Magic has been around since 1993 and spends most of its time on eldritch horrors, war machines and dragons the size of cities. Which makes it all the funnier when an illustrator gets handed a common and quietly turns in a sleeping bumblebee.
This is our running list of the cutest cards in the game. Some are here because the creature is adorable, some because the flavor text is, and a couple because a card this menacing has no business looking like that. Let’s get into it!
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Food Coma
Wilds of Eldraine took Magic back to its fairytale plane, and this is the card that best sums up what that means. It’s an enchantment that exiles a creature and hands you a Food token, and the art is a bumblesheep face down in a poppy, completely gone.
The flavor text does the rest of the work: “Busy as a bumblesheep” is listed as a Faerie expression meaning “asleep,” which is a pretty funny thing for a fantasy world to have a saying about.
Food Coma · Wilds of Eldraine on eBay | TCGplayer
Poison Dart Frog
A 1/1 frog that taps for any color, sitting on a pile of bones in an Ixalan jungle, looking delighted about it. The flavor text is Huatli, Ixalan’s dinosaur riding poet warrior, pointing out that the bright colors are a warning rather than an invitation. Which is true of the card too, since for two mana it picks up deathtouch.
Poison Dart Frog · The Lost Caverns of Ixalan on eBay | TCGplayer
Tunnel Tipster
Murders at Karlov Manor was Magic’s detective set, and every card in it had to fit a murder mystery brief. What that got us here is a mole in a little green hooded cloak, typed Mole Scout, who is officially a police informant.
Tunnel Tipster · Murders at Karlov Manor on eBay | TCGplayer
Phoenix Chick
Phoenixes in Magic are usually drawn mid immolation, wings spread, very serious about the whole death and rebirth thing. This one is a round yellow chick standing in a lava field with its stubby wings out. It’s a one mana 1/1 that keeps coming back from the graveyard, so the joke lands twice.
Phoenix Chick · Dominaria United on eBay | TCGplayer
Bear Cub
There’s a long running joke among players about the “bear,” a two mana 2/2 with no abilities that exists purely as a baseline. Foundations went ahead and printed one called Bear Cub. The art has the cute cub sitting up in the grass watching a bee go past while mom keeps an eye on things from behind, and the flavor text is an Elvish saying about exactly that.
Bear Cub · Foundations on eBay | TCGplayer
Cute Dog MTG Cards
For a lot of Magic’s history there were no dogs. There were Hounds, which is a fantasy word for a dog that is about to bite someone. Wizards renamed the whole creature type to Dog in 2020, and Core Set 2021 is where you can see the shift land, because suddenly the art briefs got a lot warmer.
Selfless Savior is the one that gets people. A one-mana 1/1 whose whole function is to sacrifice itself to save something else, with flavor text explaining that she raised him from an orphaned pup and this was how he thanked her. Comet, Stellar Pup is the opposite energy, a planeswalker from the joke set Unfinity who rolls a six-sided die every turn, wears a space helmet, and turned out to be genuinely good.
Our Picks:
- Comet, Stellar Pup · Unfinity on eBay | TCGplayer
- Comet, Stellar Pup (Borderless) · Unfinity on eBay | TCGplayer
- Rambunctious Mutt · Core Set 2021 on eBay | TCGplayer
- Selfless Savior · Core Set 2021 on eBay | TCGplayer
- Chakram Retriever · Battlebond on eBay | TCGplayer
- Packsong Pup · Innistrad: Crimson Vow on eBay | TCGplayer
- Alpine Watchdog · The List on eBay | TCGplayer
- Dogsnail Engine · Unstable on eBay | TCGplayer
Cute Cat MTG Cards
Cats have been a creature type since the early days. Some are house cats, some are Nacatl warriors, and a few have been crossbred with whatever the set happened to be about that year.
That’s how you end up with a Cat Dragon and a Dinosaur Cat as tokens, which are two of the best things in this section despite technically not being real cards. Displacer Kitten is the D&D one, a baby version of the Displacer Beast, the tentacled cat that projects a fake image of itself a few feet from where it actually is. Harmless Offering is here purely for the art, which is somebody holding out an orange kitten with the caption “Such an adorable face!” while the card hands your opponent something they will regret.
Our Picks:
- Dinosaur Cat Token · Commander 2020 on eBay
- Harmless Offering · Eldritch Moon on eBay | TCGplayer
- Cat Dragon Token · Commander 2017 on eBay | TCGplayer
- Lord Windgrace · Secret Lair on eBay | TCGplayer
- Displacer Kitten · Battle for Baldur’s Gate on eBay | TCGplayer
- Arcane Flight · Dominaria on eBay | TCGplayer
Gavi Nest Warden
Gavi isn’t the cute one on her own card. The dinosaur cats are, and she’s the reason there are any: her ability makes 2/2 Dinosaur Cat tokens, and the art has her crouched in a nest surrounded by hatchlings with one adult keeping watch behind her.
“A mother’s love transcends species.” is a lot of feeling to get across in four words.
Gavi, Nest Warden · Commander 2020 on eBay | TCGplayer
Xolatoyac, the Smiling Flood
A 6/6 legendary Salamander Serpent that floods the board, drawn as an enormous pink axolotl surging out of the water with a huge dopey grin while tiny people watch from the shore.
