MTG Top 10: BAD Cards That Suddenly Became Good | Magic: the Gathering | Episode 184

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I Can Feel it Coming Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com )
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[@NizzahonMagic]

Lion's Eye Diamond has frequently been asked about, and while it took a while to find success, it didn't take as long as people think. Mirage was released October 5th. 1996, and it had its first PT/GP top on March 14th, 1999. That is less than 2.5 years.

[@josefnagy4075]

I know this is sort of a funny thing to say, but Lion' Eye Diamond is a strictly-better One with Nothing if discarding your hand happens to be on your agenda. You really need to do Fairies, you know there are hordes of Fairy EDH players waiting to see that video!

[@OrbGoblin]

I think the main thing is just how unplayably awful this card was when it came out. I remember the card store I went to had little quarter machines you could put a quarter into and it would let you pull 10 cards at random. One time I got 3 x LED and I distinctly remember being laughed at. Today I could sell those off and have a nice little down payment on a car :p

[@skizzik121]

More concerned about a guy who makes series on B/R list not realizing flash history lol.

[@5ManaAndADream]

@@josefnagy4075 gotta wait for the "fairy" set ;)

[@josefnagy4075]

@@5ManaAndADream WotC has already said so many times we shouldnt expect Throne of Eldraine to have a fairy theme, only that "it has fairies", ofcourse they could be hedging expectations to be purposefully misleading, especially with a set this far out still, but we'll see

[@tyneman978]

I am just imaging the kid in Show and Tell is like, "Wow that snake is really cool wanna see mine?" and then summons Emrakul and starts chanting

[@toastghost9145]

*We'mrakul*

[@Psychonaut165]

“Wow that snake really is cool, want to see mine?” *ziiiiiiiiiiip “NO JIMMY!”

[@raresux]

giant flying spaghetti monster is my favorite alternative way to refer to emrakul LMAO

[@vivid.worker]

HAHAHA

[@jimpachi98]

Ooh we definitely need a “good cards that became bad” list

[@pepperjacktv6827]

so most standard cards

[@PsionicMonk]

Kodo Elder-Groebe It would most likely just be the best old school magic creatures, since the creatures have become so much better.

[@vyggdrasil1631]

PsionicMonk Imagine serra angel being the win condition for a control deck, lmao

[@andrewsparkes8829]

So basically just banned ones or ones linked to banned ones that become useless? Even cards that have strictly better versions and so get replaced in decks do not become "bad" cards themselves, just not as good as another card. No-one says the checklands are a bad cards in Commander just because the Battlebond lands are better, for example.

[@andrewsparkes8829]

@@PsionicMonk Nah, everyone already agreed even the 'best' ones were still bad (or at least the ones that are regarded as bad now); no-one actually ever thought they were good value overall - it's why decks back in the day were mostly spell-based, only dropping a big creature or 2 at the end to deal the final damage (basically making most good decks a control type build) which is exactly why R&D started making stronger ones, to make people actually want to play with creatures throughout the game.

[@daviddavidson1090]

Time Traveler: What year is it? Me: 2019 Time Traveler: Before or after One With Nothing was banned from Legacy? Me: What?

[@chaotica-game985]

Itd have to be long after Lion's Eye Diamond see's a ban.

[@beretperson]

It's cute how we used to think that a time traveler being told they arrived one year before 2020 wouldn't just immediately get the fuck out of there

[@grammaticalrouge29]

Time Traveler: The second coming of course.

[@xunxekri]

I like how these videos continually get more specific.

[@Clayapwnu]

that's kind of inevitable with top 10 lists...

[@thomasu9493]

That observation lowkey killed me

[@oORoOFLOo]

top ten one mana instants that deal 3 damage

[@ThatWildcard]

@@oORoOFLOo and its just a ten hour loop of him saying "Lightning Bolt"

[@russellhassan7773]

@@ThatWildcard while throwing beanbags

[@DoubleZDogg]

>"Living End is still a tier one deck in Modern" Oh cool, a video from 2015. >"Published on Jul 26, 2019" ಠ_ಠ

[@astrosaur13]

Lolz. I had the same reaction. That's a reeeally loose definition of Tier 1... like it's played somewhere is the top 100 decks of Modern... maybe

[@maximilian7173]

Yes, that almost caused me to stop watching. Living End is definitely no tier 1 in modern. Even tier 2 might be a stretch.

[@rickygilbert7204]

I was thinking more of tier 2.5 at best.

[@HajimaGaming]

Yeah I minimised and looked at the date of the video when that was said 😂

[@pedropohren]

Living End decks got a bit of a boost after Electrodominance got printed. In fact, in one event or two during this year they got quite popular. Not as much as UR Phoenix decks, but still.

[@flarenite1004]

Imagine the future _Colossal dreamaw decks win Protour 2050_

[@dreamwriter8423]

It would be fun but my bet is on fugitive wizard tribal deck.

[@Rukalin]

I'm telling you, Dreadmaw has filled every PT slot since it's been first printed, wizards just hides the truth from us. WAKE UP, SHEEPLE!

[@flarenite1004]

@@Rukalin You are obviously a intellectual like me

[@nnooooooooooooo]

@@flarenite1004 Scornful egotist is due for its time in the spotlight any day now

[@randomusername1735]

I know how to improve him: Give him one more power, give him hexproof, add can't be countered. Nah, that card would never be printed that's way too good...

