Mogg Fanatic

The Mogg Fanatic first appeared in the 1998 Tempest expansion for Magic: The Gathering, designed by Richard Garfield and his team to provide aggressive red decks with a versatile tool for board control. The card gained significant notoriety for its ability to sacrifice itself to deal one damage, allowing players to dispatch early-game utility creatures or finish off weakened opponents. This specific printing comes from the 1998 World Championship Decks, a series of boxed sets that reproduced the exact deck lists used by the top eight finishers at that year's World Championship to allow players to experience competitive-level strategies.

The art for the card was rendered by Brom, a renowned fantasy illustrator known for his dark and visceral aesthetic. His depiction of the Mogg Fanatic emphasizes the frantic, sacrificial nature of the goblin archetype common to the Tempest block. When the World Championship Decks were released, they featured gold-bordered backs and the signature of the player who piloted the deck at the tournament, distinguishing these versions from standard tournament-legal cards while serving as a preserved slice of Magic's competitive history.