Why Magic: The Gathering's Wingmantle Chaplain is the most powerful Uncommon in years

Occasionally, a card in Magic: The Gathering that is, without a doubt, overpowered will come around. Usually, these are Rares or Mythic Rares, which makes sense. Those cards are supposed to be pretty powerful. However, not since Zenith Flare has Magic: The Gathering players encountered a card quite like Wingmantle Chaplain.

It may seem like just a Defender with 0 power and three toughness, but it’s so much more. It has one of the highest winrate in the game’s Standard meta right now. Whether in Draft or Constructed, it is not a card to be underestimated.

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Magic: The Gathering’s Wingmantle Chaplain is a disgustingly powerful card

Several powerful cards have been printed over the years, but few Uncommons have had this terrifying level of power. It seems pretty unassuming, but it can do tremendous things.

It’s up there with Disciplined Duelist, Zenith Flare, and Diver Skaab. Now, it does require a particular kind of deck (Defender Archetype), but what it brings to the table is excellent. It’s even better if it’s in pairs, or players can bounce it in and out of play.

The following is a rundown of what this particular Uncommon card can do.

Wingmantle Chaplain

• Keyword: Defender
• Stats: 0 power, three toughness
• 1st Ability: When Wingmantle Chaplain enters the battlefield, create a 1/1 white Bird creature token with flying for each creature with a defender you control.
• 2nd Ability: Whenever another creature with a defender enters the battlefield under your control, create a 1/1 white Bird creature token with flying.

It would be just another Magic: The Gathering uncommon if it had that first ability. That one-time trigger gives you as many Bird tokens as you have Defender creatures.

It triggers with another creature token whenever you bring another Defender into play. Now, Defender creatures, or Walls, cannot attack normally.

Players flood the board with Defenders, making it incredibly hard to attack them, then play the Wingmantle Chaplain and start to reap the rewards. There’s more to this, though. Sure, that’s already pretty great, but you have to get this card into play.

Shield-Wall Sentinel makes this far more viable. A 4-cost Defender Artifact creature, when it enters play, this creature with one power and three toughness can search your library for a creature card with Defender, reveal it, and put it into your hand.

Suddenly, Wingmantle Chaplain is very easy to acquire and put into play. That makes the odds greater for getting it into play. Other cards make this card far more devastating.

Players can choose to play Golden Argosy, a Legendary Artifact Vehicle. It has a Crew cost of 1, and any creature used to Crew it gets bounced out of play and back again. Players can use Wingmantle Chaplain and Shield-Wall Sentinel to trigger getting yet another Chaplain.

Bouncing the Chaplain triggers his ETB effect again in Magic: The Gathering, so several more flying creatures came into play. Extra cards like this make the already powerful card even more horrifying, thus, making it easily the best card in the meta right now.

There are other combos and powerful decks, but this might be one of the best cards in the Uncommon rarity.

While Wingmantle Chaplain is such a great Magic: The Gathering card, it’s not unbeatable. There are several ways to deal with it. Karn’s Sylex is one way to deal with it since it can delete all creatures in play, depending on how much mana you invest. But it’s a card worth talking about.

However, most Magic: The Gathering players now know how vital this card is, which could harm how overpowered it becomes in Standard. Players can use it in Defender decks to overwhelm players with tons of creature tokens.

It’s a card that is worth thinking about and worth considering. It will be interesting to see if players use the card in the future.