Thread by @EthanFleischer

DRYADS AND NYMPHS: A MAGIC THE GATHERING HISTORY I talked about this on the Weekly MTG stream, but I know that not everyone was able to watch that. 1/X #WOTCstaff

IN THE BEGINNING Richard Garfield, PhD created Magic, and it was good. 2/X

He populated the world with various creatures you'd expect to see in the AD&D Monster Manual, and from various mythologies and fantasy novels. There were dragons... 3/X

There were elves... 4/X

And there were dryads. You'll notice the type line: "Summon Nymphs" 5/X

It soon became clear that one dryad wasn't enough for the world's greatest trading card game. The Ice Age design team created Rime Dryad and Folk of the Pines. You'll notice that the type lines of these cards read Summon Dryad and Summon Dryads, respectively. 6/X

Subsequent Dryads were given the Dryad creature type. Shanodin Dryads was revised in its Classic Sixth Edition printing to say Creature — Dryad. 7/X

Everything ran smoothly, dryad-wise, at least, until Theros block. We thought it would be really cool if we had lots of nymphs in Theros. Not just dryads, but oreads, naiads, lampads, and oreads! We brought back the Nymph creature type for them. 8/X

"But wait, what about the green ones? If green nymphs are dryads, and dryad is a creature type, and nymph is a creature type... I guess we'll just put both creature types on the type line." 9/X

Which brings us to the present. Dryad of the Ilysian Grove is explicitly a dryad in it's name, but his type line read Enchantment Creature - Nymph. I've been deluged, DELUGED, I say, with requests for comment on this matter! 10/X

CONTENT WARNING: NOT ACTUALLY A VERY INTERESTING STORY.
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I'm sorry to say that this was a simple error. We left the Dryad creature type off by mistake. We have rigorous quality control processes, but they failed us. Nobody noticed before the card went to print. 11/X

But rest assured, we have TOP PEOPLE working on the problem, and the appropriate steps WILL be taken. I hope everyone can rest easy, secure in the knowledge that Dryads are and will continue to be a creature type that occasionally appears on Magic cards. 12/12