Craw Giant: Lore Threads Hinting at MTG's Next Sets

In TCG ·

Craw Giant by Christopher Rush from Time Spiral Timeshifted, a towering green giant stomping across a fantasy battlefield

Image courtesy of Scryfall.com

Giant Footfalls: Craw Giant and the Threads of Time

If you’ve ever built a green stompy deck that eclipses the board with a single, soul-crushing swing, Craw Giant hits like a nostalgia-stuffed boulder from a time when the rumor of Big Green felt like the heartbeat of the game 🧙‍♂️🔥. This seven-mana behemoth from the Time Spiral Timeshifted subset arrives with a twin punch: Trample to smash through defenses and Rampage 2 to punish any blocker party that dares to mount an offensive wall. It isn’t just a creature card; it’s a time-stamped reminder that Magic’s past continues to whisper about the future in your hands. Green mana expensive? Sure. But the payoff is a battlefield where your giants don’t just win—they narrate a saga of growth and inevitability ⚔️🎲.

The card shows a familiar green identity. Mana cost of {3}{G}{G}{G}{G} pushes you toward a late-game crescendo, where a single combat step can flip a game from “maybe” to “we have them pinned.” With a respectable 6/4 body, Craw Giant isn’t just a wall; it’s a moving ramp artifact with teeth. Trample creates a sense of inevitability as your opponent calculates blocking options, while Rampage 2 accelerates that inevitability by rewarding you for a heavier commitment on the defense side of combat. In practical terms, Craw Giant wants to be attacked or blocked by multiple creatures; either way, it’s likely to push someone back with an extra +2/+2 for each additional blocker beyond the first. That makes Craw Giant a potent late-game threat in any green-heavy deck, whether you’re smushing in Standard-legal environments or licensing eight-point-stomps in Commander huddles 🧙‍♂️💎.

The Time Spiral Timeshifted frame carries more than a color palette; it anchors Craw Giant in a moment in Magic’s lore where time itself is the wildcard. The set’s whole premise is retrofitting old-school power into modern decks, creating a bridge between the 1990s Earthbound fantasy and today’s multiverse-spanning narratives. That bridge isn’t merely mechanical; it’s narrative. The R&D folks at Wizards sat down and asked: what if old favorites could roar again with modern polish? Craw Giant’s black-bordered frame, illustrated by Christopher Rush, and its “special” rarity status in that era’s print run—complete with a bold aura of heavy-hitting green—echo a design ethos: power can endure, even when the calendar moves forward. This card isn’t just a stall tactic; it’s a lore-infused artifact that says green growth has always been a dangerous, real, and present force in the story of Dominaria and beyond 🧠🧭.

Harthag gave a jolly laugh as he surveyed the army before him. "Ho ho ho! Midgets! You think you can stand in my way?"

That flavor text from Craw Giant isn’t just a punchline; it’s a window into the era’s storytelling vibe—a world where warlords and giants loom large, and the battlefield is a theater of grandiose scale. The character voice hints at the broader timeless conflicts that continue to ripple through Magic’s future sets: ancient grudge, tribal warfare, and the ever-present hunger for dominance. When designers think about future expansions, they often mine the same well of archetypes—giants, green ramp, and battlefield dominance—then twist them into new mechanics or setting scents. Craw Giant’s presence in Time Spiral Timeshifted reads like a whisper from the past: “If we push hard enough now, what other eras might we braid into the present?” The answer is a future where big greens grow even bigger, sometimes with echoes of Rampage or similar multi-block dynamics finding a second wind in modern formats 🧭🎨.

Design notes: flavor, realm-building, and the promise of what comes next

From a design perspective, Craw Giant embodies several evergreen lessons. First, green’s identity as the color of growth and attrition is reinforced: your forest grows dense, and your biggest threats arrive with heavy combat math. The Rampage mechanic—an older evergreen nod to “when this is blocked by more than the first creature, it gets bigger”—paired with Trample, creates a dramatic value curve. It rewards players who commit to the battle plan and punishes those who hesitate to present multiple blockers. In a broader sense, this pairing fosters swing-heavy, creature-dominant archetypes that feel both nostalgic and alive. Designers pale green giants in the sunlight of modern sets, then reveal new angles—kicker, delve, adventure, mutate—that push the same core idea into fresh arenas. Craw Giant’s relentless charge through a crowded combat step functions as a blueprint for what future green evergreen creatures can be: a towering threat that demands respect and a plan to remove it that isn’t trivial 💥🧙‍♂️.

