Top 10 Cards That Took Players By Surprise in How Good They Were in MTG

It’s no secret the Magic community isn’t perfect at evaluating the strength of cards. Sometimes, the community simply won’t realize how strong a card is until they actually get a chance to play with the cards themselves. In this list, we’re going over the cards that took everyone by surprise and became format defining cards despite a lukewarm reception.
Script and Editing by Pumkinswift
├ The List
Intro: (0:00)
10: Veil of Summer: (0:20)
9: Goblin Rabblemaster: (1:49)
8: Fury: (3:18)
7: Approach of the Second Sun: (4:57)
6: Ledger Shredder: (6:15)
5: Arclight Phoenix: (8:00)
4: Death’s Shadow: (9:27)
3: Field of the Dead: (10:48)
2: Nexus of Fate: (11:54)
1: Lion’s Eye Diamond: (13:35)
#mtg #tcg #magicthegathering
(Just a note, we have people who actually know the game very well making the scripts for this channel. As the owner of the channel (Theduellogs/hirumaredx) is a total newbie to the game.)

[@kratix0469]

The opposite: Cards, that people thought would be very strong and were very expensive upon release but they endet up being very bad

[@euqinemor]

This happans too often on standard but any other formats even the clunkiest shit can see play and have sucess.

[@dstreetz91]

Lots of cards on such a list. I remember people going nuts over the miracle mechanic, specifically the reforge the soul and temporal mastery because they were like cards from ABUR. Then the only ones that ended up doing anything were entreat the angels and terminus. Terminus because W: board wipe that didn't trigger dying effects because it bottom decked cards was quite good, especially in legacy being instant speed. Entreat just a nice finisher.

[@brandonbrooks779]

Most new planeswalkers

[@Chidon0]

thats at least 5 parts easily

[@maxsernoffsky5751]

Harsh mentor is my go too example of this

[@MrZerodaim]

Fun fact about Nexus of Fate: being exclusively available as Buy-a-Box promo, it was only available in foil. Magic foils tend to curl a fair bit - especially these last few years. People at tournaments had to get a judge to sharpie proxies for them as the card was too curled to be allowed, and you couldn't find any flat copy anywhere.

[@rhettorical]

Anyone degenerate enough to bring that to a tournament should just be immediately disqualified to save everyone's time.

[@IAMMADEOFMEAT]

@@rhettorical spikes gonna spike

[@jamesyoung3731]

Another important difference between veil of summer and autumn's veil is that autumn's veil only protects permanents against dimir spells where VoS protects against spells and abilities

[@TrueAmmySensei]

Even better, Autumn's Veil only protects creatures, and Veil of Summer protects all permanents :V

[@charliemallonee2792]

Also of note is that Autumn’s Veil specified the spells you control can’t be countered by blue or black spells. Veil of Summer just says “can’t be countered”. Which means it can potentially allow you to resolve spells through a chalice of the void or void mirror.

[@jsweatisdead]

At work so I don't know if this is touched on in the video, but it also protects you, so it protects from things like Thoughtseize, Liliana's -2, edict effects that target a player, etc.

[@Frostman1255]

So more notable Autums Veil is a blanket shroud effect from blue and black for the rest of the turn. So YOU can't target your stuff with blue or black spells as well. While Veil of Summer is only hexproof and only on permanents you control at the time of the spell resolving, so any creatures you play after it resolves can be targeted.

[@TribeWars1]

and it stops pyroblast or other niche counterspells

[@MatthewBAKershaw]

I think Lantern of Insight is another card that could fit here. Much like Death's Shadow, Lantern Control "existed" for a long time but wasn't discovered until years later.

[@shinreimyu]

Honestly every card in Lantern control should have been on the list

[@stt5v2002]

I remember realizing how good Veil of Summer was, going to my game shop, rummaging through the huge boxes of commons and in commons, and buying all the copies for 25 cents each.

[@annayosh]

What about Necropotence? Wasn't it considred a bad card when it came out, only to become the scourge of the meta?

[@badryukun]

I was hoping this would be on the list, and surprised that it wasn’t.

[@tychoMX]

That was my first thought as well. Even the official material considered it a garbage card!

[@DrLongWang]

This might not be the reason considering the channel is relatively new. But in general if a card appears on a lot of lists it’ll be blacklisted to not appear on lists in the future. So he could’ve blacklisted it because it fits into too many categories.

[@TheTundraTerror]

To be fair, no one realized how powerfully format warping Necropotence would be since it was released at a time when they were still figuring out how to format card text.

[@robnolleemteegee9536]

you are correct, however that was in a time when this was not that weird. CArds were misvalued all the time

[@ericwest2986]

Surprised no Bazaar of Bagdad here. I started playing in Antiquities, and it was years and years before I saw the Bazaar get abused; likely around the time the Delve mechanic came along.

[@blazingelse9104]

I saw it being abused in Madness lists around 2002 or 2003 and I think before that some Reanimator lists might have run it. But I'm baffled as well. Bazaar should be high on that list.

[@brendoncoyle5905]

Ah i remember veil of summer. I was like it’s not that good and my buddy was like it’s cryptic command for 1 green and I went huh damn it is.

