MTG TOP 10: Apocalypse | The MOST IMPORTANT Cards in One of Magic's COOLEST Sets!

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@MortonGoldthwait Ай бұрын

I love Apocalypse. I feel like it's the first step that Wizards took in pushing the power level of creatures and cards in general to new heights. A trend that did not fully take off until Lorwyn and M10. Just reading the text on cards from Apocalypse is as satisfying as a hot cup of coffee during a snow storm. It is a very special set.

@Arivia1 Ай бұрын

It absolutely is. Spiritmonger was the first creature with p/t higher than its MV, with no downsides. Huge push in creature power.

@bradleygiven5193 Ай бұрын

My Magic story that I'll be thinking about on my deathbed: I'm doing an Apocalypse release draft in my hometown. Mostly all of us Magic players knew each other, we only had one game store in my rural county. But I'm sitting next to someone I didn't know in my pod, and I crack a Pernicious Deed - obvious pack one pick one. Then, this stranger, passes me a Spirit Monger. I even thought to make sure he didn't make a mistake. I mean I was in high school, and in a modern context it's not *that* powerful, but going into this set day one? Anyway, I just get fed black and green it seemed, I know I had a Life/Death and in my memory, I had infinite Siphon Strengths. Anyway, the stranger dropped out super early and I won the thing and to this day I half wonder if he was the nerdiest guardian angel ever.

@mylespine7731 Ай бұрын

thats awesome

@darthparallax5207 Ай бұрын

Probably just either bad at draft or really thought he was going to win in different colors, Or maybe in Apocalypse it made sense to not be sure how to evaluate multicolor because it was the first block it made any sense to even use the cards in your deck at all. Betting the dude was just on Blue/x

@Kasigi03 Ай бұрын

The Volvers were super cool along with the Battlemages from Planeshift. This was the time MtG really spread out in design and color mixing, while also being very playable. Very fun, awesome design.

@JervisGermane Ай бұрын

Mystic Snake was THE card that hooked me. I was one of the original people who all independently discovered its combo potential with Equilibrium at the same time. That deck a) won me the only tournament I ever won, b) was my only undefeated deck ever, and c) set in stone the kind of player I am to this day. Lightning Angel's deck was known as "Star-Spangled Slaughter" and red white and blue were called Star-Spangled at the time.

@HybridAngelZero Ай бұрын

Invasion Block is pretty much my favorite set of cards in the whole game, and Apocalypse has some of my favorite cards. Happy to see so many of them on this list!

@dominiciancabatit6012 Ай бұрын

Another fun fact about Spiritmonger is that it's the end result of MTG's You Make the Card project. Fans basically create a card - they submit art, text, abilities, etc... and the fans themselves would vote which would go to the final card. I REALLY WISH MTG would do this fun project again.

@marcoottina654 Ай бұрын

I wish MTG would do an entire Set this way each year! That would be fantastic!

@dominiciancabatit6012 Ай бұрын

@@marcoottina654 that'll be awesome!

@Crunchatize_Me_Senpai Ай бұрын

I appreciate not wasting a slot on obvious entries like the painlands here. However, I think it’d be a little interesting to mention where cards like this _would’ve_ fallen on the list had they been included. Would painlands have been #1?

@rashakor Ай бұрын

I Second your comment. And yes, as a generality, that type of dual mana source would dominate the list is a such a ridiculous way that Nizza has forwent mentioning them for a long time. I would not be surprised that the enemy Painlands are at least 4 out of the top 5 cards in this list.