Art and print specifics also matter when we think about the future. The Time Spiral timeshifted print places Craw Giant in a tactile megalith of black-border plastic, a reminder that old-school art can still align with modern game environments. The artist, Christopher Rush, is celebrated for his large-scale, dramatic compositions; the card’s frame, the “special” rarity signaling, and its dual-foil compatibility (foil and non-foil) speak to a collector’s dream. As future sets borrow from that era’s bold imagery, expect more grandiose battlescapes and creatures who look like they could pluck a sun from the sky—just like Craw Giant does when it lumbers into the fray. The lore threads tied to such imagery help players imagine a multiverse where today’s storylines unfold in tomorrow’s sets, making every tournament a potential prelude to a new chapter 🧩🎲.

As we look toward the next cycles of MTG, keep Craw Giant in mind as a hint of what green can become when you blend classic power with modern pacing. The card’s green-heavy mana cost, its trample-heavy aggression, and its Rampage upside all feel like a template for future big-browed green threats that demand attention and answers in equal measure. Nostalgia isn’t mere sentiment—it’s a lens through which curious players can spot patterns and anticipate where the designers might push the game next. If you’re building a green-focused deck or simply collecting moments that connect past and future, Craw Giant stands as a stone pillar in the road ahead 🧙‍♂️🔥💎.

Practical angles: deckbuilding and collection strategy

  • In cube or casual Legendary-styled green-based decks, Craw Giant can anchor you late game as an anchor threat with robust mana investment and potent combat math.
  • In EDH/Commander, it’s less about sheer efficiency and more about the historical flavor and the big-game storytelling moment—a reminder of how your board state can dictate the pace of a game.
  • For collectors, its Time Spiral Timeshifted lineage—plus its special rarity—carries a particular charm for players who relish continuity between old and new design language.
  • Flavor and lore can spark storytelling in your own games—imagine your green-dominant party marching toward a time-warped battlefield where ancient giants roam free.
  • As a design touchstone, Craw Giant invites designers to reexamine Rampage and multi-block combat: what new mechanics could echo that idea without feeling archaic?

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Craw Giant

Craw Giant

{3}{G}{G}{G}{G}
Creature — Giant

Trample

Rampage 2 (Whenever this creature becomes blocked, it gets +2/+2 until end of turn for each creature blocking it beyond the first.)

Harthag gave a jolly laugh as he surveyed the army before him. "Ho ho ho! Midgets! You think you can stand in my way?"

ID: 81c5ee8f-a060-486c-a7f1-7bd600f6911a

Oracle ID: 152b621e-4c18-438c-9999-77e2685fda79

Multiverse IDs: 109748

TCGPlayer ID: 14573

Cardmarket ID: 14074

Colors: G

Color Identity: G

Keywords: Trample, Rampage

Rarity: Special

Released: 2006-10-06

Artist: Christopher Rush

Frame: 1997

Border: black

EDHRec Rank: 24862

Penny Rank: 12992

Set: Time Spiral Timeshifted (tsb)

Collector #: 76

Legalities

  • Standard — not_legal
  • Future — not_legal
  • Historic — not_legal
  • Timeless — not_legal
  • Gladiator — not_legal
  • Pioneer — not_legal
  • Modern — legal
  • Legacy — legal
  • Pauper — not_legal
  • Vintage — legal
  • Penny — legal
  • Commander — legal
  • Oathbreaker — legal
  • Standardbrawl — not_legal
  • Brawl — not_legal
  • Alchemy — not_legal
  • Paupercommander — not_legal
  • Duel — legal
  • Oldschool — legal
  • Premodern — legal
  • Predh — legal

Prices

  • USD: 0.23
  • USD_FOIL: 0.71
  • EUR: 0.18
  • EUR_FOIL: 0.76
  • TIX: 0.02
Last updated: 2025-11-15