[@danlorett2184]

It sounds good when you read it... but then you actually use it and realize "if I play this in response to basically any blue or black spell I'm getting 2 for 1 AT MINIMUM at instant speed, for one mana... and I'm getting mad tempo from stuffing the rest of their turn".

[@dstreetz91]

I remember when autumn's veil came out and it didn't really do anything. Then I read veil of summer after I had stopped and thought this is so disgusting, this cantrips and protects combo's from *ANYTHING* including counterbalance triggers. No surprise that it's used in legacy quite a bit for combo decks like the epic storm.

[@tmethe01]

Worth mentioning for arclight phoenix is that Phoenix cards had commonly been seen as noob traps, bug flashy rares and mythics all with ability to come back from the grave yard but rarely being any good, most often due to being overcosted

[@shinreimyu]

Yeah, I'm not sure about standard performances of phoenixes but I know arclight was the first playable Modern phoenix. They were usually at least playable in sealed though.

[@Jesin00]

Rekindling Phoenix was very strong in its Standard format.

[@dstreetz91]

Yeah phoenix cards when I played were all garbage and unplayable outside of limited formats for the most part. Most had really bad recursion either to hand, which isn't good when they tended to cost lots of mana or they could return to play, but would be suffering from summoning sickness.

[@joseph1150]

@@shinreimyu There have been phoenix's played in the past. Shard Phoenix put up serious numbers in extended Oath of Druids. Modern kind of replaced Extended, at least in nearly every regard that's important.

[@Jesin00]

Hollow One is another card that nobody played in nonrotating formats for like a year after it came out, then someone decided to try combining it with Burning Inquiry and Goblin Lore and Faithless Looting and it took over Modern for a while.

[@brendaneichler5244]

Another thing that made Arclight Phoenix so deadly is that it worked just as well in multiples; if I've got 3 Phoenixes in my graveyard, casting 3 instants reanimates all of them.

[@MrZer093]

Yeah as most Phoenix cards in the game cost some form of mana to revive, they tend to be difficult to abuse in multiples. Any time something is free in Magic, players tend to abuse it somehow lol

[@Zidane_Mina]

And you can discard them yourself with consider or any instant that draws/discards, adding up to the 3 casting requisite. Also, conniving with Ledger shredder and discarding the Phoenix before casting the 3rd spell, what a bless

[@AstroLoser32]

im surprised tarmagoyf wasn't on here. It was so good in modern and when it was introduced in time spiral, no one seemed to think that it would even see any play

[@blazingelse9104]

Tarmogoyf is older than the modern format. In legacy, it was a house from the beginning. Extremely underpriced though. Order my playset before relase for ten bucks.

[@Trip_Fontaine]

I knew that Veil of Summer would be one of the best sideboard cards ever printed. In many situations it's essentially like Green Elemental Blast that works against 2 colors, and you get to draw a card. Fury I knew would be good to, especially with the "scam" being discussed the very day that cycle was printed. The rest of these I totally didn't see coming though.

[@vonmatrices]

Jace, Vryn's Prodigy in Magic Origins was a sleeper that blew up in that standard format

[@DinoMarcoccia]

Finally I understand why LED explicitly says "activate only as instant"... Thanks! Of all cards mentioned, I could only predict Ledger Shredder's real power. Versatile, easy to cast, good body, evasive...

[@alexanderrethmeier5917]

Another huge positive for Fury that wasn't talked about is how it's something you can actually cast through a blood moon effect which is very strong in the 4 or 5 color decks in modern.

[@joseph1150]

I have no idea why people could have slept through that card honestly. Its essentially a better Pyrokinesis on a usable body. Pyrokinesis saw decent play back in the day, as did most of the other pitch spells from that cycle (force of will, contagion, bounty of the hunt all saw varying levels of play).

[@mattblom3990]

Well, I tossed a Tarmogyf out of the pack and into the trash because I was so angry at how weak it seemed as a rare. I also bought Splinter Twin when it was $1.50 a playset because I knew there had to be a fantastic combo with it, somewhere. So...Evens out lol?

[@joseph1150]

I had a friend at the prerelease buying all the Tarmogoyfs for super cheap (got the first two for less than a buck, and averaged getting them for 2 bucks because people realized there was something up), flipped them when they reached 20. Got rid of something like 40 of them when it was all said and done. On the more casual side of things I used to draft a lot of Ravnica, ended up with almost a hundred doubling seasons between picking them and asking for draft trash after the FNMs. Sold them when they exploded due to casual magic starting to really take off. I think I got a dealer to buy 30 of them off me at 20, then sold the rest at around 40. I know they got a lot higher, but it was still a massive win even selling off early like that.

[@mattblom3990]

@@joseph1150 Your Doubling Season story is awesome, 100+ hahaha

[@maxxiedivine666]

Really awesome video. I hope this could be a multiple part series.

[@MehrGills]

As others have pointed out, Necropotence is missing, but also I'd like to add hydroid krasis, which wrecked standard out of nowhere

[@sagacious03]

Neat analysis video! Thanks for uploading!

