How Good Was Masticore, Actually? | A Deep Dive Into Magic: the Gathering History

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Masticore was one of the most powerful creatures in Magic: the Gathering between 1999 and 2005. It warped formats and because it was colorless it was played in virtually every deck. However, it's been a long time since Masticore was successful in competitive Magic, so I thought it was a good time to look at it's competitive history from almost a quarter century ago.
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[@Matti_Mattsen]

fun fact: the original art for "Deep Analysis" depicts a Masticore too. It lies dead on a table, being analyzed by some Cephalids

[@ClubbingSealCub]

the flavour text says 'this specimen seems to be broken'

[@TheShinyFeraligatr]

Because Mastacore was indeed a broken card at the time.

[@billepperson2662]

Fun(er) fact: When it was first released, EVERY one I knew pronounced "Deep Analysis" without the last 4 letters...

[@zachwilson768]

I think one of the coolest things about old magic is that some of the best cards still had hard drawbacks. Now you get big creatures with all the upsides without having to work for it.

[@Kuchenwurst]

I got some of the gold-bordered championship decks from 99/2000. They're such a blast to play with - but they do require a lot of thinking. It feels a lot like a sort of cardboard chess, in a way. Which is very, very fun! Masticore is an all-star in these decks, a true force to be reckoned with. I also now know first-hand that Phyrexian Colossus is an absolute freaking beast after underestimating it for so long. This robot wins games single-handedly.

[@alienicecream]

you make a good point. every set that has been printed since urzas has just gone downhill.

[@zachwilson768]

@@alienicecream I wouldn’t go that far. Caverns of Ixalan had one of my favorite draft environments in a long time. Things started getting out of hand when baneslayer angel and thragtusk established a level of crazy powercreep in creatures and I’d say Sheoldred the Apocalypse and Ragavan went off the deep end. The inability for wizards to bring any kind of new land destruction, discard, counterspells and other alternative control strategies kind of limits where they can put in powercreep. That and there is no longer any meaningful interaction with colors and land types.

[@zachwilson768]

@@alienicecream also I kind of wish they still made bad rares. Talking about really weird cards with serious limitations that reward the player for doing some really weird deckbuilding and problem solving.

[@alienicecream]

@@zachwilson768 I totally agree!

[@ninjanoodle2674]

Masticore was a beast back in the day. It was everywhere due to it being colorless, and every aggro deck ran small creatures. It was nicknamed 'The Machine Gun' for reason. I ran it in Mono-Blue control, Trinity Green, Mono-Red LD, and UR Tinker-Welder (AKA George W. Bosh) decks. I was one of only 3 players to make Day 2 of GP: Anaheim with UR Tinker-Welder mostly on the back of upping the Masticore count to 3 in order to better battle against Red Deck Wins and Angry Hermit which I considered the decks weakest matchups. Thanks for these trips down nostalgia lane.

[@larry-the-g]

Masticore was a house. I was competing at the Nationals when it went from a junk rare to a $20 rare overnight. With more than 50% of the field playing “White Lightning”, Masticore literally became the perfect counter to all the weenies.

[@ViashinoWizard]

I was today years old when I realized the thing coming out of Masticore's mouth is a pipe it's eating and not a weird tongue

[@ruisherwin3225]

Holy shit I always thought it was a gun (which is how it pings for 1)

[@MrEmeryHall]

​@@ruisherwin3225I also thought it was a gun

[@darknight1022]

That pipe is a machine gun (to gun down creatures).

[@alienicecream]

it is a homage to alien (the movie creatures)

[@dustinchang5089]

I think what made Masticore extra good(along with cursed scroll) was that there wasn't any(that I can think of) colorless sources of damage, so decks had a way to stand up against a lot of the color protected creatures of the time. I'm also surprised that Nizzahon didn't mention Masticore's cameo on Deep Analysis with the hilarious flavor text "this specimen seems to be broken". I think that pretty much sums it up!

[@ricklawrence2515]

"I always run a poll to determine the topic of these videos, and also because its fun to see Ehrnaim Djinn get trounced"

[@Falchieyan]

The first ever pack of Destiny I opened had a foil Masticore. Foils were extremely rare back then and it ended up being THE card, so I was pretty excited.

[@captiannemo1587]

Foils were until after Onslaught block mind crazy rare. Even a basic foil land was 1-3 per box and you might get maybe 3-4 total foils in a box if lucky… or just 2.

[@JD-gk7eh]

Kai Budde's 1999 Worlds list is wild. It's like "HOW DID ALL THAT GET IN STANDARD!?" 7 Sol Lands, 4 pieces of fast mana, Thran Dynamo....