Axolotls have that permanent smile built into their faces, which is doing all the work here. The card is a threat, the face is not!
Xolatoyac, the Smiling Flood · Commander: LCI on eBay | TCGplayer
Rin and Seri
A legendary creature typed Dog Cat, which is a sentence Magic had to invent a card to justify. Rin and Seri make Cat tokens when you cast Dog spells and Dog tokens when you cast Cat spells, and they’ve been the go-to commander for anyone who wants a deck that’s just pets.
Two printings worth owning for different reasons. The Buy-A-Box promo is the dignified one, both of them sitting on a mountainside at sunrise. The Secret Lair is better: Rin has decided to lick Seri, and Seri’s face about it is the whole card.
Our Picks:
- Rin and Seri, Inseparable · Buy-A-Box Promo on eBay | TCGplayer
- Rin and Seri, Inseparable · Secret Lair Display Commander on eBay | TCGplayer
Harmless Offering
The Eldritch Moon version is up in the cat section. This one is the Marvel Secret Lair printing, and it’s a completely different joke with Gwenpool holding out Jeff the Land Shark with both hands, beaming, while Jeff does his best.
“Awww, isn’t Jeff just the cutest most adorable cuddle baby? The biting means he likes you!” The card still gives your opponent something awful and that’s the gag both times!
Harmless Offering (Rainbow Foil) · Secret Lair on eBay | TCGplayer
Primal Empathy
Not cute in the kitten sense, this one’s just a lovely card. A person stands in front of an enormous beast and neither of them is afraid. For a Commander 2021 uncommon nobody talks about, it hits harder than it needs to.
Primal Empathy · Commander 2021 on eBay | TCGplayer
Tinybones
You wouldn’t expect a skeleton on a list like this, but he’s called Tinybones, wears a little hood, and is about a foot tall. He turned up in Jumpstart as Tinybones, Trinket Thief and has kept coming back since, always doing the same thing: stealing something much too small to matter from someone much too big to notice. Pilfer isn’t even his card and he’s in the art anyway, robbing a merchant, with flavor text calling it the greatest heist of all time.
Our Picks:
- Tinybones, Bauble Burglar · Foundations on eBay | TCGplayer
- Tinybones, Pocket Nuisance · Reality Fracture on eBay | TCGplayer
- Tinybones, Trinket Thief · Jumpstart on eBay | TCGplayer
- Pilfer · Dominaria United on eBay | TCGplayer
Canyon Jerboa
Jerboas are real desert rodents with hind legs like a kangaroo and ears too big for their heads, and this one is drawn straight, pink and white and striped, standing in a Zendikar canyon.
Magic types it as a Mouse, which is generous. The flavor text is a Goma Fada nomad yelling at it for spooking the herd, which is the only interaction anybody has ever had with a jerboa.
Canyon Jerboa · Zendikar Rising on eBay | TCGplayer
Bairn
“Bairn” is a Scottish and Northern English word for child and both of these are Ouphes, Magic’s small woodland fae. Same artist on both, 13 years apart, which is why they feel like a matched set.
Glimmer Bairn is the one to start with. It’s a tiny creature in a striped bee costume carrying a lantern through the woods with a deer watching, and the flavor text is a trick or treat rhyme. Gilder Bairn is the older, stranger one, hauling glowing trinkets through a twisted forest while the flavor text wonders whether they lead it home or lead someone else astray.
Our Picks:
Nicol Bolas
Nicol Bolas is the closest thing Magic has to a final boss. An Elder Dragon, thousands of years old, has personally ruined multiple planes and headlined an entire story arc built around him trying to become a god. This Secret Lair draws him as a baby in a nest.
Nicol Bolas, the Ravager · Secret Lair Display Commander on eBay | TCGplayer
Trufflesnout
A boar that hunts truffles, which is a real job real pigs really have. The Core Set 2021 one is kitted out with baskets strapped to its back, working a mushroom forest, and the flavor text says its exploits are legendary among local chefs and the stuff of nightmares among the forest thallids. Wilds of Eldraine brought it back as Intrepid Trufflesnout, standing in a glowing fairy ring at night with an Adventure spell called Go Hog Wild.
Our Picks:
- Trufflesnout · Core Set 2021 on eBay | TCGplayer
- Intrepid Trufflesnout · Wilds of Eldraine on eBay | TCGplayer
Raggadragga
Typed Human Boar, which is a combination Magic mostly doesn’t do, and he’s the goblin adjacent boss of a Baldur’s Gate gang called the Goreguts. He’s not cute. He’s mid explosion, armored, shouting. He’s on the list because Raggadragga is an incredible name for a pig and we don’t make the rules.
Raggadragga, Goreguts Boss · Battle for Baldur’s Gate on eBay | TCGplayer
Placid Rottentail
Typed Fungus Rabbit, from March of the Machine, sitting in a patch of daisies with mushrooms growing out of its back. Then you read the flavor text and it turns: it used to love munching daisies, but lately its favorite snacks are the strange round roots popping up everywhere. Those roots are the Phyrexian invasion and the rabbit has no idea. It’s the sweetest doomed card in the set!
Placid Rottentail · March of the Machine on eBay | TCGplayer
Which cute Magic card is your favorite? Any we missed? Let us know in the comments below!
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