Champions of Kamigawa uncommon. Design teams often try to keep sets focused on either +1/+1 counters (like Shambling Shell) or counters that serve as some kind of marker (like Bloodthirsty Ogre), to keep potential confusion to a minimum. Early in design, Champions featured mostly non-+1/+1 tokens, and at one point this was the only card in the file that actually had +1/+1 counters. The team debated losing the card, but decided they liked it so much that it was worth keeping anyway. In the end, a few other +1/+1 counter cards made it into the set as well, quite possibly because of the decision to keep Otherworldly Journey.
