Image courtesy of Scryfall.com
Ravenous Baboons: A Red Card with a Red-Right Hook
Ravenous Baboons is a rare red creature from the Exodus era, a 4-mana 2/2 that asks you to pay attention to land as a resource. With mana cost {3}{R} and an enter-the-battlefield trigger that reads “When this creature enters, destroy target nonbasic land.”, its ability embodies an era of MTG where tempo and disruption collided in vivid, primal bursts. The card’s flavor text—“Build something and the baboons will tear it down. Leave the pieces lying and they will scatter them.”—paints a picture of chaos as a friendly, mischievous warning. The art, rendered by Daren Bader, harnesses a feral energy that feels almost prehistoric, a perfect match for a red deck that loves to swing hard and reset the board with a single prying moment 🧙♂️🔥.
Art as Time Capsule: The Exodus Look and Its Legacy
- Original frame, original tone: The Exodus print captures the late-90s MTG aesthetic—bold silhouettes, kinetic motion, and a scarlet rush that signals danger before the first strike. The illustration’s primal energy aligns with red’s theme of impulse, violence, and quick disruption.
- Artist spotlight: Daren Bader’s work on Ravenous Baboons shows how MTG could fuse humor with menace. The baboons’ faces snap with character, while the background suggests a world on the brink of a small, explosive upheaval ⚔️🎨.
- Rarity and distribution: Classified as rare in Exodus, the card arrives as a nonfoil print with a 1997 frame, making it a sought-after piece for collectors who chase the provenance of their red-era favorites.
Flavor and art aren’t just eye candy in MTG; they’re map markers for how a card feels on the table. Ravenous Baboons communicates urgency—the moment you swing, your opponent’s nonbasic lands may vanish, and your own battlefield looks a little more chaotic in the wake of that destruction 🧙♂️💎.
Do Art Reprints Always Follow the Card Itself?
In MTG, a card’s image can be retouched or reimagined in later printings, but Ravenous Baboons itself has not, as of the available data, undergone an official reprint with alternate art. Scryfall’s card data for this specific print from Exodus notes reprint as false and lists the set as exo with a classic black border and a 1997 frame. That doesn’t dull the impact of seeing the same theme echoed across sets in other ways—through homage cards, similar monkey-themed creatures, or the red-on-red chaos that fuels destroyed lands and tempo plays. It does, however, anchor the piece in a specific moment of MTG history, where players learned to bend the board to their will with a well-timed ETB effect 🧨.
Visual Dialogue: Thematic Motifs in Red Across Sets
While Ravenous Baboons may not have a direct, official art reprint lineage, its visual language invites comparisons across the broader spectrum of MTG’s red creatures and land-disruption motifs. The juxtaposition of a primal, almost cartoonish baboon figure against a landscape ready to crumble mirrors red’s penchant for disruptive plays—whether that’s destroying a nonbasic land or delivering a swift, merciless assault. The Exodus artwork leans into a raw, mid-90s fantasy realism that newer prints often remix with more polish or alternate art, but the core energy remains unmistakable: a high-voltage moment where color and chaos collide 🔥⚡.
From Card Face to Collector’s Gallery: Value, Rarity, and the Community Pulse
In market terms, this Exodus print sits in the “rare” bucket, with current price data showing approximate values around $2.96 USD on common price trackers, and euro parity around €2.41. It’s not a slam dunk investment in the modern MTG economy, but it’s a quintessential piece for vintage collectors who chase the Exodus era’s distinctive flavor. The card is non-foil and available in nonfoil finishes, which keeps it accessible for players who still run red strategies that hinge on tempo and disruption. For learners and nostalgia-seekers alike, Ravenous Baboons offers a reminder of a time when land destruction was more frontier than formula, and red’s temperament felt like a dare issued by a mischievous troop of primates 🧙♂️🎲.
Gameplay Angles: How Ravenous Baboons Plays Today
At its core, the card rewards you for committing to an aggressive stance with a small but meaningful effect on the board. A 4-mana 2/2 with an enter-the-battlefield trigger to destroy a nonbasic land can turn the tide in formats that tolerate slower starts or in tribal or mono-red themes that want to fold resource denial into their tempo plan. In a Legacy environment or casual kitchen-table games, that ETB land destruction can punish an opponent who’s just ramping into a critical mana base. It’s not a one-card silver bullet, but it is a reminder that tempo and disruption can come in satisfying, tangible packages—the kind that MTG players remember long after the game is over 🧙♂️⚔️.
The Artist, the Era, and the Small Moments of Magic
Daren Bader’s line work gives the baboons a playful menace that still reads clearly on a bordered card. The Exodus era’s constraints—frame, border, and collaborative printing standards—fed a distinctive look that fans still salute at card shows and in online galleries. The art’s staying power is less about chasing a single image and more about how that image captures a mood: the moment red flips from spark to catastrophe, and players grin and groan in equal measure 🎨💎.
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