[@Razmatschannel]

Very surprised Oko Thief of Crowns wasn’t on this list. People thought it was just ‘fine’ but it turned out to be the most broken card in standard, pioneer and even modern at the time. Turns out 3 mana plains walkers without much plainswalker removal at the time was busted and it got banned everywhere

[@breawycker]

Before Eldraine rotated out of Standard, Oko was banned in every format but Commander and Vintage

[@Razmatschannel]

@@breawycker it was banned in legacy?

[@sirplayalot11x]

@@Razmatschannel yes

[@dstreetz91]

Yeah, Oko I remember looking at it for the first time after I had stopped playing and thought dear god, why did they print this it's busted and makes jace, the mind sculptor look like chandra ablaze.

[@ryanfreedman6348]

Super fun to run Narset’s reversal with Approach. Unsubstantiate too

[@iamthetable8131]

Sheoldred, the Apocalypse was also pretty underestimated too. I saw some people say it was dogshit too

[@maartenrigole4540]

Probably already mentioned, but I didn't come across it in the comments, but Tarmogoyf was pretty underrated when it first came out. I remember picking some up for 4€ a piece in preorders. I remember having discussions with friends that werebear, a staple in a legacy deck at the time (can't come up with the name) was so much better because it could also help with the manabase. That price skyrocketed very quickly after it's release, turned out to one of the most dominant creatures for years in basicly all formats.

[@Atmapalazzo]

Fury was something that always confused me as to why people were so down on the card. It's effect (4 damage divided among nonplayers) was the effect that would cost the most mana otherwise. The other cards were all worth between 1 and 2 mana in effects, Fury was worth about more than 3.

[@MaximumImpactGames]

At first glance, Fury appears to be Pyrokinesis on a stick, and Pyrokinesis is a bad card. The ability to hit planeswalkers was wildly underrated, as was the 5 mana 3/3 double strike. Compare to Solitude, which is swords to plowshares for free, or Grief, which is a fixed unmask that you can blink, Endurance is free graveyard hate and protection and an aggressively statted creature, Fury just doesn't seem that good in comparison. Even Subtlety I think was wildly underrated because people are bad at evaluating free spells, even if they are situational.

[@danlorett2184]

@@MaximumImpactGames Fury is just way overtuned. For one card and NO MANA you get Pyrokinesis and a 3/3 with double strike. I can't believe people actually thought it was bad. Also, Fury is still a relatively good deal most of the time even when you hardcast it. 4 dmg split however you want is VERY powerful in a lot of formats and bonus, it can hit planeswalkers.

[@MaximumImpactGames]

@@danlorett2184 you need 2 cards to keep the body though, and a 5 mana 3/3 double striker is not playable in modern. The ability to hit Planeswalkers as well as the modality of the card is really why it is so good. People weren't looking at it as the improved pyrokinesis stapled onto the improved flame tongue Kavu that it really is.

[@dstreetz91]

Yeah, it's like a flametongue kavu that isn't just hitting one thing, but multiple things. I remember when they just wouldn't reprint flametongue kavu because it was considered way too good as a 3R 4/2 that hit a creature for 4 damage. Being able to hit planeswalkers is huge too since 4 damage usually kills any planeswalker.

[@Stormy_Fairweather]

lion's eye diamond is a bad example, because at the time there WAS no way to make use of it. it took a long time, and a lot of new sets, for a use to be found. also, goddam thinking back to mirage gave me some feels.

[@zennistrad]

Genuinely shocked that Necropotence isn't number one. A popular Magic magazine at the time infamously rated it extremely low during their previews, only for it to turn out to be one of the most broken card advantage engines ever made.

[@danlorett2184]

I mean, from back then you could probably just fill this list up. We just didn't have the understanding of the game that we do now. This was only like a year removed from them pre-emptively banning Juggernaut 😂

[@Clemsonalumnus]

A few notes. First, you put down protection from green instead of blue for Veil of Summer. So, if you missed it, Death’s Shadow was starting to be in Standard before the Jace/Stoneforge ban because it beat up Cawblade using Phyrexian mana to beat down your opponent in a Grixis shell running cards like Gitaxian Probe, Mental Misstep, Spellskite, Grapeshot, and Mutagenic Growth. It was only starting to become a deck before Cawblade got the banhammer and it turned out to be weak against the Aggro decks that took over the Srandard format. Finally, Psychatog was a huge surprise for players when it first came out. People were using it as a proxy for I believe it was Shadowmage Infiltrator, but after playtesting, they realized the card itself was a better win condition than Shadowmage and it was used even in old T1 (what is now Vintage) until the whole Type shift in I believe it was Mirrodin if memory serves. The card came from nowhere to be relevant.

