Spoilers for the upcoming Magic: The Gathering compilation set Innistrad Remastered are coming in fast, and one reveal in particular has caught our attention. Hermit Druid, a card that hasn’t been printed in a regular set since it came out in Stronghold all the way back in 1998, is finally making a return.
This card is a self-mill powerhouse, able to chuck your own cards in the graveyard for just one green mana, until you hit a basic land, which you then get to keep. It’s also a combo machine: simply build your deck without basic lands and you can dump your entire library into the bin. From there it’s easy to win the game by using Narcomoebas plus Dread Return to cheat Thassa’s Oracle, or some other game-ending card into play.
Incidentally, that’s why this card is on the MTG banlist for the super-powered Legacy format.
Hermit Druid is only legal in EDH and Vintage, and only sees any play in certain graveyard-focused MTG commander decks, such as Muldrotha and The Mycotyrant. Because it’s never had a proper reprint, however, it’s still fairly pricey, at about $23 for non-foil copies.
As for foils, those are extremely hard to get hold of, and your only option until Innistrad Remastered comes out will set you back $118 a pop. That’s because Stronghold came out one year before foils were invented, so the only foil versions of this card are DCI promos given to judges in 2004.
While it was on The List between Zendikar Rising and Streets of New Capenna, it’s been almost three decades since Hermit Druid appeared in a proper Magic: The Gathering set. And we’re honestly quite surprised to see it showing up now, since Innistrad Remastered is all about, well… Innistrad, and Stronghold took place on the plane of Rath.
Innistrad Remastered seems to be breaking from the normal standards of a Remastered set. While it does, of course, have lots of old favorites from the seven sets that take place on this gothic horror MTG plane, it’s also throwing in a few other cards that, on the face of it, aren’t related to Innistrad at all, with new artwork to tie them in.
We’ve not just seen this with Hermit Druid, who has been reimagined as one of the folk horror druids from Midnight Hunt, but also in other cards like Maelstrom Pulse, which originally referred to a specific phenomenon (The Maelstrom) on Alara.
We should also take the time to show you the excellent movie poster variant of the card, which shows Hermit Druid raising up a root-infested undead bear. It feels like Wizards of the Coast has done this same style about 15 times across various showcase treatments and Secret Lairs, but I don’t care – it works each and every time.
Innistrad Remastered launches on January 24, 2025. Check out our Magic: The Gathering release schedule guide to see everything else due out this year.
Source: Wargamer