[@TheBizarreBurrito]

This list needs a part 2. Goblin Lore, Burning Inquiry, and Summer Bloom all deserve to be on here.

[@TheUnic0rn]

Flash had the errata for the longest time that said the creature did not enter the battlefield if you failed to pay the 2 mana. This changed around the time that Time Vault was also restored to its original wording. So Flash was more so overlook because it wasn't the same card it is today. Bazaar was actually a very popular card in Worldgorger Dragon reanimator decks, along with Squee, Goblin Nabob. The Dredge mechanic just really turned its power up to 11.

[@kurtkeoki]

It also saw play in Vintage Stax decks before it was used in Dredge. Back when Stax played Goblin Welder..

[@OrbGoblin]

I was really expecting Lion's Eye Diamond to be on here. I used to play back in Mirage and that card was just... kryptonite in limited.

[@brucepraska7781]

You do realize that led brakes the most fundamental rules of magic right based solely on the storm scale. Think about it let's say you have led grim tutor and a dark ritual so here's what happens with just these 3 card play ritual off the mana holding priority to the discard and the left over mana cast grim tutor with the hellbent clause on the stack search for any card that works with what you got btw storm count is 3 right now and you still have at least 3 to 5 mana while doing this and 3 of it is black you decide to play past in flames you play dark ritual again from the yard then another then play play ad nauseum at this point storm count is at least 7 if not more

[@aaronwigal2772]

@@brucepraska7781 you do realize storm was not a thing in mirafe

[@brucepraska7781]

@@aaronwigal2772 i know that but storm was printed not long after that maybe 10 years if it was more it wasn't much longer hell the mechanic storm no but the primary originally was storm entity was might as well have the same keyword and that card had hate glass cannony yes but back then removal was just bad not to mention mana burn was still a thing that's why it never made this list. Actually it was about 7 years when storm was finally printed as a keyword on tendrils of agony and brain freeze which keep in mind ponder brainstorm and preordain were very legal you even had lotus petal granted you didn't have graveyard recurring effects but you still had all the card draw in the world and dark ritual essentially you had all the makings of the original storm deck with a few key pieces missing such as past in flames and I think ad nauseum but for the most part you had all the pieces but you made up for that with more counterspells such as daze and force of will which was printed before led

[@AnsticePalo]

Huh? Everything you just listed is why LED should have been on this list. The card was pure garbage before storm. Not even the printing of Yawgmoth's Will provided it any new use in extended, T1 or T1.5. And why does mana burn even matter? There were no storm effects, so saccing LED just meant you were tossing your hand away for 3 mana you either can't spend, or you're spending on an artifact or enchantment that's already in play. Storm Entity came out in Future Sight in 2007. Storm started in 2003 in the Scourge set with the two win cons, Brain Freeze and Tendrils of Agony. Mirage came out in 1996. Deleted his second comment while I was responding to it. Guess he did some research.

[@drake11011]

@@brucepraska7781 doesnt work because the discard is part of the mana ability... So how you do it is you respond to tutor beeing on the stack with led that leaves you empty handed with led's mana in your pool when tutor resolves

[@Thorinox]

When Mishra's Bauble came out, I built a Booby Trap deck based around it, and it won me 9/10 games. The deck involved 4x Mishra's Bauble, 4x Lantern of Insight, 4x Booby Trap, and Time Ebb, Serum Visions, Dewdrop Spy, Fabricate, Wizened Snitches, Rootwater Mystic, Thought Courier, Rootwater Diver. It was a simple deck that won me a lot back in the day for random games.

[@felipehugz4029]

Im TELLING YOU chimney imp is SLEPT ON

[@tehsavage]

I had a chimney imp lock involving sac outlets like carrion feeder, and recurring cards like Oversold Cemetery. Combined with cards like Nether traitor and other little dudes (also Chittering Rats) I got to lock people in a similar fashion to Lantern but in a sort of reverse process. IT was GLORIOUS to watch my opponents cringe as I got to say "Chimney Imp hits for 1" in a competitive environment. Hell the deck actually had around a 65% win rate too!

[@lloydlineske2642]

Chimney Imp actually has some top 8 finishes, oddly enough, so it can't qualify for this list. There was a deck in extended I want to say that was so good it didn't need all 15 slots in the side board. So the creator just added in Chimney Imp. It was so funny at the time because people were actually trying to figure out what deck you are suppose to board them in against. Net deckers also took the exact list as is and played it. That moment in magic was hilarious!

[@brucepraska7781]

@@tehsavage you should link a list cause it sounds like it be hilarious especially with stuff like azorious charm putting attackers on top of the library and an isochron scepter maybe even add silencebut that seems to much like a boomerang deck

[@whisperwalkful]

Yes, but did chimney imp ever win in a main deck?

[@phillycosidae756]

I remember when people were joking about Death’s Shadow being a meme card. Then folks realized we had enough life payment “costs” attached to good cards that it just naturally became big.

[@iamseer]

I built a deck around Death’s Shadow when it was released and nicknamed it “I Kill Me”. It used phyrexian mana to get my life total down and then drop the shadow and then FLING FTW. It was probably my favorite deck I have ever played in tournaments. I was in the top 4 points rankings at my local FNM shop for three months using that deck and infect occasionally. It won FNM more than once. I was very surprised that it didn’t see more play right after rotation.

