Hermit Druid (Original Sketch)

Based on a photograph of Alpha artist Daniel Gelon (the photo is also available in the collection), Hermit Druid is a powerful 2 mana green creature first printed in Stronghold. When you tap it, you reveal cards from your library until you hit a basic land. Everything revealed this way except that land gets dumped into your graveyard. This means if your deck contains no basics, the ability can basically mill your entire library into your graveyard. That alone creates immediate win conditions with reanimation, Dredge, or certain combo pieces that care about large graveyards. (e.g. Thassa’s Oracle/Laboratory Maniac/Reanimator). With the right shell Hermit Druid serves as a one- card combo enabler, making it an extremely efficient engine. Hermit Druid powered several Extended decks (“Angry Hermit”) back in the 2000’s. It quickly became one of the most recognizable combos of those years. Hermit Druid was banned in December 2004 when Type 1.5 was renamed Legacy, because the card was simply considered too “consistent/degenerate” in some decks. In modern times, Hermit Druid lists pop up in various Premodern archetypes (e.g. Angry Ghoul, Full English Breakfast) and cEDH decks. Hermit Druid is not on the reserved list and has been reprinted a few times (Innistrad Remastered, The List).