul Warden — in part, because it came back with a big Living Death that brought at least twenty creatures back to life. (I gained 740 life off of a Living Death at a five-player table with three Soul Wardens in the 'yard and a Dual Nature on the board... And then the pair of Crater Hellions killed everything — The Ferrett)

One piece of advice — wait a few turns to play it. If you wait until turn 5 when you’re down a few life, it won’t irritate people as much as when you play it on turn 1 and your life total immediately spirals upwards from twenty. It’s also less likely to die with a lot of other creatures on the board.

2. Viashino Heretic
Lost amidst all the broken cards from the Urza’s block is this little gem, which astonishes me every time I read it. Imagine if there was a card that let you snap off an Agonizing Demise every turn. Now imagine it only costs 1R to activate. Oh, it hits artifacts, not creatures — but there’s no shortage of those in a typical multiplayer game these days. And it’s cheap, too; a 1/3 for 2R with its awesome ability.

Like the Warden, don’t play it right away; wait until there are a couple of juicy targets. If you can give it haste, then it really hurts; right away it can drop in and blow away someone’s Platinum Angel or Myr Enforcer or something big that will cause its controller a great deal of grief when you blow it up in their face.

1. Eternal Witness
This may be the best green creature ever printed, in any environment (except possibly the blinding speed of Vintage). Regrowth is powerful enough that it was restricted in Vintage and it’s never been reprinted (except as Elven Cache for double the casting cost) — and here we get Regrowth on a 2/1 body for only one more green mana. Having it on a creature makes it still more useful for multiplayer, since the Witness can now block, or easily be recurred with graveyard recursion or return-to-hand effects (Fleetfoot Panther is particularly nice, since it can return your Witness at instant speed).

Big Hitters

5. Tahngarth, Talruum Champion
All of the big creatures I could have picked and I go with a lousy 4/4? This is no ordinary 4/4, though; it can take out any 3/3 or smaller creature with ease, and it can do it while attacking. It can even take down bigger game although it will die in the process (you could attack into an 8/8 creature, stack damage, and tap Tahngarth for his ability). Pingers are pretty decent in multiplayer, because you can interfere with combat that doesn’t involve you, and a pinger that can deal out up to four damage (or even more if you make it bigger somehow) can really rock the table.

Vigilant creatures are great, too, because it solves the whole who-do-I-hold-back-to-block dilemma. Red gets very few vigilant creatures (white, of course, hogs them all), so it’s great when the one it gets is such a powerhouse.

4. Radiant, Archangel
Akroma, Angel of Whup-Ass, blah blah. This can be better, because it can get bigger, and it costs three less. Akroma is certainly no slouch; the trample and haste go along nicely with the vigilance and flying, but Radiant can easily get up over 10/10 in a big game. But that’s not the big reason Radiant’s better; she’s a lot cheaper. Going from five to eight mana is a much bigger deal than going from two to five mana. It’s probably better to bring Radiant out as a relatively small creature, say a 5/5 or a 6/6, because she’ll draw any removal if you drop her as a 12/12.

Her Achilles’ heel is Hurricane (and similar spells). Because they’ll sweep away all the other flyers that boost her up, she’ll probably drop down to 3/3 or 4/4 and die from even a relatively small Hurricane. (This same trick works admirably well with Beast of Burden and Earthquake.)

Incidentally, the Beast of Burden will probably pop up on many lists, but I’m not crazy about it. Big creatures with no evasion just aren’t that great, because a lousy Drudge Skeletons will stop them cold. They can be strong if you can give them flying or trample (the Beast becomes a whole hell of a lot scarier swinging a Loxodon Warhammer), but it probably won’t win you the game by itself. Radiant can.

Sliding Radiant
4 Radiant, Archangel
4 Aven Cloudchaser
4 Reliquary Monk
4 Teroh’s Faithful
4 Leonin Skyhunter
1 Akroma, Angel of Wrath

3 Astral Slide
4 Otherworldly Journey

4 March of Souls
4 Akroma’s Blessing

16 Plains
4 Blasted Landscape
4 Secluded Steppe

The non-Radiant creatures are all utility creatures (for enchantments, artifacts, lifegain, and a cheap flyer). The idea here is that you throw down a March of Souls to clear the board, then either Slide Radiant out or send her on an Otherworldly Journey. When she returns, the board will be filled with fliers and she’ll be enormous. The Blessing is to get her through once she returns (since you’ll have to fight through all those 1/1 flyers to have her do any good). The Slide also doubles, as it always does, as creature control, and with twelve cycling cards you’ll be able to make it work a few times a game.

