You know, it can be hard for me to get myself to explain my card choices sometimes. The strategic advantages might look clear as day to me. Or I've chosen the cards just for the unquestionable and unquestioning principle of fun. Every once in a while there's just no good reason at all. Hey, we can't all be perfect.
But I'd like to think a bit deeper about some of these cards, and write a bit more. What's a better place to start than with my favorites? This list isn't immutable; while I think I'll love these cards forever, rowdier cards might shove them out of the deepest bowels of my heart, right over the banister into the netherworld of forgotten cards. For now, I could rave about any of these cards for days, or at least sentences. I've either seen more than enough of what they can do, or they hold promise and mystery to me, like so many Christmas presents, or fireworks, or Valentine's cards I've pretended to receive.
: Crack the Earth
I must have some deep-seated sadomasochism because there's nothing I like more than indiscriminate suffering. One of my favorite tricks a few years ago was to play Spark Elemental and follow it up with one of these. If I'm on the play and can do that turn two, even better. Seeing my opponent's first land go brings a single tear of joy to my left eye, dripped there with a turkey baster by a tiny devil. I then sip the tears of my opponent like a fine wine. Before you begrudge me my indulgence, I'd like to say that I only do this with friends. I do have a tiny angel on the other shoulder.
Crack the Earth isn't just meant for land destruction. That's often the last thing you'd see it do. I like it as a cheap and effective way to sac one of my own permanents, no matter the type. The same deck I ran with Spark Elemental also ran every version of Act of Treason I had along with Helvault. It wasn't exactly the most refined deck of its kind, but I think my latest Yasova deck does a classy parody of it.
There's not much reason I favor Crack the Earth over its cousins, such as Smallpox. I simply haven't gotten to play those cards as much. It is nice how simple it is. When you're starting out and you want to break symmetries, it's a relatively easy one to break. Also, it's a half decent card from Kamigawa. That scores big points in my book. Anyone else want to return to Kamigawa?
:
Seeker of the Way
I should mention at least one card that I find success with in standard. This slot could be
Myth Realized
, but the Myth has learned some patience while living in a scroll or whatever, so it'll settle for a shout-out. Anything that dodges sorcery-speed removal is very cool in my book. I play it as a fun-of that sometimes wins games. Anyway, Seeker is the more conventional option, so let's shower it with praise.
As someone who often plays mono-red, I appreciate a good race. Seekers love racing. Regularly widening that life gap by 6 points feels so right. Curious what my standard deck is, eh? I hope so, because I'm going to tell you. It's Bant. I play an awaken deck. While I can't claim it's top-notch, it does well at my store, and awaken is something to watch out for with cards like Ruinous Path threatening real value. Sylvan Advocate is arguably the best card in my deck and will be showing up in standard for many months to come. Seeker wins me the game about as often, though.
Seeker's well established at this point. I know this because he seems to draw removal more often than anything else I play. Poor guy. I'd highly recommend reading some of the pros' thoughts on Seeker from around early Khans time. There was a lot of excitement for Jeskai, probably because people like a good, close race. Having only 20 life to beat face with can be such a drag. Better go get some more if you want to have a good, long fight. And that's what Seeker's for.
: Sundial of the Infinite
It was sort of a coin toss as to whether I'd include this one, but I've run Geist Sundial before, and wowee zowee that's a great way to confuse people. If a card mentions the stack in its text, you know it's gotta be good. It's pretty much a swear word in Magic terms. To stack with it all! is probably what you yell when you resolve Enter the Infinite and Omniscience. I much prefer To Hell with the stack! though.
Initially, I wrote here that this card isn't too hard to understand once you know how the stack works, but after skimming Gatherer comments, I'm going to go out on a limb and say that it might take some experience to really grasp the Sundial. There are some insane decks online for how to maximize its effect, including but not limited to the old pact cycle. Even without annihilating your every turn for a silly win condition, a control deck full of counter magic doesn't need that many of its own turns anyway. I kept things simple by just using it to keep my angels after swinging with
Geist of Saint Traft
. You can throw out any number of end of turn effects, though. The sky's the limit.
I'm not sure what to imagine when I think about the flavor of this card. It can make an otherwise temporary thing last forever, like with Geist's angels (not to be confused with Charlie's Angels) or Spark Elementals. It can also make things go away forever. I'm thinking of the times I've used it as part of a wipe in EDH with Planar Guide. Cackles maniacally. I've also got to assume there's at least a handful of things you could do with it that have nothing to do with permanence or lack thereof.
Still, I'm not complaining. It has beautiful art, and the appeal of it comes from its complexity. As you might notice, I have a thing for mysterious artifacts.
