Magic: The Gathering - What Are Mounts And Saddle?

While it started out with a classic high fantasy theme, Magic: The Gathering has been branching out to new and unique settings for years, from the Japanese-inspired plane of Kamigawa to the Mezo-American land of Ixalan. Each new setting introduces new mechanics, and Outlaws of Thunder Junction is no different.

Every Card In Magic: The Gathering's Outlaws Of Thunder Junction

Giddy up, pardner, it's time for Magic: The Gathering's Outlaws Of Thunder Junction.

Thunder Junction introduced several new mechanics, including the saddle ability, limited to creatures with the Mount type. It’s a thematically appropriate ability, giving you the option to unlock extra attack effects on your favorite Mounts, from broncos to brushwaggs. So saddle up, it’s time to ride!

What Are Mounts?

Mounts are a creature type first introduced in Outlaws of Thunder Junction. All Mounts have at least two abilities: an effect that triggers upon either attacking or dealing combat damage, and Saddle, an activated ability that will make the triggered ability better.

Stubborn Burrowfiend is the only exception to the rule about the triggered ability. This creature’s ability triggers the first time it’s saddled each turn.

In Outlaws of Thunder Junction, there are four white, one blue, one black, three red, and five green Mounts. There are also three multicolored Mounts, but no artifacts: those would be vehicles. There are also three legendary Mounts: Calamity, Galloping Inferno, Fortune, Loyal Steed, and The Gitrog, Ravenous Ride.

What Is Saddle?

Saddle is a keyword ability first introduced in Outlaws of Thunder Junction. It represents characters preparing their Horses (and other steeds) to ride into combat. The ability is exclusive to Mounts, and functions similarly to Crew. To saddle a Mount, you need to tap other creatures with enough collective power to meet the saddle requirement.

So saddling a Bridled Bighorn requires you to tap either two other creatures with one power each or one creature with power two or higher. Saddle can only be activated as a sorcery, so you cannot saddle in response to your creature getting destroyed.

The Mount with the saddle ability is the source of tapping, so, just like crewing vehicles, you can use a creature to saddle a Mount as soon as they come into play, ignoring summoning sickness.

While Vehicles with crew aren’t creatures until enough creatures are tapped to pilot them, Mounts with saddle are creatures that can attack, block, and be tapped on their own. But they tend to have much better effects when saddled than when alone.

This makes perfect sense if you think of it like real-life horses, which can run just fine on their own but only win races with a jockey guiding them.

Since Mounts are creatures, you can use them to saddle each other.

Best Mounts With Saddle

What Mounts are best depends largely on your deck, but there are a handful that are clear standouts in terms of power or versatility.

Archmage’s Newt is the only blue mount, and it’s a clear choice for spellslinger decks that play heavily on instants and sorceries. It won’t fit into most blue control decks, since you can’t give flashback to counterspells in your graveyard, but you can saddle up to reuse draw spells like Treasure Cruise, or throw it in your Izzet (blue/red) deck to give your burn spells a second life.

Calamity, Galloping Inferno allows you to make a tapped, attacking copy of a nonlegendary creature used to saddle it, twice! You can use this to make two copies of a single creature, or overpay the saddle cost and copy two separate creatures. It specifies nonlegendary creatures, but it doesn’t specify nontoken creatures.

So look for big plays if you can make a nonlegendary token copy and then duplicate it with Calamity.

At saddle three, Caustic Bronco is on the upper end of saddle costs, but the triggered ability is well worth it. When it attacks without being saddled, you reveal the top card of your library, lose life equal to the mana value, and put it into your hand.

That’s a solid ability, but if it’s saddled, instead of you losing life, each of your opponents loses life. Including some topdeck manipulation and high mana value cards can make this a huge pain.

The Gitrog Monster is back, and this time, Thalia isn’t the only one who can mount it. The Gitrog, Ravenous Ride is a 6/5 with trample, haste, and saddle one, allowing you to drop it and swing immediately. Then, when it deals combat damage, you can feed this amphibian with an appetite one of the creatures that saddled it and draw cards equal to that creature’s power.

Only three Brushwags have ever been printed, so Ornery Tumblewagg would be in the top five of that list, even if it wasn’t an absolutely insane Mount. Giving a creature a +1/+1 counter is already good enough to include in most green decks, but when saddled, Ornery Tumblewagg doubles the number of +1/+1 counters on a creature.

With green’s focus on +1/+1 counters, this angry tumbleweed becomes a must-add to a ton of decks in a variety of formats.

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