River Kelpie? Whoda thunk it?

This one has been brewing for a little while ever since Jeremiah gave it up on Commandercast towards the end of last season (If you don't listen to this podcast, you really should!) I’ve had a River Kelpie in my binder ever since it came out in Shadowmoor and I had honestly never looked at it until it came up in Episode 8

I could give some silly excuse about my copy being in French but the simple reason was that it just wasn’t on the radar in Standard at the time. It’s quite a pity because it would have been a wonderful singleton addition to provide an extra draw engine for my Reveillark combo deck of the time.


River Kelpie is a card designed specifically to benefit from block mechanics, namely Persist and Retrace. The creature itself has Persist which allows it to cantrip once it has died the first time, thus triggering its own ability. Add in the retrace and persist cards from the back end of Lorwyn /Shadowmoor block and you had yourself a deck.


Except that you didn’t. Instead you had Faeries, Reveillark & Elf combo and Kithkin. Block mechanics didn’t get a look-in except where strong individual cards complimented existing strategies. Then Shards of Alara rolled around and River Kelpie’s time was gone. It went into binders and junk rare boxes and stayed there because, let’s face it, who wants to add a booger to their deck?

I’ve spoken a little about how Ashling got her name, you’re about to get another lesson about the kelpie. The kelpie is a supernatural water horse from Celtic folklore that is believed to haunt the rivers and lochs of Scotland and Ireland. It’s a malevolent spirit that lures children to a watery death and, occasionally, was said to change into a beautiful, scantily clad woman in order to lure grown men to their death. (No doubt the preferred excuse that drunken friends of the drunken deceased used to his wife when they brought home her husband’s lifeless body after a poteen fuelled midnight swim: “It was the Kelpie what drowned him, ma’am! I swears it!”)


What’s interesting about the use of the description Kelpie and its artwork is that in the same block we also got “noggles” which is essentially the same supernatural being with a different regional title. In the artwork, however, Noggles are horse/donkey typed while Kelpies, traditionally capable of being majestic water-steeds or alluring sirens, get to look like something that was recently excavated from the nostrils of a particularly disgusting pre-teen.

Let’s get down to the nitty-gritty and look at what our slimy green friend can bring to our EDH/Commander experience:

3UU
Whenever River Kelpie or another permanent is put onto the battlefield from a graveyard, draw a card.
Whenever a player casts a spell from a graveyard, draw a card.
Persist
3/3

So, for a CMC of 5 we get a 3/3 and, if all goes according to plan, when it dies, we get a 2/2 and a card. Put all that together and we get 5/5 for a mana investment of 5 plus a card and likely you are trading with your opponent for cards, creatures or life in addition. Not a bad deal. It’s still a fragile creature but you can get some mileage out of it.

Before we go any further, I’m going to mention why this was never a standout card before in EDH: It’s not black. Keep that in mind as we go through those abilities.

Keep in mind also that this ability triggers for every player not just you so while you would do well to build around the Kelpie, don’t forget to benefit from the free card-drawing provided by your opponents.


1.) You get a card whenever a creature persist trigger resolves.
2.) You get a card whenever a player plays a spell from a graveyard.
3.) You get a card whenever an effect causes someone moves to move a permanent from the graveyard onto the battlefield.
4.) You get two cards whenever someone plays a permanent spell in your graveyard that moves it to the battlefield.

1.) Persist

There are 25 cards (incl. the Kelpie) which either have Persist or grant persist. While most of them are not worth mentioning there are some standouts in that group: Glen Elendra Archmage, Cauldron of Souls, Puppeteer Clique, Kitchen Finks, Murderous Redcap and Woodfall Primus. Four of these are in colours that like to bring cards back from the graveyard into hand or play; Green and Black.

2.) Playing spells from the graveyard

We have Retrace (12), Flashback or cards that interact with it (68) a count which includes Mystical Teachings and Dralnu, Lich Lord, Yawgmoth’s Agenda and Yawgmoth’s Will. While this list isn’t exactly brimming with huge bombs, Retraced Image and Wurm Harvest are still very respectable spells to be getting extra value out of, especially as they are likely drawing you more land under Kelpie to replay them. The largest issue is that, with the exception of the 3 cards here which do contain blue, the stars of “Kelpie + Mechanic” action will require you to run a second or third colour.


3.) You get a card whenever an effect causes someone moves to move a permanent from the graveyard onto the battlefield.

Here’s a fun category. Imagine you’re running a Momir Vig deck with River Kelpie and Crucible of Worlds in play. Now every fetch-land you play from your graveyard essentially reads “Pay 1 Life: Draw a card and put a basic into play.” Add some Azusa to that and play multiple lands from your graveyard, drawing a card each time. With Kelpie in play, your opponent’s Crucible of Worlds becomes the source of a lot of cards.
Switch colours for a moment and move into Black with Bloodghast, Nether Traitor and any Animate Dead effect such as Living Death. I suppose, with Black, you’d also have to include Sharuum which reanimates and draws a card.

Sharuum’s white reminds me that Reveillark, Karmic Guide and Sun Titan would be exceedingly saucy with the River Kelpie in play.

That’s all before we get into the Unearth mechanic.


4.) You get two cards whenever someone plays a permanent spell in your graveyard that moves it to the battlefield.

This is the corner-case bonus section that allows you to draw two cards if anyone runs Haakon or Karador as both abilities on the Kelpie would trigger. Court Hussar played from your graveyard with either Karador's or Haakon’s ability would allow you to draw 2 and then choose one of the next 3 cards to take into your hand essentially showing you the top 5 cards of your deck and drawing 3.

Thanks to Troacctid for picking up on this one. The official rule is:
If you cast another artifact, creature, enchantment, or planeswalker spell from a graveyard, only the second ability triggers. That's because the card is put onto the stack, not onto the battlefield.


But a lot of these suggestions, particularly the ones containing non-blue Legendary creatures keep coming back to the issue that he's Blue and not Black, a colour that would have a field day if he was he was costed at 3BB instead of 3UU!


These are just some teasers to get you looking at the big snot, em, I mean River Kelpie. I don’t have a decklist to share with you but hopefully I have sown the seeds for some ideas. Enjoy!