[@ewokxz1]

This is practically the Modern take of the "Rare/Mythic Slot" surprise cards. However, except for LED, there were a bunch more lost in modern thoughts (read: pre modern) cards that were the epitome of these from dumb to b0mb break-out cards because history has already forgotten them as less people in today's game remember the time of the 90s and early 2Ks. Today tho, most of this cards have been shelved due to power creep and relevance. Here are those; 1. Necropotence - nuff said, lots of stories said about this, even IQ magazine considered this as the worst ICE card then. 2. Masticore - the potential was there but no one read it well until the Worlds 99 3. Psychatog - Today it is noteable for its archetype built but whenthis came out, it was a rare discount bin staple. 4. Thawing Glaciers - before the Fetch lands, it was not easy for mana fixing, this surprise card however showed up in 1 tourney play that from cents it suddenly became a must have in ever deck. 5. Force of Will - this next 5 cards are all blue that were then thought off just as add ins in Blue decks that eventually warped and deffined 60 cards constructed forever. 6. Gush 7. Daze 8. Brainstorm 9. Flash 10. Null Rod - nobody needed this then, nobody cares, until Legacy/Vintage made it known. 11. Rhystic Study/Mystic Remora - thank EDH for this tho. 12. Bazaar of Bagdhad - uhuh 13. TRON lands - yep, this was a novelty back then untill the Eldrazi came. 14. Wasteland - it was dime a dozen back in the day, you could get a playset for under 4$, it was Modern that gave this card an extensive life with the prolific development of non-basic lands, but back then, it was just Strip Mine and a copy or 2 of Wasteland only even for Type-1. Then this Modern cards im surprised is missing too on the list particularly Tarmogoyf. Talk about game defining sleeper for these to be overlooked. 1. Tarmogoyf 2. Mishras Bauble 3. Gitaxian Probe Sure its just the Top10, but no one could argue that aside from LED, Necropotence and Force of Will should be up there, you can nudge out Deaths Shadow and Nexus because back then even, there were speculation already of their pottential to work and work they did so no surprise there, especially Nexus. What gave Nexus the "surprise" factor was the fact it was not on the meta watch of the time running Lands matter, Simics/Izzet, Teferis and Foods, coupled that it was hard already to acquire a playset of this in the first place.

[@cameronrattray4374]

Ledger Shredder was not a sleeper card. This card was gaining plenty of hype during its reveal and players have been singing its praise since it came out. When a card releases with an almost $20 price tag I would not say it's a sleeper by any means

[@ZakanaHachihaCBC]

It didn’t release with a 20$ price tag. It was most definitely a sleeper along with Unlicensed Hearse. Both were very under priced for a few weeks before they picked up in popularity.

[@sirplayalot11x]

It definitely was sleeper. When first announced and out on tcgplayer, presale prices had him pegged at 4$ and dip to literally below a dollar. But because MTGO got him a week before paper release, people saw it had potential so on launch it jumper to roughly 7-8$ based off the meager time played online. Then people started realizing how good Ledger Shredder in every UR prowess/tempo build and its priced steadily climbed over the next few weeks and is sitting around 20 today.

[@carlraddatz6980]

Very surprised Oko is not on this list. During previews, I saw a lot of people saying that they thought the card would see fringe standard play at best and was not very good… now it is only playable in vintage

[@emerson685]

I'm proud to say pat myself on the back for getting immediately super excited about ledger shredder. I bought like 5 copies early, and it was the only card I bought from the set. I always told my friends the looting was incredibly underrated by a good chunk of players, and this one grew at the same time as looting?! Even then, I don't think I appreciated its full potential. Funny enough, the initial reason I was excited about it was because it seemed like a draftable card in my cube that has Madness as the dimir archetype, and I needed more Madness enablers, since it's more supported in Rakdos.

[@ashenfox3535]

Diamond lion from MH2 is a sort of retrain of LED. It has the same effect but it's a 2 cost 2/2 artifact creature. So it can act as a body and a mana rock. Ive used it to float 3 mana to trigger on field abilities that I was short 2 or 3 mana to activate.

[@ReyosBlackwood]

Can't talk about Field of the Dead without mentioning Risen Reef. Elemental tribal decks in that standard that specifically played lands with different names (pretty easy in the 3 or 4 colors) to trigger the Field off the free land drops, particularly when Yarok was in the deck doubling the triggers, and getting mana to play expensive elementals was easy with all the free land drops and mana dorks in elemetals.

[@Bladeofwar94]

Sphinx's revelation is a great sleeper card from RTR. Everyone thought it was too slow or didn't do enough when in fact it defined standard for the whole time it was around.

[@deathgardna]

5 mana Teferi actually was one of the win cons for turbo fog. Taking infinite turns and ulting using it to banish your opponents entire field including lands and then just making them deck out, using Teferi's -3 to stack him back into your deck if you ran out of cards.

[@Sol0666]

It was also a big reason why Nexus of Fate was even strong, without Teferi that deck would not have worked nearly as well. In addition to that the deck while very strong was just absolutly miserable to play against. Big reasoin why i quit Arena back then.

[@deathgardna]

@@Sol0666 they did have to ban it in best of one.

[@Sol0666]

@@deathgardna Yeah but not because of powerlevel but because it took forever to win with this deck.

[@deathgardna]

@@Sol0666 actually not exclusively in this case in bo1 some decks cant be expected to beat it with just their pre-sideboard. the deck was legal in bo3 for as long as i can remember.

[@rhettorical]

Gaea's Blessing stalemates the game at that point. I lost exactly once to a Nexus player before rolling with Gaea's permanently. Then it's just a test of patience. No Nexus player was ever smart enough to cover their bases.

