Yugi's Duelist Kingdom Monsters: The 'Small Fry' Gang, Part 2
Another 2-for-1 with a few more of the little guys. Again, I define 'small fry' as Yugi's Duelist Kingdom Monster Cards that have less ATK than "Curse of Dragon".
An unusual undead monster charges in: "Mammoth Graveyard"!
This is one of the few non-big cards for which we know the in-universe attribute and type. Dark Yugi clearly calls out this monster as a Dark attribute Undead-type in chapter 104 during his famous "Fusion" gambit in the Kaiba Duel Disk duel.
This matches up with what we're told in chapter 65, where "Mammoth Graveyard" is called out as an Undead-type that gets a power boost from the wasteland field. (Takahashi gives a few more details on this in chapter 66; while both Earth attributes and Dinosaurs also get power boosts from the wasteland field, "Mammoth Graveyard" is specifically stated to be an Undead-type in this chapter as well.)
For whatever reason, Konami disregarded that and made their version into an Earth attribute Dinosaur-type instead, even though their version was released on 4 February 1999, more than a year after this card's type and attribute were revealed in the pages of Weekly Shonen Jump in January 1998.
As for possible Magic: the Gathering card predecessors, I ask you to consider the 1993 card Elephant Graveyard.
Elephant Graveyard, from Magic: the Gathering Arabian Nights, released in December 1993. Image sourced from scryfall.com.
Now, this card is a land, not a creature that can attack or perform combat functions, so it's sort of a strange card to draw inspiration from.
Still, if you really think about it, this card allows you to regenerate a mammoth; and regeneration is a concept associated with the undead in Magic: the Gathering (think of how Drudge Skeletons from "Wight"'s post a while ago also had the regenerate ability, to represent how a skeleton will not die no matter how many times it's torn apart), so it's easy to see how Takahashi traced a line to the idea of an undead mammoth skeleton from Elephant Graveyard.
And, of course, the general concept of an 'elephant's graveyard' is a classic pulp fiction trope. If you're not familiar with the concept, Wikipedia has an article covering the basics of this old myth.
But that's not all! "Griffore"'s also come along for the ride today!