3. Vampiric Dragon
This card goes the Shivan Hellkite one better: it can get bigger as it guns creatures down. You lose the ability to kill players — but when your creature can clear its own path and get bigger in the process, who cares? The Dragon can kill players when it attacks. This is like a stronger Masticore, minus the regeneration ability but also minus the discard clause. It costs twice as much, but you can get around that, right? Just play with mana acceleration, or realize that the whole point of multiplayer is that the game goes long enough that those 7 and 8cc creatures can come out to play.

Two fun cards with this are Festering Goblin (kill your own guy, make the Dragon bigger, and effectively do one to an opponent’s creature with the Goblin, making it easier to shoot down) and, even more exciting, Death Match. If you get your Vampire up over 6/6 it will be hard to kill with Death Match, and as creatures come into play and weaken others, you can finish them off with the Dragon, making it bigger still.

2. Bloodfire Colossus
Remember Terminator 2? In particular, the scene where they go back into the research scientist’s workplace? It ends with the dying scientist’s finger on the detonator. I always picture that when I play this card.

The detonator only takes one red mana to set off, which makes up for the eight-mana casting cost; in effect, this costs 6RRR, because you shouldn’t cast it unless you can put your finger on the button right away. Then you’ve got effective control of the game as long as you don’t tap out. At any time, you can do six to anything and everything. If someone at the table drops to six life or below, they are at your mercy. Make them get up and get you a beer, or wash your car, or something equally humiliating. (Dance, monkeyboy, dance!) You want to watch your own life total, since unless you’re being really cheesy and packing Circle of Protection: Red, you’re going to take a pretty big hit.

There are a decent number of creatures with graveyard triggers that are extra-fun with the Colossus; the best of these is the Rukh Egg, but Goblin Gardener is okay, too; Anodet Lurker can get three of the life back, and if you branch into other colors there are all sorts of options.

1. Verdant Force
The Best Fatty Ever Printed. For the uninitiated, that clause about putting a 1/1 saproling into play means every upkeep. Not your upkeep; each player’s upkeep. This means that, in a 5-player chaos game, you will have four Saprolings rarin’ to go by the start of your next turn. If the Verdant Force lives for two trips around the table, you have nine saprolings ready to attack on your turn. And you don’t have to do anything; just wait and watch them appear. The casting cost is a little steep — but you’re playing green, right? Green can get eight mana by turn 4 without breaking a sweat.

The Verdant is the first of a Holy Saproling Trinity that was completed in Invasion Block. The other two-thirds of the trinity are the two treefolk legends, Verdeloth the Ancient and Nemata, Grove Guardian featured in the following deck:

When Saprolings Attack

The Trinity
3 Verdant Force
3 Verdeloth the Ancient
2 Nemata, Grove Guardian

More Saprolings
4 Spontaneous Generation
3 Night Soil

Mana Support
4 Llanowar Elves
3 Skyshroud Claim
2 Heartbeat of Spring
2 Eladamri’s Vineyard
4 Citanul Hierophants

4 Overrun
2 Tribal Unity

24 Forest

Combo Creatures

5. Terravore
All of the new Lhurgoyfs are terrific in multiplayer, and get bigger the more people are in the game. The Terravore, however, will not become enormous over the course of a typical game, because lands don’t end up in graveyards naturally (unlike the red, black and blue ones; the Cantivore is pretty lame overall, except in a very strange deck). So it’s your job to make it bigger, by filling the graveyards with lands. If you can get it huge, it’s the most fearsome Lhurgoyf of all, because it has trample and thus cannot be chump-blocked.

12 Forests
14 Mountains
4 Shivan Oasis (use Taigas if you own them)

4 Terravore
4 Tremble
4 Tectonic Break

3 Rowen
3 Seismic Assault

4 Groundskeeper
4 Harvest Wurm

2 Azusa, Lost but Seeking
2 Constant Mists

This deck will put lots of lands into the graveyard at once. You’ll need to start with a few lands so the Terravore doesn’t come out at 0/0; either toss a couple to Seismic Assault or play one Tremble. You don’t want it to come out too large, or it will draw removal right away. The trick is to get it in play, then fire off a big Tectonic Break or a couple Trembles. This should kick it well over 10/10, and allow you to take out at least one player in all likelihood. This also cycles lands back to your hands, with the Groundskeeper and Harvest Wurm, and the Rowen/Seismic Assault combo will allow for pinpoint creature control (I’ve only included three of each because you don’t need more than one of each in play at any one time).

4. Dracoplasm
Even if only fed one creature, the Dracoplasm is reasonably efficient, because it flies and has Firebreathing for only two mana. It becomes abusive if the creatures you are sacrificing aren’t your own. This deck abuses one of my favorite multiplayer cards of all time, Reins of Power — there are very few instants that can completely swing a losing game in your favor (Reflect Damage is the only other that springs to mind) and this is one of them.