[@wehpudicabok6598]

Why no Allosaurus Rider? Coldsnap came out July 21, 2006 and according to mtgtop8 (assuming I'm using its search correctly, which maybe I'm not?) it was first used in a top 8 deck on April 10, 2018. That's 4,281 days later!

[@JakeMC521]

Hasn't been to a GP or PT. Wait until this weekend

[@sethstinson7024]

Vexing Devil is trying so hard to be on this list.

[@robmitchell3039]

Vexing Devil saw play almost immediately. Then it went away.

[@rabbithole8858]

A friend of mine is building a devils deck with 4 of them.

[@modernminded5466]

@dante jashin Unless it's a tribal deck... Or unless, well, you wanna have a theme.

[@modernminded5466]

@@thebigbear8 It's good in Claim / Fame burn, but otherwise, probably not.

[@The_Hist]

It's pretty good... 4 damage to the face or a huge hitter early game... should see more play in burn in my opinion

[@Darkchiqui]

Your videos have got me interested in MTG once again even though I played my last game nearly 16 years ago. Would you consider making a top ten with your favorite decks? Not the top most successful but your favorites by any arbitrary criteria you choose.

[@MichaelSmith-fm5ln]

Flash/Hulk also has a first turn win. You need a perfect hand but... Gemstone Caverns and any other Mana (Simian or Elvish spirit guide if you want to go off on your opponents first upkeep) Flash the hulk. Grab 4 disciple of the vault. 4 shifting wall. 4 phyrexian marauder. Remember, X is 0. Disciples enter play. Walls and marauders enter play. X is 0 so they die. 8 artifacts hit graveyard. 4 disciples trigger 8 times. 32 life loss is hard to handle that early.

[@a.velderrain8849]

Only way to beat that is no mana counters like Force of Will or Disrupting Shoal (FoNeg doesn't even work because it's on opponent's turn) or maybe one of the other Shoals (like Nourishing Shoal to avoid death).

[@starspaceschool587]

Yea that version of flash/Hulk is significantly easier to explain.

[@Auron3991]

@@starspaceschool587 Simplest version (and probably the least effective in non-edh settings) is grabbing Mikeaus Unhollowed/Walking Ballista.

[@newtpondskipper]

this is the one that saw play in my area.

[@Canadian_Ry]

I really enjoyed this topic and wouldn't mind hearing about another 10 that went from rags to riches (if they're out there). Cheers!

[@johnpinkerton5901]

Though this is for commander. Serra ascendant. Wizards made a format where you can get a 6/6 flying lifelink on turn one.

[@discocrisco]

Flash was largely held back by errata, changing it to functioning as printed was more responsible for its success than Protean Hulk, IMO.

[@lloydlineske2642]

No, unfortunately, flash hulk was probably the worst and most powerful deck ever made. Games went like this. You play first. Like your hand? Good. I'll put in gemstone caverns. Exile Simian spirit guide in your upkeep then cast Flash. I win in your upkeep of the first turn of the game. Academy was broken but you had to get to the main phase to win. That's too slow!

[@sjmcc13]

True, hulk brought it over the top, but it was only after the de-errata that it had uses. Though I have more issues with claiming the combo was complex (it is like 3 stages, each very straight forward and could be explained to anyone that actually listened) or took a while (ok on Magic Online I can see it taking a while, but then you are either running out your opponents clock or should just concede the game unless you have a very small list of moves available to not die to the flying angels like a fog against a deck probably using counter magic, paper this was over in 1-2 mins tops if the players were basically competent)

[@Konstantin100]

Summer Bloom also sat in obscurity for a while before becoming a part of a powerful combo deck and getting banned.

[@HaydenX]

Whenever a card does something interesting or unique, and is cheap, I buy a playset of them. I bought a playset of Mishra's Bauble as soon as it came out, along with Dark Depths and Living End. I also accidentally bought 3 playsets of Cloudstone Curio when it first came out and was selling for $1 a playset. I'm basically a dedicated Johnny with hints of Spike and Melvin, and this is one of the areas I excel most in MtG is knowing which "bad" cards today have a good shot tomorrow. I also love doing the predictions to begin with...and also design my own games, so the inner-workings of a game are often my favorite part of the game.

[@lloydlineske2642]

Are you seriously making card games? If so maybe we can get together on somethings. I've made a few myself, as well as made some d&d and starwars style games in the past.

[@Sauvenil]

I'll take a couple of your extra Cloudstone Curios! If you don't mind ;)

[@liemsolow3697]

2 mana Tibalt is gonna break Modern at some point

[@Someone-sq8im]

A la Hellbent

[@fate3071]

@@Someone-sq8im hellbent madness, I have a decent modern deck with 3 of tibalt

[@pedropohren]

@@fate3071 It might see play on some rogue list on Legacy once the new 3-mana madness oriented commander comes out. Then Tibalt will come in just to be a nice discard outlet at the 2-drop range.

[@halfjack2758]

Once Rowan's released it's probably never going to happen

[@thefunniestvalentine4789]

It’s one of the best additions in my Norin EDH deck

[@zaclock-4228]

Great top 10 idea! You probably already thought of it, but "Longest time lapse between two PT/GP results" would be a similarly interesting list, I think.