[@dstreetz91]

It wasn't infernal tutor that made LED broken, it was burning wish. When burning wish came out and could fetch yawgmoth's will, wheel of fortune, and other insanely powerful engine cards in vintage or type 1 at the time it got LED restricted in vintage as well as burning wish. Burning wish is unrestricted now though LED is permanently restricted, no way they would unrestrict it in vintage because it would warp the meta around storm decks.

[@robertlazenby5903]

No one dreamed Thraben inspector would be good by any measure yet it dominated standard for it’s entire stay. Goes to show how cards are important given context/other cards, as it combined so well with smugglers copter and collected company. Also to a lesser extent smugglers copter and collected company. Also primeval Titan with valakut, and squadron hawk with Jtms. Also Stoneforge was not good until scars of Mirrodin brought batterskull. People also slept heavily blood braid elf and jace, vryn’s prodigy, both of which defined their standard formats respectively. Also reflector mage (god I hated that card in bant coco). Also siege rhino. I’m sure there are others but those are off the top of my head for standard since 2010 or so.

[@dstreetz91]

Stoneforge was good as soon as it was printed in older formats like legacy with jitte. In standard though the best target for it upon release was behemoth sledge, and that was still pretty solid. Then Mirrodin came back and it was immediately good with swords returning. Particularly feast and famine in cawblade when cawblade came together with JTMS. Then they were like we're printing this batterskull card and the rest is history.

[@grimgorlefort]

Veil of summer always have been dominant in my lgs group. Since the release every one played it. Maybe cause we play alot of counterspell deck

[@Zidane_Mina]

Ledger Shredder & Archlight Phoenix, my favorite birds in Pioneer

[@dyne313]

I liked Ledger Shredder from the moment I saw it. I immediatly put in in whatever Arclight Phoenix deck I was playing at the time.

[@alienx33]

I'm surprised nobody has mentioned Fable of the Mirror Breaker. Almost everyone dismissed it as a junk rare and it saw almost no play in any format until the Neon Dynasty Championship, where two teams were playing it (iirc, the second team found out about it because they played someone from the first team on ladder). In the month that followed it became a staple in pioneer and a very playable modern and legacy card on top of being the best card in standard. PVDDR, one of the best players of all time, wrote an article a few weeks ago where he said he had to read what the card did during that set championship because his team hadn't even bothered testing it. Another fun story - When Jim Davis joined the testing team which had discovered Fable they gave him the Grixis deck they were working on and he said 'I'll try it but this Fable card looks weak, let me sub it for another card'. The other members convinced him to try the card and he was all for it after. (Jim went undefeated in Swiss that tournament).

[@jessiegashler427]

I screamed about how good autumns veil was for 6 months before they printed veil of summer. Both are so incredibly good in dredge deck sideboards

[@OnePointSafety]

To have one of these lists and not have Jace, Vryn's Prodigy on it is pretty criminal. Also Deaths Shadow was bad up until ~2016

[@thejollyrajamtg9847]

LED was correctly evaluated when it was released; it was just that later cards catapulted it into relevance.

[@sjmcc13]

True, I think there was a deck back in the day that use bit, but it was not broken for at least a couple years. It was not restricted till 2003 (printed fall 96 IIRC) with burning wish and chrome mox.

[@Zorial57]

It's a crime that Tarmogoyf isn't talked about on a list like this

[@gwampa7066]

Oof i expected it to be number 1 lol

[@JervisGermane]

I'd like to see a list of cards like LED (and Rhystic Study) that really were pretty bad when they came out but have gotten great as the game as changed.

[@therealnynetynyne360]

I played bomberman in legacy for like 5 years one of the most troll combo decks out there it can deal with anything. Pyrite spellbomb was the finished before ballista

[@dstreetz91]

I remember it being called golden grahams in legacy at one point when all the combo decks were still being named after cereal until they were not. Often ran just one pyrite spellbomb with many aether spellbombs because the bounce ability on aether spellbomb was nice and both spellbombs could draw cards/win game when you had salvagers LED spellbomb.

[@fakeplaystore7991]

Approach of the Second Sun only became playable once WB Control got Search for Azcanta in the next set, Ixalan - if you have it flipped as a land, it takes only two activations to redraw Approach and win the game. Keep in mind you could even do it in one turn if you had Teferi, Hero of Dominaria in play.

[@zibus8456]

Colossal Hammer was just a meme card/deck when it came out. Now it's one of the best decks in Modern.

[@dudeguy8686]

Man, Field of the Dead + Elementals were so fun for the month or so it was all legal. Those boards were silly

[@IlGreven]

I think Fury was underlooked because people didn't realize we'd had this sort of effect before, but a long, long time ago...in cards like Fireblast and Pyrokinesis (which is basically what this card is, except that one was an instant and thus a bit more powerful...)

[@MageSkeleton]

honestly, i've seen SO many games where the caster of Veil of Summer lost because they had no library and they realized the conundrum they were in. Casting Veil of Summer would protect their spell from the counterspell, but drawing a card lost them the game. I would never run Veil of Summer without also having Autunm's Veil also in the deck personally, sure the "draw a card" is nice but at the end of the day they both do the same thing if you do not have access to blue to counter a counterspell.