: Doomed Traveler
Now we're getting into the good stuff. A common 1/1 for 1. Take a note from Delver of Secrets
and understand that there's really nothing better in life. Okay, so maybe Delver deserves this spot in my heart more than the Traveler. They are actually very close and I like them for similar reasons. They're beautiful cards that have a simple story, all told within their little rectangular prison. But if I'm sharing this list with anyone, I'm putting Doomed Traveler in this slot, not Delver. Nobody needs me to tell them that the good card is good.
I admire storytelling, and I love it when a story can be told through mechanics. You send out the Doomed Traveler and watch as he frolicks along, trala-la la la. Five seconds later: Altar's Reap. Adorable. I would say that it all boils down to nostalgia, since I started to really get into magic with the Sorin vs. Tibalt duel decks, but I've known a lot of people who like the feel of black-white decks. It's like you're taking all of the innocence of white magic and twisting it with the corruption of black magic. Er...I swear I don't worship Satan...much...
Delver of Secrets
has a similar story. He searches and searches for the arcane secret of how to become a bugman, and finally finds it through some random spell. Probably Serum Visions. The short of it is that he hasn't really become a bugman; he's just having a crazy night. I'm sure there's a good joke for every card that you could see flip him. He reads up on Lightning Bolts: blam! Zapped into a bugman. He reads up on Research/Development: vwip! Straight to bug academy. Or Wizards of the Coast. It's probably the same place.
:
Liar's Pendulum
I know what you're thinking. What a headache! How would I even use that!? I want a sandwich!
Think for a second. What this card promises you is card advantage. If it read simply 1 mana artifact: spend 2 and tap it to draw a card then your jaw would be dropping. Right now you might be reading it as getting a 50% chance for a card draw with the considerable downside of revealing your hand. At worst, that's about right, and in a long game I'd say that's not too bad.
If I had to guess, I'd say you're still not convinced that you ever want to try it out. It was in Mirrodin of all places, easily overshadowed by far better cards like Swamp, Chrome Mox, and
Goblin Charbelcher
. (These are clearly the most important cards from that set, as determined by Gatherer ratings.) It's obviously not going to see play in Modern or Legacy, and you're probably too refined to want to see a gimmick like this every third game in your Daretti, Scrap Savant Commander deck. So where do you play it? The kitchen table. I know, I know. But that's where I make my sandwiches! you cry. The whole point of casual games, assuming you aren't training, is to have fun. And I don't know about you, but if there's anything I've learned from Android: Netrunner, it's that poker plus Magic equals fun.
Here's a quick primer. Even without trying, Pendulum isn't as bad as it looks. The moment you draw a card, like you do every turn, your opponent's knowledge of your hand is thrown at least slightly off, so the guessing game is on once again. If you have multiple pendulums, every time they guess wrong you're getting another chance. Plus, this card rewards you for knowing your deck well. If your opponents learn your deck, you can change it up between gaming sessions to throw them off. Now that's what I call interaction! Eeeh... I say, like a dying Fonzie.
But seriously, jam this into a control deck. You'll feel like a real pro when you do that thing you do probably every Friday. You know, not showing your hand. Or you could do what I do. Run 30 morph creatures. Play the guessing game, show your opponent a hand of morphs, play one of them, and play the guessing game again.
: Lantern of Insight
I'm going to let myself include one card onto this list that I've never actually played with before. I do own one copy of it, so there's at least that, and I may or may not be looking to collect more. A friend and I were watching modern from the shadows when Lantern took Oklahoma City's GP down. We were reverent, amused, concerned. I'll probably never really play modern as I always try to limit my magic spending to less than a tenth of the usual magic player, but it doesn't take a pro to understand the tale of the Lantern.
I hear that the Lantern's first accomplished pilot, Zac Elsik, dreamed of the lantern during his grueling hours of training. They say that if you don't have complete mastery over the deck, then if you go to play it in a tournament, you'll never finish a match. Instead, you'll be locked away forever in a shadow zone, doomed to turn artifacts sideways while you watch your opponent shuffle their library forevermore. But through the help of friends and forums alike, Elsik had attained complete mastery, and with some luck, a few mistakes from his opponents, and a bit of...wait for it....insight, he won the GP.
I want to believe in the flexibility of modern, because the card pool goes so deep and Wizards continues to disrupt the top tier decks with
Complete Disregard
of their pilots' complaints. Well, maybe they're a bit more conservative about bans than that, but either way, this is just as much a format for creativity as standard, if not more so. Keep shining those lanterns, modern players.
: Flickerform
Okay, I'll admit it. This isn't an all-star card. It might be the most indulgent pick on my list. But this is my list of favorites after all, not anybody else's. If you already like jank, then your mind's a-bubbling just from the sight of this card, and I need say no more. If you're more of a Spike, then this looks like a demi-uncounterable way to get your aura punk and all their bling out of dodge. Not bad, if a bit over-costed. It is that. But it's so much more...