@darthparallax5207 Ай бұрын

Between Spiritmonger and Lightning Angel and Vindicate you have Boros Golgari Izzet and Orzhov all used for cards that remained relevant 20 years after printing. Spiritmonger is worth an uncommon slot still in draft, Pernicious Deed probably gets played outside Commander, Vindicate is just good, and while Lightning Angel got mostly surpassed in Khans of Tarkir, it was still worth putting in FTV Angels and would see play in an Angels deck of 4 or 5 colors. I dont think there's enough Blue or Azorius Angels to build exactly Jeskai Angels in Commander but the fact she hasn't been powercrept entirely out of Pauper (not legal, but strong enough to not be obsolete. What about a rarity shift in a Horizons set?) means that Certain staple-quality icons would just automatically show up in lots of decks. That's without counting the rise of Simic in later years of Magic history. The ultimate conclusion is the Apocalypse lands would dominate most formats from 2001-2009 at least, across multiple Core Sets, and even the M10 and Innistrad checklands weren't actually strictly better. While none of them are as good as City of Brass, I think they're all better than Birds of Paradise, because Birds is a lot harder to +1/+1 that Elves Goblins Zombies or Merfolk. The Fetch and Shock lands are a big deal but Painlands were 3rd place in Extended and 4th in Legacy. Shadowmoor Filters are a big deal but I think Painlands were still better than Filterlands in many situations. Fast Lands were the first cycle that threatened to upset the Painlands kind of more permanently in formats where you weren't Fetching Duals and Shocks. From 2001-2011? 30% of Magic history the Painlands have been dominant in actually every format they've been legal in and they've been legal in more formats than any other lands. They essentially amount to extra copies of City of Brass, and frankly, life gain is very easy to come by in 3 out of 5 colors and probably exists in Blue and Red. There's very few downsides and not so many upsides to call them broken either, So they have more opportunities to be reprinted and reintroduced as test lands for any formats besides the basic lands. Of all the Rare land cycles, these could be shifted to Uncommons and people would think that's okay and normal and doesn't break the game. People play with Painlands. Basically everyone is either a Painlands kid or a Checklands kid.

@TheGloriousLobsterEmperor Ай бұрын

Ahhh Apocalypse. What an absolutely glorious set. I mean come on, it's called *APOCALYPSE.* They're fighting the Phyrexians! They create a gigantic weapon and hurl it at Yawgmoth! How can anyone hate that? It's almost as glorious as "Top 10 Vintage Cards (Minus Power 9)"!

@apocratos0174 Ай бұрын

Youre right! Tons of lore and flavour in there.

@cax1175 Ай бұрын

Apocalypse is how I felt when I had to work on Black Friday

@joelmonteiro1419 Ай бұрын

Fantastic set. One of my most active times playing Magic. I still run plenty of cards from Apocalypse on my Vintage cube, some just for nostalgia reasons: Phyrexian Arena, Mystic Snake, Spiritmonger, Vindicate, Pernicious Deed and Fire/Ice, one of my favorite cards of all time. Just to add some context to Dodecapod, the card was heavily used because of Gerrard's Verdict, a discard 2 for 2 that saw a lot of play at the time (in the same deck that ran Arena and Spectrl Lynx).

@viniciusAQUELE Ай бұрын

Lightning Angel was a beast in 2006' Angelfire. Lightning Helix, Lightning angel, Umezawa's jitte or Loxodon Warhammer was the dopamine blast for any midrange player

@marcoottina654 Ай бұрын

and notably, she can resist both lightning helix and lightning bolt!

@MP-kw5ud Ай бұрын

Althrough I started with Onslaught block Apocalypse was still around that time and contains many of my favourite cards for DECADES to come. Spiritmonger, Pernicious Deed, the Volvers, Mystic Snake... man I loved the cards and their art.

@marciodemeo4731 Ай бұрын

I love your top 10s from each edition!

@JB-kh7eb Ай бұрын

I missed this whole block. I bought a lot of prophecy and was mad at magic until time spiral got me back.

@alienicecream Ай бұрын

Man I loved this set. This and Scourge were some of my favorites.

@PKFat Ай бұрын

Invasion block was prolly my favorite draft bc it was the second draft environment I'd played. The first being Masque block, which was kinda abysmal. Also: Jeskai was called USA back then

@througtonsheirs_doctorwhol5914 Ай бұрын

Nizzahon! I just reachged GOLD 1 rank in MTG Arena constructed !!! Been playing for 5 days, season ends in 37 hours ! I gotta rush to platinum if possible!!! Diamond not sure. Loot,s Base 256 Hydras! Check that deck with the Mossborn hydra: i did 256 and 1024 today with it. Fractured realm makes if from 4 to 96 quickly

@AnActualDuck Ай бұрын

The nostalgia, I got in to Magic right at the release of Nemesis but it was the Invasion block that really transformed me from a casual player to a collector and serious deck builder

@AF-nc2fc Ай бұрын

Spiritmonger changing color was really useful in Invasion block. Wash Out and other color focused removal cards were useless against it.