[@PhilippeLemaire]

I bought that deck (world Championship gold border official proxy decks where a thing back then). It was so disgustingly strong nobody wanted to play against it.

[@Kuchenwurst]

​@@PhilippeLemaireYou need to play against other top 8 decks of the time. You'll have an absolute blast, I promise. I agree that the power level is absolutely disgusting in this format, which makes it extra tasty 😂

[@bluecry2000]

Have been playing since 94 and having a substantial collection and being a 45 years old player, i can tell this is the best content on magic i have ever seen. I hate to watch streamer kids who cannot even count and have no idea about magic history. Seriosly man, great video and you took me to those times i was ready to trade whole binder of magic cards with a foil masticore 😂

[@SomeGuy712x]

I decided to go buy one of each Masticore at a local shop after watching this video. Fortunately, they had them all in stock, and most were quite cheap. Even the Reserved List original one was only about 2½ bucks for the From the Vault version, surprisingly.

[@DanielRichards-yy3kz]

It was INSANE for a time

[@jeffschulz8773]

I defeated masticore in the final round of a tournament! I was playing living death, had a megrin in my sideboard and used it for the W!

[@mrpinguimninja]

Another reason why masticore was strong was that a lot of removal back in the day targeted non-artifact creatures, and she just happens to be an artifact

[@cax1175]

Walking Ballista is Masticore at home.

[@kingginger3335]

I'd say it's the other way around. Masticore is Walking Ballista at home.

[@banditkeithkingofduelmonsters]

@@kingginger3335 If your home is a mansion in a gated community.

[@matthewgagnon9426]

@@kingginger3335 Walky B is the grandchild of Masticore who was raised with no expense spared.

[@OloBustyoas]

@@matthewgagnon9426 reminds me of a certain prez candidate lol

[@DanielRichards-yy3kz]

Poor Ernie will never win these polls until you run a poll with him vs Ironclaw Orcs

[@kirimaru73]

Let's start a poll about "How good was: Ironclaw Orcs vs Repentant Blacksmith"

[@dustinchang5089]

@@kirimaru73 Ernie will only win against its worse contemporaries that WotC tried to fix e.g. Maro, Blastoderm, Stampeding Wilderbeest, Jackalope Herd, Mungha Wrum, etc.

[@epochsgaming]

​@@dustinchang5089Worse? Blastoderm was a mack truck back in the day my dude.

[@bulbasaurappreciator]

Nizza needs to record the Ernie video and just put it out on the side sometime lol

[@brendans1983]

How good was Arabian Nights.... actually?

[@tomasgomez6142]

This is high quality content. Truly. I'm recommending all my friends to watch it. Thanks man! Thank you for doing this and taking it seriously!

[@someguy1ification]

2:28 when discussing the Regenerate ability, I think it's important to mention that there WERE destroy effects that prevented the creature from regenerating through it... And that none of them could target artifact creatures (or black creatures). Stuff like Terror and Snuff Out. Edit: and that Disenchant and Shatter were also destroy effects... That masticore could regen through

[@camdenharper7244]

The '99 nationals winning white deck was based on waylay. Another very interesting and little remembered card

[@justinayran]

The Waylay Abuse!

[@user-sz7dh2yz3h]

It still sees play in Premodern format: Elves & MUD (big mana), Survival (as a fetcheable silver bullet + combo with Squee), Welder (recursion), Deadguy Ale (no problem discarding 1 card per turn if you will draw 2 with Phyrexian Arena).

[@darkmatter32x]

the beauty of the card was, it can fit into any deck. the discard effect can even be an upside on certain decks.

[@DAsrada]

Honestly, just print him into Foundations. Let the new players grabbing the product up play around with Masticore, and the older players can tell them how good it used to be.

[@fernandobanda5734]

Regeneration is a mess of a mechanic, though.

[@Pacheco_Dan]

Even if regeneration wasn't complicated to explain to new players, Masticore is on the reserved list

[@DAsrada]

@@Pacheco_Dan Ah just break the Reserved List rule and do so anyway.

[@spic9h592]

I always forget that it is since they reprinted once in a From the Vault​s set. Still feels surreal that I finally got my copy from a dollar rare bin a few years ago. @Pacheco_Dan

[@Djarkness]

Its survivability was also increased because most black removal couldn't target artifact creatures at the time either.

[@stevo-dx5rr]

Oh man, back in the day I played in the Destiny prerelease sealed tournament and I pulled a Masticore. Went on to top-eight that one in a huge field. Too op.