[@PsionicMonk]

Great idea. I have always been a kind of weird player, I like strong decks, but am not much of a tournament grinder. I end up building my own decks and playing them against friends or acquaintances who use competitive decks. So I see a lot of potential different cards people tend to overlook because they want an obviously strong deck so they go with netdecking. With everything, some decks were bad. But some were actually pretty well suited for their meta, and gave people a lot of issues. During Theros I used a black/white heroic deck which had constellation and enchant creature cantrips(scourgemark and chosen by heliod) to trigger heroic/constellation, and draw a card. Being black/white I also ran plenty of removal, and my main win con was Agent of Fates or Fabled Hero. I still use a mostly Theros version of that deck as a modern variant against my friends. (Obviously it is no where near good enough to do anything in competitive modern)

[@brianbrennan6344]

I feel like Lion’s Eye Diamond should be here

[@NizzahonMagic]

Nope. Saw play in about 2.5ish years, which is a long time - but not compared to these

[@bradboose]

Randy Beuhler and Erik Lauer were playtest partners who both played it in a Memory Jar / Yawg Will deck in Extended to top 8 finishes at the same event in 99. It saw a couple Bomberman finishes after Auriok Salvagers came out, but it started seeing heavier play in 07 with Infernal Tutor and once Ad Nauseam came out it became a powerhouse.

[@JD-gk7eh]

@@bradboose Earlier for regular play, on LED in 2003. LED really rose to prominence with Long.dec, a deck created by everyone's favorite upstanding citizen Mike Long. The deck is probably the fastest deck every to exist, boasting a 60%+ Turn 1 Goldfish rate. The idea was simple: get LED down, cast Burning Wish, pitch your hand for BBB, and cast Yawgmoth's Will. Then you had 3 mana again PLUS whatever else was available--Dark Rituals, Mox mana, etc. From there, it was locate a copy of Tendrils and that was it. LED (and Burning Wish) was restricted in Vintage just weeks after this monstrosity came out. Tendrils decks in Vintage were historically called "Long" in homage to this deck, although they worked a bit differently because of the absence of four copies of Burning Wish. LED was a played as its maximum one copy in all combo decks thereafter.

[@havanufmtg271]

Nice video. This reminded me of many game I played in Modern with some of these cards.

[@Infyra]

Sneak attack was always cool, I used to have a deck with angelic chorus and serra avatar working with it. Also there was a whole cycle of creates in the urza block that worked really well with it. A treefolk and a phoenix that went back to your hand iirc.

[@MmmGrayons]

Was honestly expecting Amulet of Vigor to be on here. Amulet Bloom was made of cards that had been legal for almost 3 years if I remember before that deck was innovated and lead to Summer Bloom’s banning.

[@RespectYourViews]

small nitpick: flash wasn't waiting for a good death trigger, it was waiting for its errata to be removed. for a time it wouldn't let your creature come into play(enter the battlefield) at all unless you payed enough mana. this was finally recognized as power-level errata and removed and flash was allowed to work as intended.... until it was banned.

[@WLDFLD]

excellent list and i love the research for # of days on each card! one card people often forget falls into this category: Brainstorm. it's obviously a top tier card nowadays in many formats, but when it came out in 1995, the only ways to shuffle your deck were Feldon's Cane and Untamed Wilds-making Brainstorm was a mediocre cantrip nobody really wanted for years

[@cdominguez95]

Without really knowing its performance in the early days, I was kinda expecting Goblin Lore to show up

[@TinMox5831]

Awesome list, well done. As a longtime Vintage player, I'd have to say that even though we didn't get GPs/PTs, Time Vault needs at least an honorable mention. 15 years from print to the fateful errata date in 2008.

[@coreyroberson4550]

I always love it when cards I have in either my trade binder or a box somewhere spike really high - Dark Depths, Splinter Twin, Manamorphose, Simian Spirit Guide, Baleful Strix, etc - I got all of these for five cents to a dollar, and then at different times they all spiked to $20 or more. It's always fun to start unloading them after that.

[@newtpondskipper]

I felt that way about my dual lands. I stopped playing for a while and when I came back to the game they had jumped from five dollars to several hundred!

[@ii7i7i7]

Thanks for another cool list! Bauble is amazing also because u can look at ur top card and decide if u want to draw it, or fetch it away ^^

[@shuttlecrossing1433]

For Living End: Originally the cascade target was Hypergenesis. It was banned in Extended and was part of Modern's STARTING banned list because of this interaction (you'd just put things like Progenitus and Sundering Titan into play at the time, this was before Emrakul). Afterwards, combo decks moved to abuse Living End instead. So while Living End is the one still used, Hypergenesis was the original "suddenly good" on that interaction from that set's cycle.

[@Yesnog05]

Haha, I have a living end, dark depths, and sneak and show deck. I got so many boosters from Friday-night magic tournaments!