[@tanyh8936]

I believe all the miracle cards from Avacyn Restored deserved a mention. Especially bonfire of the damned. I remember the prices are relatively low on pre-release and the next week the price tripled once everyone realise how powerful it was.

[@hatredlord]

What, no Hogaak? I still remember everybody going "ugh, another comander-only" when it was first spoiled. And then it just went and won all of the everything.

[@MrKeinanen]

I have a rules question. Can you cast instants at the start of your turn before untap? I have always thought of casting instants at the end of opponents turn but if you can cast them on your turn it seems awesome with arclight phoenix, or do you have to play around this?

[@hatredlord]

Not before untap, no. Upkeep, between untap and draw, is your first chance.

[@vivid.worker]

your videos mean so much to me bro

[@RedOphiuchus]

Fun fact about Nexus of Fate: the exclusivity of the card was actually an illusion. There were actually more Nexus of Fates in the secondary market than any other mythic from M19 because being guaranteed to get one when buying a box is WAY better odds than any other individual mythic.

[@rhettorical]

Only having played MTGA, are Mythics really that rare? Is that why they're always imbalanced and why MTGA exemplifies how fundamentally broken the game is because no one IRL would ever have a deck of all Mythics?

[@RedOphiuchus]

@@rhettorical people irl buy all the singles they need from the secondary market and unless they're operating on a budget don't pay attention to rarity. When purchasing a box, though, you get 36 booster packs, mythics have a 1 in 8 chance of appearing in a pack, so on average a box contains 4.5 mythics. Most sets introduce 15 mythics so on average a box has less than a third of the mythics in the set. So with those numbers you can see how "every box contains a copy of this mythic" for a short time creates about 3x as many copies of that mythic during that period.

[@JD-gk7eh]

Ah Fury! I remember that being spoiled and so many people poo-pooing it. You could tell who had never been blown out by Pyrokinesis in their lives. Somehow, people didn't see that a 0-mana 2-for-2 or 2-for-3 is really really strong. And then they got blown out by Fury and learned the hard way. And now there's no small creature decks in Modern thanks to it.

[@Rleasure0XD]

Really surprised to not see tarmogoyf on this list haha

[@dylansylvester4719]

I remember having bought a box of future sight and pulled playset of them then went on hiatus and came back to them being valueable

[@ninjanoodle2674]

Cards that could make this list: 1. Necropotence 2. Tarmogoyf 3. Yawgmoth’s Will 4. Mana Vault 5. Cursed Scroll 6. Psychatog 7. Squandered Resources 8. Aether Vial 9. Stoneforge Mystic 10. Attune with Aether

[@jimmyb2655]

do a commander list :) this was cool

[@bshell1731]

that's so weird I remember veil of summer being on my radar instantly. Not saying I'm a genius, but at the time a green counter to ub spells was incredible in modern.

[@MomirViggwilv]

Annother innocuous card that people never realized was strong is Lantern of Insight. An innocuous card that was released in 2004, Lantern Control - the deck it fascilitated - would see fringe play in 2009 and would only see mainstream play in 2016

[@nyanpasu4060]

Should have given a shoutout to Lantern of Insight.

[@JaimeAGB-pt4xl]

It can be more difficult to properly assest the card's value and/or power when the game has a Resource base system, because by default it takes much more decision making or planing to use the card

[@bluedestiny2710]

I vaguely remember Necropotence being considered one of the worst cards in Ice Age when it came out... but then tournaments during that time turned from Necropotence ... and anti-necropotence Another card i vaguely remember being called horrid was Stronghold's Dream Halls. Its an Enchantment that costs UU3 and allows both players to play cards from their hands without paying their mana cost, and instead discard a card from your hand that shares a same color with it. MAYBE... back then, this might be true bec I am not aware of any match warping creature or spells where you would want to 2 for 1 yourself to play ASAP. Also, UU3 is still a pretty high price tag to play conventionally. But as I remember, some people DID find ways to break this card... but I can't remember how The reason why I remember this was there was a magazine I used to subscribe to called "Inquest"... which was trying to set itself up as the "go to" for card game info and news. When this card came out, they rated it the "worst card in Stronghold"... giving it a 1* rating. After a few months, when someone broke the card, they suddenly bumped the card's rating to 5* ... and making them lose any credibility for me. I immediately unsubbed at that time

[@Rorschachqp]

This topic could be 100 cards long. Lion’s Eye Diamond doesn’t count since a kajillion cards can get better with time. Here are some cards that became desired in current play of its time that were junk upon release: Erhnam and Juzam Djinn plus Serendib Efreet Cursed Scroll Zuran Orb Swords To Plowshares Necropotence Mirror Universe Balance and Mind Twist Sensei’s Divining Top Umezawa’s Jitte Black Lotus and Moxes! Remand Survival Of The Fittest and Recurring Nightmare Cadaverous Bloom Thawing Glaciers and Kjeldoran Outpost Stasis And many, more…

[@AvidHerpetologist]

So obviously theres going to be a metric ton of cards that this category applies to, but some that absolutely deserved top spots on the list include- Tarmogoyf The Tabernacle at Pendrel Vale (What should absolutely be number 1) Oko Thief of Crowns. There are a lot of players who deny it, but Oko was laughed at when it got spoiled. It was touted as basically doing nothing, being a 3 mana "give your opponent a 3/3" with a +2 that alot of people considered flavor text. Needless to say oko wound up being a bit stronger than that...

