Krenko's Guide to Creature Types: Pentavite
Art by Greg Staples
What is a Pentavite (flavorfully)?
Pentavites are groups of small, flying drones on Mirrodin that come in batches of five, combining to create a bug-like construct called a Pentavus.
What is a Pentavite (mechanically)?
Pentavites are 1/1 colorless creature tokens with flying. They can be created by removing +1/+1 counters from a Pentavus or sacrificed to put a +1/+1 counters on a Pentavus. Pentavite is a solely unique creature type for Pentavus’ tokens.
Can I make a Pentavite deck?
No. Only one card uses Pentavite tokens and there are no printed Pentavites.
Is Pentavite a good creature type?
Pentavite exists in a small space of creature types that exist solely to ensure the card that uses it only references itself or other copies of itself under normal circumstances. Like Blinkmoth, the creature type isn’t trying to be anything, it’s not fighting anything for design space, and it’s just there to make sure the card works as intended. In theory, Pentavus would still be perfectly balanced if it made Construct tokens, and the concept would remain, but that’d be a significant change to how the card worked due to the sheer number of other Constructs that could be sacrificed to it. As much as I complain about too many creature types, I don’t mind when a card makes uniquely typed tokens and has the ability to specifically reference those tokens.