[@Thorandor44]

You have to understand that the core came into play in turn two..and in that time you had one of the best reanimator ever printed..so a thornelemental in turn 3 was strong..squee was printed in that time and helped you for the downside because you don't realy lost a handcard ...so realy strong!

[@djdoc06]

Loved masticore. And with all the graveyard mechanics nowadays, he’s very cool to play in EDH and multiple formats.

[@PaulGaither]

I won a Mox Ruby in 2007 Vintage ff the Back of Masticore and took 2nd, top 4, and top 8 multiple times as well with it. Mono Black Null Rod Agro. "But Paul, Null Rod turns off Mastocore." Exactly. Masticore is in the sideboard. You bring it in against Goblins, Fish, Sullivan Solution, and so forth. Masticore has 4 toughness, keeping it out of lightning bolt range [Goblins]; can regenerate for only 2 colorless, which allows it to win fights with Joutun Grunt and other things blocking or attacking into it; can deal one damage to ping blockers and kill utility creatures like Dark Confidant and Meddling Mage. When you cast Masticore, your opponent often scoops or forces you to play it out.

[@destructimus]

I'd still rock this card in a Tron deck lol.

[@danielg5247]

I like this card so much that i bought a foil Masticore whenever i was able to come across one... and i paid no more than 45 bucks each back in 2011-2014.

[@joseluki]

What made Masticore so good was that it was run by control or midrange decks that generated a lot of mana, while fast aggro decks where mostly made of x/1s abd x/2s. So an unanswered masticore on board could wipe a board in a couple of turns.

[@jeroenvaneekeren]

I don't know to which creature you have to pair it to win, but I really want that Erhnam Djinn video!

[@minervadetauro7646]

Ernham Djinn vs Flying Men (Flying Men somehow wins)

[@dilbert719]

I fully expect the April 1 poll to be Ernham Djinn vs. Ernham Djinn.

[@ianhay527]

I really hope Ernham Djinn is the last video in this series, that would be gold

[@stevo-dx5rr]

Ernham djinn is pure nostalgia, though I never had the original print of the card.

[@titanoconnell5802]

Of course, Masticore is not what caused the nationals win with mono white in 1999, the lack of rules knowledge was. 6th edition rules rotated in and almost nobody had learned about the "waylay" phase. If you had a crusade on turn 2, you could swing with 3 3/3 knight tokens after your third turn, or 4th turn by casting during you opponent's end step. Dubbed "White Lightning" because it did 6 damage one time like ball lightning, the effect was strong, but even stronger at nationals where only a handful of people knew about this rule change and took advantage of it.

[@JervisGermane]

I also wondered if you were going to bring up the Deep Analysis joke

[@Dannymiles1987]

Mono blue opposition with Masticore was a nightmare.

[@johnmuir8878]

so good it cost me a top 8 in a PTQ because I had the win locked up, but got too excited and missed the discard trigger..... forced to sack, then died the next turn. Rip

[@YzzleMate]

the voting just has me hyped for the Erhnam Djinn video, whenever it drops

[@Telearian]

Tinker and junk diver was my favorite combo

[@tommullings9912]

still sees a lot of play in premodern for a lot of the reason you mentioned in the video of it in its hayday.

[@omnivision616]

Masticore was badass back in the day. Still a house in Premodern.

[@SoundsOfSushi]

Manticore Madness is a fun deck to build around

[@througtonsheirs_doctorwhol5914]

I just realized that technically Masticore can help my OCTAVIA commander entering play earlier... go Masticore ! (*but for 5.5$Canadian if i order from ebay.... even it it includes shipping for the reprint 2010 version... I'll check with the LGS if they got a battered one in stock before!

[@jamesmischke]

I love this new series brother, keep 'em coming 👍

[@tygonmaster]

Crazy for sure at the time and a good sign of just how bad powercreep has come.

[@coachleif]

Old magic had WAY, WAY more "small ball". Heck even having a creature larger than 3/3 was something of a rarity, let alone there were often far fewer viable removals, or ones that hit artifacts. So you have a larger than normal creature, that goes in any deck, and has built in ways to create card advantage... it was basically the perfect Magic card for the era. Sure, it's drawback is massive, but what you were getting would be worth the cost given how difficult it would be to deal with for most decks of the time... with their best answer possibly being playing one themselves.