@badbunnyTUBE Ай бұрын

Got back into mtg after some yars again and it's been so much fun building commander decks utilizing cards i got back in the day as a kid. The flavor on these older sets are second to none. Happy to say i have and have played a lot with all of the cards on this list ❤

@Phenest76 Ай бұрын

Was this the pinnacle of card art?

@mylespine7731 Ай бұрын

absolute beauts

@85mcarnold Ай бұрын

Yes

@nihar2009 Ай бұрын

What lovley set full of memories...bought the precinstructed decks and boosters and had a ball of a time ....the joy I felt looking at seeing the penumbra wurm in the pandemonium deck

@sallomon2357 Ай бұрын

Holy, I didn't realise Apocalypse had so many simultaneously iconic and successful cards! Like 8 cards on this list are icons, wow

@jesok3761 Ай бұрын

I'm a little surprised the legacy weapon didn't make it.

@faerie7dragon Ай бұрын

Phyrexian Arena is so iconic. This version even has the best flavor text of them all, no one is as evil cool as Yawgmoth. Vindicate is still one of the most elegant cards ever, so simple yet so beautiful, Gerard's flavor text vs the full art version with Radiant, hard to choose one.

@jayemdaewarehouse9027 Ай бұрын

Pernicious Deed is easily one of my favorite cards. Flavor matching function, this piece showing Freyalise cleaning up yet another of Urza’s messes acting as a tightly controlled board wipe is incredible. My Apocalypse foil is one of my prized possessions.

@handznet Ай бұрын

Still have my 4 arenas that I collected back then. Love that card

@mtgpackrat7945 Ай бұрын

Geez. I remember cracking open packs of Apocalypse. Spiritmonger was a favorite from back in the day. One of the first cards I went and sought out a foil copy for.

@certaingloom3797 Ай бұрын

@Nizzahon Magic Have you done a top 10 cards with abilities that triggers at the beginning of the upkeep in its text?

@Inforza Ай бұрын

all those good memories when apocalypse got released. My 1st set that i had completly. Played T2 with an orzhov deck with vindicate and phyrexian arena, although the card that got me to win a standard tournament was voice of all

@darushkii Ай бұрын

Happy thanksgiving! Thanks for the years of amazing content!

@matthewfunk6435 Ай бұрын

i adored this set as a kid. enemy color pairs and wedges was so novel and cool to me at the time

@11AleZZ Ай бұрын

That boosters with the sidebar were gorgeous, they change the design to the hideous Onslaught type a years after

@Chippylapil Ай бұрын

FINALLY!!! This was my set of origin. I love Apocalypse forever. 💕👌🏾

@Paulthored Ай бұрын

13:01 reminds me. Nizzahon, any chance of doing a Top Ten cards that can be Imprinted onto Isochron Scepter?

@YatzeeWillWearAGreenHat Ай бұрын

Lightning Angel looks so cool. I have to get one just for the vibe

@Happytremereinc Ай бұрын

Love these trips down the expansions through the years. I think you should take 1 of the days of the week and dedicate it to going through all the expansions in order.

@johngleeman8347 Ай бұрын

Spiritmonger was my second favorite black/green creature back when I still played MTG. Second only to Vhati il-Dal.

@maxrichard2244 Ай бұрын

Not even a blue player but there's just something about Fire/Ice 😊 always loved this card (and Electrolyze) and in the times of powercreep it's nice to see a fairly simple designed card still seeing play 😀

@zacharyatwood5263 Ай бұрын

Fun fact about Lightning Angel: the order of its colored mana (RWU) is no longer used. Jeskai identity cards now have the standard order of URW. Only two other cards have the same non-standard order. Numot, a dragon legend from Time Spiral block (way before khans) and Captain America, because obviously the captain isnt going show up rocking anything but the ol- red, white, and blue!