[@dstreetz91]

Yeah tabernacle was strange, like it went under the radar probably because it didn't tap for mana and it's legendary so you can't stack the effect since double tabernacle would just be gross to play against. Tarmogoyf I remember some people recognized it's power and bought a ton of the card before it skyrocketed when it became number one best creature. Another land from legends that flew under the radar was definitely karakas, didn't really get recognized until Iona, shield of Emeria was printed and mono white stax in legacy teched it in as an answer. Prior to that it was just used with mangara of corondor in death and taxes before it was as good as it is now.

[@AvidHerpetologist]

@@dstreetz91 yup! Quite a few cards suddey found explosive homes in Legacy. I was guna include Dark Depths, but i think that card was less a case of "people didnt realize" and more that the printing of Thespian's Stage suddenly made it insanely powerful lol

[@jsweatisdead]

Hey bro I know you're not a deeply enfranchised player, I saw your streams trying to evaluate magic cards in the blind, great stuff. Gotta call it out tho That said, Fury was absolutely not a sleeper. NO ONE was surprised any of the pitch elementals were good. Even Subtlety, the worst one by a large margin, saw play right out of the gate. Fury was arguably one of the less hyped ones but faaaaar from a sleeper

[@hhaavvvvii]

He has other people who are more experienced writing the scripts and he just narrates them.

[@danlorett2184]

I wasn't playing at the time but just looking at the card I'm confused how anyone who isn't really new at magic would think Fury is bad. It's Pyrokinesis + 3/3 double strike for one card and no mana. It's even still generally good if you hardcast it, because 4 dmg split anyway you want is... well really strong.

[@Clonekiller66]

Haven't watched the video yet. But here's some of my predictions. (No particular order) Tarmogoyf Jace the Mind Sculptor Ledger Shredder Nourishing Shoal Colossus Hammer Dark Depths Death's Shadow Mishra's Bauble Necropotence Walking Ballista Mycosynth Lattice

[@zionburger861]

Surprised to not see Bazaar on this list

[@nickybeingnicky]

Currently, I believe command performance is being slept on.

[@thelambsauce6176]

9:47 standart

[@wvjeepguy8178]

Lion's Eye Diamond was always good in Vintage from it's release. sacrificing it in response to Wheel of Fortune was a solid play.

[@joseph1150]

I don't really think LED was played much in Type1 back when it was brand new. Also the timing rules were really janky back then so it took a long time for people to unpack how to use it.

[@wvjeepguy8178]

@@joseph1150 It used by people who had the cards to combo with it. Wheel of Fortune and Time twister being the main two. You could also sac it in response to Balance to cause your opponent to discard their entire hand. The value on Lion's Eye Diamond stayed very low for a long time though, because the power level wasn't there outside of those types of combos.

[@crushedscouter9522]

@@joseph1150 lol wut?? this entire comment is false

[@joseph1150]

@@crushedscouter9522 When it was originally printed you couldn't begin casting the spell until the mana was in your mana pool. There was a rules change that allowed you to announce the spell, then use the LED as a mana source. The trigger would happen, but since the spell was announced and put on the stack, it wasn't discarded. The oracle text returns the restriction to it's original functionality. The oracle change was in 2004. The rules for mana sources changed in between the card's printing and it's errata. On top of that the card never really got used by anything winning until the storm mechanic. That's a 9 year gap between printing and actually finding a home. Once the card found a use low and behold, an errata not that long after. I actually owned a couple from before it finding a home and believe me, they were nearly trash priced bulk until Scourge was printed.

[@crushedscouter9522]

@@joseph1150 it didn't get played and had a low price tag because type 1 and 1.5 didn't have tournaments and it wasn't scarce like P9. i don't have to believe you because you're wrong and i was playing when mirage was released lol

[@KumanoMTG]

Nexus of Fate wasn't mostly played with planeswalkers, if my memory serves, the engine was Azcanta + Wilderness Reclamation.

[@josecod77]

And Hydroid Krasis as a finisher

[@KumanoMTG]

@@josecod77 not really, there wasn't any wincon most of the time, since you only need one noncreature to grab with azcanta, as you are taking infinite turns...

[@mibbzx1493]

When unlicensed hearse came out i got one for 20 cents cuz i was like damn and now its almost 20 bucks. Exiling graveyards is so good in any format and for 2 mana it became a house

[@OrbGoblin]

Kasimir the Lonewolf is a sleeper hit I tell you!

[@user-os9ts6id1g]

Whats about Fable of Kiki-Jiki? Was cheap like 25 cents at the begining

[@kursna]

Autumns veil was extremely popular in cedh before veil of summer. Not sure that a format staple qualifies as "not good enough to play"

[@SerchBrony]

Hogaak is another one. People knew it was strong but many didn’t realize how strong. Strong enough to get two cards banned.