[@jamesdrummond7684]

1:05 poor erhnam djinn. always the bridesmaid, never the bride. #freeerhnamdjinn #justice4erhnam #swingers

[@titanoconnell5802]

"Masticore ... was a mistake." Mark Rosewater confessed to Jamie Wakefield at over pizza at PT Chicago. This, in part was due to a local tourney in VT that was a fundraiser for Jamie's friend that injured his knee. In the standard tourney, he faced my white weenie deck first (I had only 1 masticore in it that I owned) and he reported on SSG about the "danger of cool plays" he was able to, and so he did, he tapped out to double overrun me. But I was at 30 life from soul warden, was able to make choice blocks like kill his spike weaver, and I won the game and match. His anger came out against masticore in the next match, my friend James was mad at me that he had to play Jamie who was pissed because I had just beaten him. James had mono green for cradle, deranged hermit for squirrel tokens, and survival to go and fetch the masticore. With cradle and a gazillion tokens, Jamie never stood a chance with his mono green deck and no Masticore of his own. So that's the real reason Jamie hated Maticore so much. Betrayed by his beloved mono green color fueling them.

[@FlowLikeWater429]

First mtg gunslinger match I ever tried. With my sliver deck he starts and plays on turn 1 Black lotus Tolarian academy Tap for four Play Masticore

[@johnj4471]

Black and artifacts typically were the main sources of painfully inefficient costs on creatures. Black had the rationale of it was its weakness and artifact as being generic mana.

[@tengutribe]

When I was coming as a kid going to a place called literally the Chimera's den the bros and me were always trying get this card all the time we never did. Man at the time seeing that card was the shit to us. Good times.😂 Wish I had the money I do now coming up. Wouldve stuffed my deck with these.

[@BIacklce]

i remember that they printed a "champion deck" prebuild of kai buddes deck that I got for like 6 dollars back in 2002 when I was 11. didnt get how it worked because I was a child.

[@tengutribe]

@@BIacklce Funny how we can look back at stuff and have an lol facepalm like that's how that worked. "I wish I knew then" moment

[@djdoc06]

I owned a bunch of championship decks. Sad that they don’t print them anymore and their price is almost $100

[@shoot_again2753]

Imagine if they made Containment Construct in 1999 :)

[@hammerhyena4207]

I remember buying the Finkel championship deck at Gamekeeper. Wish i held onto it.

[@djdoc06]

Me too. I had that. I can’t even remember how I lost all the cards…

[@CristianCiotti]

I still dream of Masticore being added to Arena, she will be great in Brawl.

[@jayceh]

The psychic frog of its day

[@througtonsheirs_doctorwhol5914]

The discarding effects are now my favorite in Lorcana strategies... I have a deck with discard 1 and thus cause 1 damage to an opponent creature. So this MAsticore got me right in the feels... I remember having a turn where I discarded 5, and then drew 19 cards. SAying it out loud to announce the draw, , players around turned towards our table...

[@johnsanko4136]

I run a Masticore in my cube, and while it's not the absolute house he once was, it'll still throw down on occasion.

[@brylythhighlights4335]

I have the Jon Finkel gold border deck! :D

[@biobroly9324]

Can you do a video on staple cards for each color?

[@stephennewberry9815]

John played the Tinker deck because it was a safe deck to get the required wins. It was by no means the best deck. That was the Replenish deck. How do I know this, because I questioned John about his deck choice and admonished him for it, the week after I was a top 25 player for all constructed formats in that era

[@bluepomegranate]

“The specimen seems to be broken.”

[@wsamkor]

Diego Ostrovich decklist is incorrect. It´s 2 slate of ancestry, not 2 treachery. Was wondering how the hell he would cast those :D

[@mikeheath4916]

Get ready for the new Masticore in MH4. "When your opponent performs a game action, CARDNAME deals 2 damage to any target. Whenever CARDNAME is targeted by a spell or ability your opponent controls, regenerate it."

[@adamwee382]

the thing about masticore is that it was actuallly awful, its just that everything else was far worse. Even if Nastywhore were reprinted exactly the same minus being forced to discard, it still wouldn't automatically slot into every deck. It would still be a control staple and maybe go into a lot of sideboards but creature design has come so far since then.

[@througtonsheirs_doctorwhol5914]

"Masticore, what is best in life??" - Conan

[@emrakultheaeonstorn7430]

I have 4 copies of Masticore and 4 copies of Psychatog in my commander deck

[@Kasigi03]

I feel like Masticore could easily just be dominant today, with cards like Feast of Sanity or Zirda, the Dawnwaker. There's also plenty of deathtouch granting abilities today.

[@groovemedium]

Thank you! I noticed.

[@cerealamog]

Masticore was a great card....and every time I look at it I think it's smoking a cigar lol

[@truxcer]

At this point, we have to establish fact that Nizzahon viewers don't care for Erhnam Djinn.