[@TimmytheSorcerer]

Bazaar is such a great card with All Hallow’s Eve and Animate Dead. A very popular 93/94 deck 👍 Very cool list btw! 👌👌👌

[@makaisenki]

Necropotence had some interesting things going on. I would do some interesting combos back in the day. I also had Tormad's Crypt and Living Dead in an Avatar of Might and Woe deck rounded out with a Lhurgoyf , so I could assassinate their stuff, get my stuff killed off, remove their graveyard from the game, and bring everything I had back. I think Necropotence and Tormod's Crypt might still be in that deck, but I"m sure my decades old cards don't play that well against newer decks. My Sliver Deck had a card that allowed me to become immune to damage as long as I had one creature of each color out, and because that was Sliver Queen, as long as she was safe I was safe, so my blue cards were either slivers or counters. There's nothing like being able to pump out a bunch of creatures, sacrifice them if you need to, to draw more cards, to get more abilities for your creatures. Again the ramp up time is just too slow for modern day I'm sure.

[@80budokai]

Great video! Enjoy your Saturday! 💯🙏🙌

[@TimmytheSorcerer]

Flash! Such a cool card and love the art of mirage in general. I used flash back in the day to make favorable blocks or cast a creature at my opponent’s end step to kill him/her the next turn. Such a great feeling 👍

[@keesjanschilt]

Many thanks for this video, which I really enjoyed. I was somehow expecting Goblin Lore to be here, or at least get an honourable mention. It went up from a 10c rare to a 40-or-so dollar card with its inclusion in the Hollow One deck. Originally perceived as a really bad card - random discard? - it suddenly became an absolute all-star, and although gone down in price with the decline of the Hollow One archetype, it has retained much of its value.

[@iamamirror]

Bazaar was a beast before the creation of standard. I remember getting rocked by a Bazaar + Balance + Zuran Orb deck when Ice Age came out.

[@senyormort]

I was thinking in the Tarmogoyf, that was relevant for the first time in a GW with chromatic star and terramorphic expansion. Later, the adding of black for discard made it a staple of the game.

[@Rorschachqp]

I used to play Bazaar Of Baghdad back in 95 in my Balance deck to draw one of my four Balances or to get some The Rack into hand before I cast Balance. It was also useful to run a couple in Recursion decks to help you draw into Time Walk or a draw 7 card like Wheel and Twister.

[@midorimage]

It also got popular with Squee when that card got printed.

[@SJNaka101]

I remember back in ravnica I played around with this golgari deck where I'd play death's shadow on turn 1 to send it to the graveyard and play varolz to scavenge it for 1 mana. With corpsejack menace on the board I'd get some pretty janky giant creatures. Then, jarad could fling the creature at everyone. Very fun in chaos games with the friends

[@midorimage]

Sneak Attack was played in Urza's Block and during standard back in the day. It was a pricey rare even then, Also remember playing against control players using Grindstones.

[@denissinner4625]

yeah it was never a "bad" card, guess it simply didn't make any top8 given how much more busted the other cards were in Urzas Saga.

[@pomposso_typer]

Blazing shoal and hypergenesis were also banned out of modern because of cards printed later. (Progenitus and cascade respectively).

[@nicholasfarrell5981]

AJ Rodriguez was it Progenitus specifically, though? Because Greater Gargadon came out before him, and worked just as well.

[@jtyree0226]

Blazing shoal broke infect in modern. Progenitus didn’t do anything

[@collinbeal]

I had heard about Lantern Control, but I didn't know it was those specific lanterns. I'm theorycrafting my first EDH deck rn, which will be Rashmi and Ragavan, and I unknowingly assembled Lantern Control in the deck because I was looking for ways to do topdeck manipulation of opponents' decks 😂

[@joranmoore5663]

It's a shame the Sneak Attack combo didn't wait just a few more days. It would have been so hilarious if it had been 4321 days.

[@BatCaveOz]

No one would have been able to stop laughing. That would have been so hilarious.

[@qwerty62201]

​@@BatCaveOz lmao

[@LoyalVonJoni]

Death's Shadow saw first paly on RTR as Golgari grave deck allowed people to get +1/+1 counter equal to creatures power and toughness and also one card to double those counters. I remember shadow was under dollar or something and then it became like 20 over night :D

[@immu3480]

Your content is good! You should consider covering EDH as well since that is quite a popular format these days

[@BengaIaas]

Eye of Ugin was considered a bulk mythic because it was printed before the Eldrazi and noone expected they would cast 10 and 15 mana creatures. Splinter Twin was considered bad even though everyone had seen what Kiki-Jiki could do

[@aaaronmiller100]

Time vault, Illusions of grandeur, Past in flames, Serendib effrit, Necropotence, Tarmogoyf, Mishra's workshop, Drop of honey, Illusionary mask, Jace, vyrns prodigy, Force of will,

[@NizzahonMagic]

Strange list you have there.

[@angelojohnson9441]

I was playing in Urza’s Saga, and my shop had a pricing policy of quarter common, dollar uncommon, $3 rare and $15 high rare. Sneak Attack was $15... I also played someone using Bazaar of Baghdad with the Parallax enchantments from Nemesis and Opalescence and Replenish from Urza’s Destiny. When I type it out now I think the mvp was really just the Urza cards. Very true though with Show and Tell, so much so that Mercadian Masques used that mechanic in a whole bunch of their cards and they were deemed unplayable by most people, though I stand by my decision to run Hunted Wumpus, especially since it was reprinted in Battlebond (noticeably none of the others were).