[@Psychonautical89]

People are sleeping on Ranger Class. It's the best bear of all time.

[@michaschulz5182]

Ok honastly how can this list exist without necropotance on IT? The black Summer was 1 year after necropotance was released. We needed 1 year to See how broken IT was Not a few weeks Like it was with shredder for example. And after we noticed there were only necropotance or antinecro Decks for a whole year. So WE needed longer to notice it than with Most cards on the list, and after we did the Impact was bigger than Most of the cards on the list. I was sure it would Take number 1. (Release 95 starting to being popular and played 96) Also whats about tarmogoyf If i remember corectly it needed a few Month to half a year to get noticed and after this IT became played in every Format (except maybe Vintage) and one of the Most expensive cards of its time

[@danlorett2184]

Mostly because nobody knew what they were doing back then anyways. Black Summer was literally like a year after WOTC pre-emptively banned JUGGERNAUT. Seriously, it's almost funny how bad we all were at this game in the 90s 😂

[@michaschulz5182]

@@danlorett2184 thats right for necro but Not for tarmogoyf XD and still it should have been on the list ^^

[@EssenceEater]

Ledger shredder was not overlooked in legacy. In fact it was in a ton of Delver brews

[@modernminded5466]

I'm sorry who takes one single look at Veil of Summer and doesn't immediately realize it's broken?

[@izaiahsundquist6877]

I'm pretty Tarmogoyf and Psychatog also took player by surprise as well.

[@sjmcc13]

Goyf did, it was dirt cheap when it first came out.

[@darianleyer5777]

I'm guessing that Solitude was just behind Fury in terms of power levels, as Evoking it was basically a slightly worse Swords To Plowshares.

[@ZakanaHachihaCBC]

Lol what? Solitude was always seen as good. Endurance and Grief were up there with Solitude as just insta good. It was Fury and Subelty that were undervalued.

[@chrisgebben2043]

oh you 100% missed "Emrakul, the promised end" i was actually there when this was first previewed nearly everyone thought this card wasn't good all because of the "After that turn, that player takes an extra turn." part but then it was a bloodbath in standard because of "Aetherworks Marvel" deck it was so good they had to ban emrakul for that reason and even from that i don't entirely remember which decks but it still was ridiculously good in Modern and pioneer

[@DarwinsBeerReviews]

I expected Tarmogoyf to be #1. That card had no hype. For years, it was one of the best creature in Magic.

[@Spaz740]

I think Nexus would have been fine if they changed the text to that the card had to resolve to get the recycle effect. As it stood the card recycled itself no matter what, completely nullifying the normal counters to cards like that (discard and counterspells).

[@braddorcas9363]

I was so shocked the push back i got when I stated I thought Field of the dead was really good to the local groups. Like even players I respected were like "nah not good, 7 lands is impossible". I was like what? It's really not, and there's so many playable lands to get to 7.

[@jormgundtheballast7397]

When I first saw Field of the Dead spoiled, I immediately preordered 8 copies for $4 each 😂

[@nahirigathering1392]

tarmogoyf is so far the very best example. but also cards like skullclamp and many mirrordin cards... but y. tarmogoyf is by far number 1

[@jessiegashler427]

Also gotta say that you did LED a gargantuan disservice by not talking about how powerful it is in legacy dredge.

[@xhadheartx]

I think stoneforge should be on this list I remember when that card came out and no one thought it was good but I guess other artifacts coming out made it broken

[@muhammadaffry2123]

Watching this make me think magic player need time to realize a card is being good while yugioh player when a card release we already know that card is brokenly good.

[@tritra63]

I agree to the people who say LED feels wrong on this list. Because LED was evaluated correct the time he came out, he became good years later because other cards were printed that made him good. That's a completely different category than cards that were evaluated wrong in their current environment. Other examples of cards that were considered bad at first but became good later are: Flash, Bazaar of Baghdad, Illusions of Grandeur, Urza's Bauble... (just to name a few)

[@MaximumImpactGames]

Bazaar of Baghdad was good well before the dredge mechanic, people wildly underrated rapid card draw/discard. Remember, it was banned in legacy prior to the dredge mechanic ever existing. The rest, excluding Urza's Bauble you're right on. People didn't really understand how to use cantrips until people started doing Xerox math.

[@dstreetz91]

Bazaar was banned in legacy purely because of worldgorger dragon combo, before worldgorger dragon was printed bazaar was a really bad card because it didn't tap for mana and things using the graveyard still numbered quite few. WotC could have had bazaar unbanned in legacy when the format was split off to have it's own separate banlist from vintage since worldgorger was banned. Of course once dredge entered the picture it was never getting unbanned because it became the most powerful land in the game after dredge mechanic happened.

[@DerekScottBland]

Glaring omission is Jace the Mind Sculptor. Even the self proclaimed "pros" writing for Star City Games at the time said this card was meh at best when it was spoiled. Lion's Eye shouldn't be on here because it sucked at release and was only made good by later sets.

[@everetthancock2043]

Oko? Nobody guessed he would become the best planeswalker of all time

[@swahilimaster]

Weird that Oko isn't on this list when you consider the majority of people thought it wasn't very good until release.