[@PKFat]

I never understood the pole coming out of it's mouth

[@astuteanansi4935]

Either it's eating that pole, or that's how it deals 1 damage, maybe spewing out toxic fumes or something EDIT: upon finishing the video, it's probably supposed to be eating it, tying into the "masticate" pun

[@andrewsegers7942]

Anyone got a commander list that breaks this? Such a classic.

[@tonykung8756]

Masticore was stupidly broken back then. Every deck had a ton of 1 toughness creatures you can pay 2 mana to kill. Also u attack them to death with the 4/4 body.

[@rossmcgleish7523]

Masticore still kicks ass in premodern

[@z.s.7992]

Argentum Masticore has taken that discard and used it to make it an upside

[@kniferaffe]

This series rules

[@AkukAkuku]

I wish you had shown the nizzapoints score of each Masticore.

[@ItsDangerousGoAlone]

Why didnt mono white run Gaia Craddle? Even if it was just used as colorless mana basically.

[@davidlundquist1979]

I'm guessing because it runs a lot of cheap creatures that don't have much generic mana in their costs, and back then mana burn was still a thing.

[@spyderman312]

No mention of the Deep Analysis reference? Sadge

[@marcoottina654]

10:30 is there a typo in "Mindslaver"?

[@thomassynths]

"Mindlsaver" thanks for the typo pizzahon

[@Lordinario]

Good ol' days....

[@d.j.8059]

Ridiculously good. In 95% of games, the second it hit the table, the entire game's focus shifted to "how to keep this alive and wreck my opponent with it/how to get rid of it?"

[@lmrbeerbellyl]

Masticore was the best creature ever printed at the time

[@jonathanrobinson8926]

Title inspired by the classic False Swipe Gaming series?

[@GabAssbreaker]

Yes, its an homage to that serie of videos

[@joedominguez8064]

Having seen the art more closely now I realized it’s called Masticore because “masticate” means to chew or eat and it has three mouths 😂

[@eol6632]

It was a good card. Not really fair to compare it with today's ADHD version of magic.

[@philipzapata9105]

I had 4 of these

[@NetherVoiD]

Mtg back then is the best It has discsrd phase and manaburn.

[@ArtifexExMachina]

It's very simple, those cards were incredible good back in the days because now magic has a power creep worse than YUGIOH.

[@alienicecream]

I still have a set of shiny masticores

[@alienicecream]

him and squee were so fun

[@gjfwang]

Also spells were stronger then, especially for drawing cards

[@ravenoftheredsky]

I haven't watched your channel in a while. When you said regenerate is no longer a thing in magic, I realized how far gone Magic is for me

[@AnonYmous-et4mz]

While the keyword is gone, they usually print something with an activated ability along the lines of "CARDNAME gains indestructible until end of turn. Tap CARDNAME" every other set still, so basically it's still around.

[@hawkticus_history_corner]

Its weird cuz while the keyword is gone they keep printing things that are Regenerate in all but keyword, so why they ditched the keyword I will never know

[@JasonOshinko]

@@hawkticus_history_corner Because "gains indestructible until end of turn" is much simpler than a keyword action with a lot of baggage that's hard to explain (tapping, removing from combat, etc.).

[@hawkticus_history_corner]

@@JasonOshinko Except they also make it tap too so it winds up doing much the same thing but it's a whole sentence instead of one word

[@ncuco]

Funny that the recent masticores aren't bad, but never saw play

[@NizzahonMagic]

Like I said in the video - they all saw play apart from lesser masticore.

[@matteoceccherini7810]

Simply start to play premodern and discover it by yourself

[@tengutribe]

Pound for pound i dont care what card set comes out Mono Red is the most consistent for positive results. Not the strongest...but most consistent

[@NizzahonMagic]

Yep, it's pretty much a factor in every Standard

[@shaneg9081]

I dont hate that Masticore isn't good now. It should not have been good then. What I hate is that if you remove the discard, it'd still be a bad card. I wish we had a situation where you remove that and Masticore is a decent creature.

[@NizzahonMagic]

Masticore with no downside would be playrf in Standard and Pioneer easily. I'm not sure how you look at it and come away thinking it is bad

[@jonnynice8366]

I hated this card. I always lost to it and it was way out of my budget as a 10 year old.

[@keiharris332]

False swipe gaming!!!

[@RibusPQR]

80 points?

[@esrasor]

Masticore one of the most overrated cards in mtg history, its hard to properly rate it because everyone and their mother played masticore, but objectively speaking it was a 4/4 with a downside, i played 3 copies in my Goblin Welder/Thinker deck, so for me the synergie with the rest of my deck was insane. it allowed me to discard 8/8 to bring back, but the creature itself just felt underwhelming most of the time.

[@Eron2828]

This specimen appears to be broken.