It also exploits another underrated Tempest-block card: Blood Frenzy. Blood Frenzy’s excellent in multiplayer on its own, because you can meddle in someone else’s battle: pump up their unblocked creature, killing it and dealing an extra four to another player.

I’ll borrow that...
4 Dracoplasm
2 Silver Myr
2 Iron Myr
4 Keldon Vandals
4 Flametongue Kavu

4 Reins of Power
4 Ray of Command
4 Blind With Anger

4 Blood Frenzy
4 Suffocating Blast
1 Mystical Tutor
3 Merchant Scroll

14 Island
10 Mountain (use any Volcanic Islands or Shivan Reefs you own)

The Vandals and Kavu are in there for artifact and creature control, and if you have to feed them to the Dracoplasm, you’ve already gotten your money’s worth out of them. Suffocating Blast is just a good multiplayer counter (replace it with the counter of your choice; Dismiss is pretty good) and the Tutors and Scroll find your Reins for you.

3. Rukh Egg
I honestly have no idea if this is one of the all-time multiplayer greats. Frankly, I don’t really care, because it’s one of my personal favorites. It’s a pity the new illustration is so lame, especially compared with Chris Rush’s terrific original. This was the first card with a goes-to-graveyard trigger, and Wizards got it wrong the first time around (it didn’t specify “from play”; this was also before the four-of-a-card maximum came into play, so theoretically you could build a deck consisting of nothing but Rukh Eggs and get a 4/4 flyer every turn).

Even with the errata, it’s still a terrific card. It will keep ground-pounders away for a little while — I have found that players will avoid hatching the egg even if their deck can easily handle the 4/4 flyer — but its real value comes in sacrifice and recursion.

Huevos Rancheros
4 Rukh Egg
4 Anodet Lurker (because lifegain doesn’t suck in multiplayer)
4 Kingfisher
4 Thalakos Seer
4 Bogardan Phoenix
1 Darksteel Gargoyle

4 Mask of the Mimic
3 Iron Myr
3 Seething Song

4 Obliterate
1 Worldslayer

10 Mountain
6 Island
4 Svelyunite Temple
4 Dwarven Ruins

The Mask is there to kill your creatures and get copies out; it’s especially nasty to Mask a Rukh in response to your own Obliterate. Worldslayer is in there to give you the opportunity to quote Michael Moorcock. When it triggers, you must say, “Farewell, friend Elric. I was a thousand times more evil than thou!” Really, what else could Wizard have had in mind but Stormbringer when they invented a sword that destroys everything in the universe but itself?

The ‘fisher and the Seer will draw you some extra cards when the world blows up, but the real idea is to leave you with big flyers and no one else with anything.

2. Seedborn Muse
Awakening was always a fun card — and now it works only for you and no one else. This can be, hands-down, the most powerful creature in the game if you have certain cards in your hand. Having the Muse, a Tradewind Rider, one other creature, six lands on the board, and Capsize in your hand is lots of fun. However, it probably won’t last, as being able to send back two permanents on each player’s turn tends to annoy your opponents and will send them all swinging wildly at you. But it will be fun while it lasts.

Buyback is the best mechanic with this card. Second-best are any creature with a tap ability, followed shortly by instant-speed cantrips (so you draw more cards to cast on your opponents’ turns). This card probably won’t stay on the table very long, so ride it as long as you can.

1. Uyo, Silent Prophet
Fork away! Double all your spells for fun and profit! This is a great test of a good player: when do I Fork my spells? You have to be a little restrained in doing so, because the pick-up-your-lands clause will cramp your style too badly otherwise. Nonetheless, this is a tremendous late-game threat, and a pretty decent body as well. Even better, Uyo can be tapped to use his forking ability, so you can swing away while you use him.

Azusa, Lost but Seeking is probably the best creature to pair up with Uyo, effectively negating the land-pickup drawback of all the Moonfolk. You could build a pretty nasty three-color deck splashing red for cheap burn. If you invest in Eternal Witnesses, then things can get out of hand very quickly:

4 Uyo, Silent Prophet
2 Azusa, Lost but Seeking
4 Sakura-Tribe Elder
4 Eternal Witness

4 Call of the Herd (use Roar of the Wurms if you have them)
2 Incinerate
2 Lightning Bolt
2 Hull Breach
2 Smash
2 Rampant Growth
2 Giant Growth
2 Repulse
2 Threaten
1 Mystical Tutor
1 Worldly Tutor

10 Forest
8 Island
6 Mountain

I haven’t listed deck ideas for all of my cards, because I haven’t built decks around everything on the list yet. Also, the utility cards can go in just about any deck (except for the Tradewind Rider, which needs a creature-heavy deck to use its ability).

As always, this is an entirely subjective list and you are welcome to disagree with some or all of the cards on this list. I’m pretty sure I’m right on Verdant Force, though.