@prosfilaes Ай бұрын

At the time, Phyrexian Arena would have looked like Necropotence lite to many players, so not surprising at all that it would be good.

@steaks14 Ай бұрын

I remember seeing Spiritmonger for the first time after a few years away from magic. I spent 5 minutes re-reading the card searching for the downside. And saying something like “How is Dark Ritual banned and they are printing this monster???” 😂

@memyself3510 Ай бұрын

I was actually gonna ask if you were gonna do this when you did the Judgement video lol. This is the set I started playing during, and it’s still one of my all time favorites

@m.s.3121 Ай бұрын

I loved invasion block, I was always a fan of multicolored cards and playing a 2-3 color deck, all my friends back than played usually mono color. Also I didn't like the phyraxian arena and we used to play the howling mine instead. I think its quite common for new or young players to undervalue life as a resource. arena going to be a staple in every black deck with the reprint.

@mikebird1545 Ай бұрын

Scepter - Chant made me pretty unpopular at my LGS 😂 It was my first "serious" deck and really cemented my love of MTG!

@nobodyimportant72 25 күн бұрын

Mystic Snake did get an almost reprint in the form of Frilled Mystic; the elf lizard wizard may have GGUU as a cost for a 3/2 but many of the use cases would be the same and the snake would likely replace it for its slightly less brutal mana cost. Lightning Angel = MS. USA...

@chad3166 Ай бұрын

I first started playing with a 5 color apocalypse starter deck, this set is so cool

@Galforetress Ай бұрын

Oh yes babe... I love it when you explain the isochron scepter combo 😍

@magicsinglez Ай бұрын

I notice Phyrexian Arena seemed to become more popular as time went on. Perhaps it was heavily played in black by the time it was about to rotate out of Standard. I know card-advantage is king but it still surprises me a little how much it is played. It pales in comparison to Necropotence. There are plenty of black cards that cost 5 mana that allow you to draw 5 cards, and no one plays them. I guess getting your extra card early, and perhaps getting the arena down (against control), counts for something. There was a popular sorcery that allowed you to draw 2 cards for 2 mana, and there are soooo many creatures that allow you to draw cards. I guess I’ve mostly slept on Arena. My mistake.

@dustinchang5089 Ай бұрын

Mystic Snake holds a species place in my heart as well!

@mikenahmias7102 Ай бұрын

I remember the days when Spiritmonger was king and games were decided on who got theirs out first or could play a second one first. I always felt Spiritmonger really costed 6 because you had to have a black open after casting it.

@magetathelion5825 Ай бұрын

Never saw a mystic snake in fairy decks of lorwin considering the power black and blue cards of the time and that for 4 mana they had the mistblind clique that acted as an orims chant with legs

@magicsinglez Ай бұрын

‘Suffocating Blast’ looks kinda good. I don’t remember seeing this card. I must not have opened it. Looks better than Mystic Snake. If you like Mystic Snake, you’ll love Suffocating Blast.

@BroodwichBaker Ай бұрын

You could've given me the entire Apocalypse card list, and I still wouldn't have guessed number one if I could guess half the set.

@LordOfCrabz Ай бұрын

We always called Mystic Snake "Shaky Snake". We would shake it and hiss and whatever card we were countering.

@rendevoir4736 Ай бұрын

"What doesn't grow, dies. And what dies, grows the Spiritmonger"

@dirksellsted6929 Ай бұрын

I still have unopened apocalypse boosters. Great set

@RaulFelixINC Ай бұрын

My favorite set. It made Green/Black a thing and now that's the kind of mage I am.

@icomment2226 Ай бұрын

You could add *Prophetic Bolt* APC 116 to this list as #11. The combination of Lightning Blast (Tempest) and Impulse (Visions) was gamebreaking in 2000/2001. Also a Prophetic Bolt would also net you another one creating a pseudo-chain reaction. In 2024, this card would not be given a 2nd look, but in the 2000/2001 60-cards formats, this was a gamebreaking spell. I won games with it!