[@mulldrifterz6469]

While technically you're correct with Mishra's Bauble, it was actually played in Standard quite heavily the last two months Kamigawa was in Standard. It was played in a U/G Erayo Soratami Ninja deck and had there been a pro tour before Kamigawa left Standard, it wouldn't have made this list.

[@DoubleZDogg]

He's not even technically correct about Mishra's Bauble. His reasoning is ALL WRONG! Nobody plays it just to have a 56 card deck or to see the top card of libraries, because it's a slowtrip and therefore a dead draw when you need to hit a land drop, deploy a threat, wrath the board, or do anything else at sorcery speed. Instead it's played because it's a) a 0 mana artifact that turns on Mox Opal when you need a 3rd artifact and a card draw when you don't need it anymore, b) a free way to trigger effects like Sai and Monastery Mentor, c) an easy way to put an artifact into your graveyard to enable Traverse the Uvenwald, Grim Flayer, Tarmogoyf, and delve cards like Gurmag Angler (this is the reason Abzan and Death's Shadow plays it!! NOT TO HAVE A 56 card deck, or else every deck would want to play this card!).

[@AnsticePalo]

@@DoubleZDogg Mishra's Bauble has been played longer than Sai and Mentor existed. His reasoning is spot on. It's the same reason Urza's Bauble saw play in standard and T1 back in the 90s.

[@fearanarchy]

@@AnsticePalo Literally verbatim what the defences of Urza Bauble was during Black Summer

[@Steve-yd9ki]

@@AnsticePalo It's like this guy doesn't even know about Urza's Bauble. It saw play in tier 1 blue/white control decks during the Ice Age period.

[@johnascencio1451]

Love your top 10s. Its been a crazy year for banns. One cool top 10 is cards that spent the longest on a banned or restricted list before finally being taken off it. I know black vise will be on it because it took so long to be unbanned from legacy even though it was no longer any good. I feel fast bond may be number one because it was restricted in the early days of the game but just finally became unrestricted in Vintage.

[@Meowvela]

How did Mishra's Bauble go unnoticed for so long? A free "draw a card" effect seems super powerful for consistency.

[@danielwappner1035]

You don't run it in any deck that cares about speed but otherwise yeah I agree

[@guillaumebelanger6993]

bauble was busted and was played. necro baubles

[@sorin_markov]

@@danielwappner1035 It doesn't slow you down at all, it's 0 CMC

[@danielwappner1035]

@@sorin_markov it makes you wait a whole turn to get the card.

[@sorin_markov]

@@danielwappner1035 Unlikely to matter.

[@stevenglowacki8576]

I was surprised to see Grindstone on this list because it was one of the cards in the 1997 World Championship Decks printed with non-tournament-legal backs. It was in the sideboard of Buehler's mono-blue deck he went 6-1 in Standard with. But since Worlds was multi-format, he himself did not make top 8 due to his performance in the other formats, so Grindstone was not counted as having a top 8 at the time despite it probably being one of the top 8 standard performances.

[@dustinglasier6417]

The protean flash combo i always knew was to search for 4 disciples of the vault, 4 shifting walls, and 4 other x costed artifact creatures. they would all hit play at the same time, causing 32 damage off of the disciple triggers when the other creatures die to having 0 toughness.

[@davidmykut804]

How about your top 10 favorite draft formats.It's a little more personal of a list, and I'd like to see your view of past draft formats(also I'm starting to put money aside for a special draft for a few friends as Christmas present and want some good ideas for what format to get)

[@Bafflementation]

It was the delirium mechanic in Shadows over Innistrad that drew attention to Mishra's Bauble. Other Modern decks started playing it after that.

[@lloydlineske2642]

No, It was death's shadow that made it see play. The dates are the same and it's even mentioned as the reason in the video. Shadow wants to play as little lands as possible. The ability to play and pop to see if you should fetch is actually a powerful part of the deck. Making sure you don't draw extra lands, or drawing a land when you need that one extra is critical. The mechanic you mentioned was just an afterthought.

[@Mickhealthy]

Great video, thank you Nizza!!

[@paulgaither]

Great video as always. That being said: 5) You need to do more research on Flash. It used to be used with Academy Rector to get Yawgmoth's Bargain, which should draw you all the cards you need to win the game. This combo caused Flash to have power errata. That errata was later removed a couple years after Hulk was printed and people argued over which combo would be better, Hulk or Rector, before the big Legacy event which answered that question once and for all. I do not know what kind of tournament results the old Flash rector decks put up, but it was powerful enough to force wizards to change how the card functioned for years.

[@sjmcc13]

Flash rector would have been prior to legacy pro-tours and grand prixs...plus bargain was banned in extended very fast (before the next pro tour with extended) so never saw extended play at the ONLY level that was being considered in this video (at opposed to the rest of what happened for major events in magics first decade).

[@paulgaither]

@@sjmcc13 - Valid points. However, the video ignores the fact that Flash was so good with Rector that WotC/DCI (whoever) changed the card's functionality (like they did with Time Vault). The day that its functionality returned to how it was printed, decks began brewing again. In the Vintage community, Menedian was writing about Rector and why he felt it would be stronger than Hulk (he was wrong). Despite the Legacy banning, Flash Hulk continued to be a top deck in Vintage until Merchant Scroll also got restricted in 2008. Vintage Flash Hulk went with a Slivers package, getting 4x Virulent Slivers and Heart Sliver. That deck could even power out wins by hard casting the slivers and use Summoners Pact to find a third Virulent sliver to win the game. I played in tournaments every weekend for almost two years back then (2007-2009). Everyone was talking Legacy, but it made the splash in Vintage just as hard, but without the press of a big sactioned event.