Step out of the shadows. See the light of day. Everything around us pales in comparison to the ideas these objects represent. Er...sorry. That was Plato speaking. That fascist never shuts his yap. I was quite inspired by what this card promises: an easy way to trigger ETB effects on auras. I know, it's pretty narrow. I already said this is jank. What this led me to were the then-new Cloudform and
Lightform
. Seeing a pattern? Forms, forms, forms. And not the kind you fill out at tax time. The good kind. The kind Plato yammers about.
I might never get around to writing a hot and heavy fanfic to this deck o' mine, so let me give you the skinny. You can load Cloudform and Lightform up on one creature with, say,
Simic Guildmage
. You flicker the thing. Each of the 'forms is going to manifest again. Rinse and repeat. There are plenty of other decks waiting to be built with Flickerform.
Sisay's Ingenuity
was high on my list of options before I settled on a thematic deck. There are probably much more evil things you can do than draw a card if you try hard enough, but all I can find is my brain boggling as I stare at
Skybind
. So, I guess that guy got launched into Nyx 'cause he touched something pretty? I don't even know.
If you're still confused about why I like Flickerform so much, that's fine. My love of exile is a little hard to explain. There are a lot of reasons, but I'll boil it down to one word: flaaavooorrr.
:
Library of Leng
Spellbook is a venerable piece of tech whose effect has been reprinted on numerous cards. The creators of the game have even talked about doing away with the hand limit altogether spellbooks for all! they cry, before they fall back out of bedlam. Reliquary Tower seems to be the most common spellbook these days, and probably the heaviest. In a land slot, it's practically a no-brainer so long as you're not worried about getting color-screwed. Library of Leng is a different kind of book altogether, though. I like to think of it as a much more purposeful include. Sure, you could throw it in just as anti-disruption, but it's going to take up a slot. What sorts of things could Mr. Leng do for you to justify his existence?
So, we all love discarding cards. Whether you're an ancient dredge player or a new-school kid looking across at Thoughtseize, it's basically the #1 thing you want to do when you play Magic. But what do you really love? The top of your library. If you know the magic catalogue well, then you already know the power that the top of your library holds. My personal favorite use for that top card is mind shrieker. With the right set up, Leng and the Shrieker could give you a solid 10 damage swing pretty quickly. Miracle cards are another great option. I wonder what I'll top deck this turn. Oh, look. Another
Terminus
. How lucky am I?
Did someone say cycling? I did. I said it because I'm cycling Complicate. That's funny. It seems I drew Complicate. We are playing Commander, right? Oh, well. Best not Complicate things. If no one minds, I'll just hold onto it for later. Another recent discovery I made is that
Narset, Enlightened Master
could probably get along real well with Leng. If you're like me, and you're just chugging your deck and getting way too many of your good Narset spells into hand, then just find a way to discard them. You'll see them again soon.
: Zedruu the Greathearted
I didn't want to go there. But yeah, I went there. Zedruu was one of two commanders that sucked me into EDH. When I first planned out a deck for her, I intended to do the silliest things imaginable, which included playing a Sky Swallower. Would you trade the world for such a pet? I almost did. My game plan included forcing the beast onto others. There were only a few ways I found to do this. You could
Hive Mind
yourself and cast Gather Specimens, and you could maybe do this thing with Thieves' Auction...ah, never mind.
I've gotten a grip on myself since those days, and now I know the true feel of Zedruu. It's awkward, because her appearance in the gaming world is a little bipolar. She can be a group hug commander, enabling people who would otherwise fall behind, but she often just sits behind a series of walls and sends out the worst bullshit you've ever had the displeasure of holding in your hands. Like
Pyromancer's Swath
. Even to this day, both elements are in my Zedruu deck. Last time I tried to give away a Swath, the opponent quit in response, leaving me with an awkward enchantment on my side of the field.
Despite Zedruu's vindictive side, I'll still defend her as a fun commander for playing a somewhat different game. She's also actually totally acceptable as an aggro commander. What a world class monk.
Honorable Mentions:
Ninja of the Deep Hours
, Ornithopter,
Wonder
, Invisible Stalker,
Trepanation Blade
,
Voidmage Apprentice
,
Meletis Astronomer
, Jeleva, Nephalia's Scourge, Sands of Time,
Strionic Resonator
, Sphere of Safety
: Magic Cards
I wanted to make this a top 10 list, but what's here already was straight off the dome. It didn't feel right to say that there was one card I liked more than all others. Each of these is really close in terms of how often I think about them and how happy they make me. This is not an assessment of these cards, but rather just some feels I get from them, so none of them are objectively better than the others.
To anyone who read all of this, thank you for your time. I wish you luck in finding cards like these that jive well in your heart...and lungs..and spleen...or basically anywhere. All magic players should feel like their favorite cards are having a dance party in their body.