@Eron2828 Ай бұрын

Rakavolver is a personal favorite. Best card in the set (according to InQuest).

@riceonwednesday Ай бұрын

At time of release WBG decks dominated standard entirely. Spiritmonger was waaaaaay overpowered, together with Pernicious Deed, Vindicate, Death Grasp, Phyrexian Arena and other bombs. Spirit Lynx was an auto-include in a format previously dominated by Fires of Yavimaya decks, as it was the wall it needed against Blastoderm, enormous Saproling Tockens, plus regenerating against Flametongue Kavu. At its time there was nothing capable of beating that... until threshold/madness, MBC and Psychatog decks arrived after rotation.

@joshbunton6424 Ай бұрын

Apocalypse makes me feel old especially given I started playing in the Invasion cycle

@minervadetauro7646 Ай бұрын

Fire//Ice is so obviously number 1, but I hope my favorite card of all time Phyrexian Arena gets to place really high

@Давыдочкина Ай бұрын

Appreciate the detailed breakdown! Just a quick off-topic question: My OKX wallet holds some USDT, and I have the seed phrase. (alarm fetch churn bridge exercise tape speak race clerk couch crater letter). Could you explain how to move them to Binance?

@metalblizzard6024 Ай бұрын

One of my favorite sets

@bobfranklin2572 Ай бұрын

Spirit monger is a solid card! Personally I'd NEVER trade it for a few copies of Bazaar of Baghdad...

@MSR-1701 Ай бұрын

Ah, nostalgia!😅

@rileystokosa2459 Ай бұрын

One of the last if not the last xards i got grom my grandpa spirit monger rip

@registereduser Ай бұрын

At least in my area, the enemy colored pain lands were Big Deals.

@Radjammin Ай бұрын

Spiritmonger was a community created card.

@sdtamarinera Ай бұрын

Invasion block ❤️

@ep1phany62 Ай бұрын

Apocalypse sealed boxes are super rare.

@Radjammin Ай бұрын

Spectral lynx is a color shifted river boa.

@landgin3781 Ай бұрын

IPA is the best time of magic. A time before for ridiculous power creep and mana fixing

@chapmanandchapmanproductio974 Ай бұрын

This dude knows woooooooooooooo

@Pseudophonist Ай бұрын

You missed the most important fact about Lightning Angel, it's nickname as Miss America

@thetimebinder 16 күн бұрын

0:08 My back hurts.

@rossmcgleish7523 Ай бұрын

So many premodern bangers

@natenathan2654 Ай бұрын

We called red white blue "merica" back in the day

@StealthNinja4577 Ай бұрын

If I can't cast Fire and Ice at the same time then why is it 4 mana?

@MosoKaiser Ай бұрын

Because the rules say the mana cost of split cards is the combined casting cost of both halves. Same for the color identity. Of course, once on the stack, split cards count as only that half which was cast.

@StealthNinja4577 Ай бұрын

@MosoKaiser wow thank you chatgpt 9-9 if I don't have the option to cast both halves then the cmc should be the cost of the side I want to cast. Other split and flip cards where you can cast both sides sure I get it add it up and get the total or have only the part that matches the cost apply to the effect in question. I don't feel like it's that hard to word rules so cards function as intended and have a cute bonus interaction like with the scepter where you get two lame spells imprinted on it

@Glonk_Respecter Ай бұрын

Vindicate is still on rate today

@rileystokosa2459 Ай бұрын

This is were is all started well invasion. But yea

@andrewsparkes6275 Ай бұрын

Why would Lynx do anything against Mongrel? You could just discard a card and make Mongrel something other than green...

@kainslance Ай бұрын

Uhh I think you forgot Morphling came before spiritmonger. They don't call Morphling superman for no reason

@NizzahonMagic Ай бұрын

I didn't forget. I have a whole video about Morphling. Those two creatures are very different kinds of pushed. One is a stats monster that had never been seen before. One isn’t.