[@sjmcc13]

@@paulgaither I agree, the gp/pt only is a huge flaw in the video's logic, and seems to only to simplify research by throwing out most of the data. Realistically if a deck sees enough play to be part of the meta then the GP/PT placing should not matter especially when that level of event might only be once or twice a year for some formats, so there is not enough data from 1 top 8 to see what is known to be good in the format. Plus there are major events that help shape and show what is good I the format better like ssg's tournament series.

[@paulgaither]

@@sjmcc13 - Agreed. His videos could be better, bu he a good voice, decent content, and it is entertaining to watch. While flawed, he is consistant, and nobody is perfect, nor shpuld we demand perfection. I just wanted to help add to the video where some info was missed.

[@aragorn767]

Soul's Might combined with all the stompy green and white proliferate cards from WoTS was my personal favorite discovery.

[@AnonymousAnonposter]

Love your top 10 videos, good work.

[@aaronsmith6632]

Great list idea!!

[@rozero123459gnh]

Great videos man!

[@arronknox2884]

brutal! i ran a sneak attack deck when it first came out. i had demonic tutors, dark rits, mox diamonds, lotus petals, sol ring, and serra avatar(when it came out) i could kill someone before they even take a turn. normally it was on my second turn.

[@aragorn767]

I just started playing standard after almost a year of modern (I've only been playing since last winter), now I'm thinking I should jump into legacy. So much potential.

[@michaelsander2878]

I wasn't paying attention to the high level tournaments in 98, but I thought Sneak Attack + Serra Avatar would have had a better showing. I know that it was doing well in my lgs at the time.

[@mm2239]

I remember a kick ass deck with Sneak Attack and Weatherseed Treefolk back in the day.

[@Gettles]

Did Goblin Lore have a pre-Hollow One run?

[@lloydlineske2642]

Good point. I dont recall that ever seeing play before hollow.

[@JD-gk7eh]

That card was $0.12 before Hollow One came out. How to count it is interesting because it came out in Portal Second Age which didn't become legal in Vintage and Legacy until 2005. But it wasn't legal in Modern until 2007. Even still, that gives it at least 10 years between its legality and its first Top 8.

[@LordEpoa]

Modern didn’t exist in 2007. It started in 2011.

[@CraftyChicken91]

Goblin lore would have been a great choice.

[@Michael-ft5bm]

I had 2 full playsets of deaths shadow when it released because I was obsessed with building pain decks. Bought them for 50 cents each, and sold them for the same. Kicking myself after all these years.

[@MagicYio]

My guess would be Allosaurus Rider, which is now played in Neoform combo. I don't think it's been played before that.

[@lloydlineske2642]

I dont think so either, but I dont think at the making of the video it has top 8ed any large tournament. Mtgo leagues aren't counted.

[@stephenlofton5403]

Definitely one of the most interesting videos at least in terms of methodology.

[@aklepatzky]

Man these last top 10s have been very interesting

[@DrScrambles]

I love the "sure your opponent gets something for free, but will it better than Emrakul? probably not..." ...that's also what I thought, until I had a humility slammed down in response lol

[@thetoxified7411]

Bazaar was absolutely a good card before 2005. It were banned from Legacy for a reason in 2004.

[@sjmcc13]

it was a combo with Wordgorger dragon, and was known shortly after the set came out in 2002. I think it was a known card before then. but that is around the point I started transitioning from casual to competitive play Grand prix and Pro Tour are bad methodology since wizards focuses on standard and limited, and there was no vintage or legacy/1.5 events before what 2005. So it is throwing out like a decade of MTG history since the big events for those formats (which did exist) were other sources like how starcity use to hold regular vintage tournaments. I think sneak attack and show and tell both saw play before emrakul as well,.

[@aritzneo]

I expected Illusions of Grandeur, which because usable years later thanks to Donate in the Trix deck. I would not consider Donate itself for that list as its potential for the combo was identified rather quickly

[@concernedcitizen9208]

It just wasn’t played until the better decks were banned

[@jonathanmeindl3811]

Dude Bazaar was in the type 1 deck Dragon. It used Worldgorger Dragon in conjunction with the Bazaar and created a lock on turn one or two.

[@overmused]

A card that came close to some of these is Daybreak Coronet. A 0.25 bulk rare from Future Sight that saw zero play until the Boggles deck brought it out from obscurity and causing it's cost to skyrocket. I'm, not exactly sure when it first rose to prominence (I see an MTGsalvation primer ~2013). I know Seth Manfield piloted to his 2015 world championship, so somewhere in that 2 year period is it's first "win".

[@jamesyoung7877]

The spirit dragons from kimagawa with sneak attack. Any of them will get a crazy trigger and they are 5/5 fliers. I use this in my dragon tribal, rainbow, edh and it messes people up.

[@ikrena4701]

The spirit dragons are one of the worse things you can do with sneak attack

[@AcerAz115]

funny how revisiting this video Mishra's bauble went from not being played at all to being in a discussion of being banned in modern 2021 lmao

[@hometownhobbies103]

the card fling was always a great combo with sneak attack.

