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Buffalo Bill card art from Lost Chapters (Emerald, Character)
Card art: Buffalo Bill

Buffalo Bill: Emerald Character

Buffalo Bill was William F. Cody (1846 to 1917), a frontier scout who became America's most famous showman. His outdoor spectacle, Buffalo Bill's Wild West, began in 1883 and toured the United States and Europe, shaping how many people pictured the American frontier.

Cost
5 crystals
Type
Character · Celebrity
Power / Health
4 / 4
Color
Emerald (Frontier & Explorers)
Rarity
Rare
Set
Liberty & Lightning (Set 1)

Lightning 2 (when played, deal 2 damage to an enemy character).

Army scout turned showman who transformed Western reality into theatrical mythology one dazzling performance at a time.

Real history

The real history

William F. Cody was born in 1846 near LeClaire, Iowa, and his family later moved to Leavenworth, Kansas. At eleven he left home to herd cattle and work on wagon trains across the Plains, and in 1860 he joined an early version of the Pony Express. After the Civil War he scouted for the Army, and he earned the nickname Buffalo Bill by hunting buffalo to feed railroad workers.

In 1872 he received the Medal of Honor as a civilian scout with the 3rd Cavalry for "gallantry in action" at the Platte River in Nebraska on April 26. In 1916 an Army review withdrew about 900 medals, his among them, and the Army restored it in June 1989.

Cody also found fame on the stage. In December 1872 he performed in Chicago in a play called Scouts of the Prairie, written by Ned Buntline, and he later turned that fame into Buffalo Bill's Wild West. It opened in Omaha, Nebraska, in May 1883. It was not a documentary but a staged spectacle, with scenes such as Pony Express rides and stagecoach attacks, featuring cowboys, cowgirls, live animals and many Native American performers. Annie Oakley joined in 1885, and the show played in England in 1887 during Queen Victoria's Golden Jubilee.

The show went bankrupt in 1913, as movies, baseball and rodeos drew the crowds. Cody died in Denver in 1917 and was buried on Lookout Mountain in Colorado, as he had asked.

Sources

  1. A Brief History of Buffalo Bill, Buffalo Bill Museum and Grave
  2. Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show, Buffalo Bill Center of the West
  3. Indian War Campaigns Medal of Honor Recipients, U.S. Army

Checked against these sources on October 3, 2026. Spot a mistake? Report an error. How we check facts.

How the card plays

Buffalo Bill costs 5 crystals and is a 4/4 Rare Emerald Celebrity. His text is Lightning 2: when you play him, he deals 2 damage to an enemy character of your choice. You get a solid 4/4 body and a small burst of removal in one card.

Look at your rival's field before you play him. Two damage finishes any 2-health character, and it can also weaken a bigger one so a charge or a block can take it out later, since damage wears off at the end of the turn.

Zap Zap deals 2 more damage, so the two cards together remove a 4-health threat. George Westinghouse George Westinghouse adds 1 more Lightning damage and makes your rival's new characters enter rested. Kite and Key Kite and Key deals 3.

  • Playable in decks led by Amelia Earhart, and by any Traveler Leader whose colors include Emerald.
  • In the Earhart starter deck (1 copy). Deck code: LC2-Ax8CIAEhASIBIwIkAiUBJgEnASgCKQEqAisBLAEtAS4BLwEwATEBMgEzATQBNQE2ATcBOAE5AToBOwE8AT0BZQJ0Anuc
  • A deck holds up to 3 copies of this card.

Questions about Buffalo Bill

Did Buffalo Bill win the Medal of Honor?

Yes, as a civilian scout in 1872, but the Army withdrew it in 1916 during a review of about 900 medals. The Army restored it in June 1989.

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