[@joelhaggis5054]

5:30 You're telling me that a zero mana artifact that draws you a card didn't see any play when it first came out?

[@Jonathan-qk5ed]

Exactly what I thought

[@NizzahonMagic]

Yes.

[@elcidbob]

Biggest use at the time was card advantage which there either wasn't room for or you already had other options for, especially since artifact removal was so easy then.

[@KasumiFox]

Draws a card with delay. Which is kinda bad

[@Hotlog69]

@@KasumiFox It's such value with no cost. Also once it was discovered that it can easily fit in Tarmogoyf decks, it exploded in price.

[@Meowmeow.age.6]

I remember sneak attack decks back in urza saga and show and tell in decks. Do a list that includes ptq top 8s. Grindstone was a deck in tempest block. This list is weird because the top three cards that were bad to good saw plenty of play in casual and had top 8 ptq finishes. The rest of the list makes more sense. Sneak attack was always competitive since release, block, standard, and 1.x. If I recall a ban is the reason why it did not see a top 8 finish (academy rector? or something like that).

[@miket7071]

Sneak Attack was great from the get go. I used in my Fatty Abuse deck to throw a fatty into play (highest Type 2 was 9 at the time SA was released), attack with it, then combine with Fling to deal that amount of damage again before sneak attack gets rid of it for a turn 2 kill with a first turn Shock. I think MTG erratted one of the cards temporarily until Fling cycled out of Type 2 because of this deck.

[@Optimator7]

Fantastic video!

[@mathieumontin639]

excellent video and investigation work

[@charredhusk]

I have so many f these cards from when I got out of Magic the last time. I thought my trade binder would be okay at best when I came back to play in Modern again...boy was I surprised when I had a massive amount of cards that went from $1-5 to $30

[@skizzik121]

I had TONS of masque block and urza block foils thousands of them I was shocked when I came back about 6 months ago and saw how high the prices are now....never thought my 7 foil ports could be a down payment on a car lol

[@slayerofmankind]

Awesome video you should do some based on this concept

[@drye135]

Flash also had a rules change that came into effect about the same time as protean hulk in that if you didnt pay when it first released the creature just went straight to the graveyard but now it enters the battlefield then gets sacrificed getting all relevant triggers

[@MrVariant]

yeah flash is pretty broken lol with any graveyard/leaves battlefield effect. I wanna try that out. Fun to send stuff to grave

[@Illusionmaker_MTG]

tbf on Mishras Bauble you forgot to mention that it found home in the Death's Schadow lists do to Traverse needing Delirium...

[@Ninjamanhammer]

Yeah, don't know why he didn't mention delirium. Grim Flayer was also a big reason.

[@Wesleyy13337]

I'm honestly kinda surprised that number one was sneak show. You'd think that something worth cheating in would've been printed long before RoE

[@quint3ssent1a]

Creatures in early days of magic were generally weak, so it took a long time to print something that huge and scary that it would be great to cheat into play for one turn.

[@JojonathanOliveira]

Same here, I mean a lot of "enter the battlefield" seems very powerful on it's own. I was guessing Protean Hulk would be sucessfull with SaT or SA

[@cutecommie]

@@JojonathanOliveira Well the Hulk wants to die, so it's only good with Sneak Attack (and Flash).

[@nikos731]

There were some decks that used Sneak attack with Crater Heliods, etc back in the day, but ofc they were not that powerful, especially with the rest of the broken Urza's Saga meta.

[@nlb137]

The thing is you're paying 3 mana for a symmetrical effect with S&T, and the other player gets to untap first; you just spent 3 mana and any creature you put into play that doesn't have haste is waiting until your next turn to before you can do anything with it. With Sneak Attack, you're spending 5 mana for one turn of a creature. If you don't hugely impact the board in that single turn of having the creature, you end up way behind on tempo. Even if you have an ETB that destroys one of their permanents, you basically 2-4-1'd yourself by playing SA and a creature to destroy one thing. Emrakul solves both of those problems. Emrakul is just so much bigger and nastier than anything the other player might have gotten to play that it makes the symmetrical effect of Show&Tell meaningless. If they don't win the game on their turn or deal with Emrakul (good luck with Protection from Colored Spells), they'll just lose. Swinging with Emrakul via Sneak Attack will simply win you the game. Annihilator 6 will put them in an unwinnable board state.

[@christianstrine6405]

Death's Shadow and Mimioplasim combo exceedingly well.

[@bswizzle5620]

You should do a video on top-10 "chose two" spells

[@KlavierMenn]

Uh, I have another use for Death Shadow in my Golgari deck. See, there's a card called Varolz, the Scar-Stripped and his effect is: All creatures on your Graveyard gain Scavenge. The Scavenge cost is equal to the creature cost. Scavenge effect is: Exile a creature and pay its mana cost; put a number of +1/+1 counters equal to that card's power on target creature. Scavenge only as a Sorcery. Death's Shadow cost is 1, power is 13. One creture will get +13/+13 WITH A COST OF 1 BLACK MANA.

[@christmas6666]

I’m so happy 2 Urza’s Saga cards made the top spot :) that’s always been my favorite set