Card/Deck Your top 5 cards of all time!

[Seeker]

some artifact deck and elves deck stuff from 2010's MTGO 100 card singleton

aww, I didn't even think about fake formats and now I have to add one

HONORARY MENTION NUMBER SIX OF MY LIST


When you have to build your entire deck around the payoff, it better be good. And sure, Boomerang wasn't an instant, but they only let you play four Eye of Nowhere, and really, that being a totally accurate sentence about that Standard and later the very brief "MTGO Core Set Only Constructed"* format is everything you need to know.

Magnivore was not the best deck, but it's the exact kind of high I want to chase with every cube build-around. Get this Umori, the Collector nonsense outta here. Hoop has to be jumpable (Lurrus of the Dream-Den) and the power level worth it (and uh... Lurrus of the Dream-Den)

*No, I didn't get to play Eye of Nowhere there. I also didn't know about Ant Queen + Opposition until I had my ass handed to me playing for t8, sb Pyroclasm was not even close to good enough. Stupid 7th edition.

 

[LadyMapi]

This card was the first thing I ever built a deck around! Target yourself, and you probably get instant threshold, enabling werebear, nimble mongoose, and a host of other Odyssey block beaters!

You see, this is way more rational than the first time I built a deck with it, which was a weird Pauper combo deck focused on one-shotting people with Harvest Pyre + Ragged Veins. In that specific context, Book Burning targeting yourself is just a Sorcery that deals 7 damage to villain, it's just villain's choice whether or not they take that damage now or later.

Man I love how stupidly jank this game is sometimes.

 

[Seeker]

I do love accidentally hitting "post" as I was still formatting my response......but of all people who would catch me with Mana Tithe placeholders everywhere, I'm glad it was you.

I know this post was weeks ago, but I just thought of the phrase "Being John ManaTithe" and I really wanted you to know about it

"Mana Tithe?" "Mana Tithe Mana Tithe Mana Tithe."

 

[StrionicAdventurer]

Spoiler: Number One

Sometime in the futuristic year 2000, I was on a trip to Florida with my dad, where we visited the Salvador Dali museum and my grandfather's condo. On the way home, we stopped at a family friend's house, and I found my first Magic cards, which belonged to the older boys (complete strangers to me) who lived there. Immediately, I fell under their spell. The cards were a mishmash of 5th and 6th edition, featuring beautiful classics like Sabretooth Tiger, Krovikan Sorcerer, and Greater Werewolf. But Fireball was the one for me. This was the card that essentially explained the entire game. Every card is a spellbook, and you're some kind of cross between a wizard in his library and a king lording over his lands. The other player is your rival, and must be destroyed. I struggled my way through the tiny paper rulebook (I believe the one included in the 5th-edition starter decks) and made all the essential mistakes of the brand-new Magic player: tapping creatures to block, leaving lands tapped after summoning a creature, etc. My younger brother, a literal child, learned it all alongside me, and together we puzzled our way through Magic, unaware of the concept of "the stack," which had only just been invented. When it was time to leave, I begged the older kids to let me keep their cards, and they let me take them. They must have seen something in my eyes.

Fireball is just perfect. You pour all your magical energy into this thing, and the more energy you pour in, the more things you can blow up. That mysterious X in the mana cost teaches a lot of lessons about the game, and you learn more as you decipher the bizarre, ever-changing rules text. Underpinning all this mechanical stuff is the pure distillation of the fantasy of Magic: casting a spell that does EXACTLY what you expect it to do.

Spoiler: Number Two

I was in college before I realized it was possible to buy individual cards. The first thing I did was jump online and snatch up 4 copies of Scion of the Ur-Dragon (at the time it was a 50c chaff rectangle) and one of each of the 3-color legendary dragons from Invasion block (my beloved). This card is on my Top 5 list for the same reason he was in that deck: he’s a backwards-and-forwards compatible all-purpose representative of Every Single Dragon in Magic. I learned a lot about the game playing with this card, like how to build a 5c mana base on a budget (thank god for Terramorphic Expanse), how to use the stack, and of course the pleasures of graveyard synergy.

But mostly, I just absolutely fucking LOVE dragons.

Spoiler: Number Three

Just a perfect Magic card. A beautiful piece of fantasy illustration, dead-simple mechanics that provide a ton of decision space and deckbuilding choices. This little guy got me to build my first flicker deck and REALLY went bonkers in my kitchen-table Yore-Tiller Nephilim deck (featuring Primoc Escapee). If this flappy fish isn’t in your cube, you’d better have a damn good excuse.

Spoiler: Number Four

My favorite Commander ever. Like Mulldrifter, he’s got a simple ability with about a million branching paths to follow, and I’ve been tinkering with my Feldon deck for over a decade without getting tired of it. This is the card I enjoy so much I built an entire 700+ card cube just so everybody can enjoy reanimating their artifacts, cloning their ETB creatures, and treating the word “discard” as if it’s the word “draw.” As a bonus, the character himself is a part of the Brothers’ War storyline, which is, in my opinion, the most “Magic the Gathering” story in the whole series. Still holding out for a printing of Cathartic Reunion that features Feldon reuniting with Loran’s spirit and finally accepting her death.

Spoiler: Number Five

I can’t honestly make this list without Skyknight Legionnaire. For several years in the middle of my peak time with the game (peak time in terms of actual games played and decks brewed), this dude was just absolutely my favorite card to play. There are about a hundred cards from this era that I think would make me look like a more erudite, interesting player, and I sincerely enjoyed them all, too. Cards like Warp World, Strionic Resonator, Kederekt Parasite, Corpse Connoisseur, or Bloodbraid Elf. But I loved Skyknight Legionnaire for the same reason I love all the other cards on this list: the fantasy is just right. What’s cooler than a knight on horseback? A skyknight riding a gryphon (or a roc, as the case may be). I built so many 5-color flying paladin decks for this dude to shine in, with other airborne knights like Sky Hussar, Kulrath Knight, and Paragon of the Amesha. These decks were not clever. They were just about fixing my colors and turning creatures sideways to deal damage. Bog-standard midrange Fair Magic, but all my creatures are beautiful skyknights, and they’re here to land unsleeved on a damp coffee table at 2AM in a slumlord apartment with no furniture. They’re here to save the day. These are the kind of Magic games you just play to make friends with people. What could be better?

 

[Seeker]

Spoiler: Number Three

Just a perfect Magic card. A beautiful piece of fantasy illustration, dead-simple mechanics that provide a ton of decision space and deckbuilding choices. This little guy got me to build my first flicker deck and REALLY went bonkers in my kitchen-table Yore-Tiller Nephilim deck (featuring Primoc Escapee). If this flappy fish isn’t in your cube, you’d better have a damn good excuse.

come for the Mulldrifter, but stay for the Yore-Tiller Nephilim + Primoc Escapee chaos draft tech

 

[shamizy]

A bit late with a busy few weeks, but I'm hopping on board as well:

Spoiler: #5

I had played Magic when I was in 4th grade for the first time, but I didn't get back into the game until college back in 2013 when a classmate of mine in Physics class showed me the cards he had an I had a wave of nostalgia. We hung out a few times and played cards as I slowly got used to the game again and realized that it was a LOT deeper than what I thought it was as a child. I got more into Magic as a whole and started reading everything I could off the Mothership which included decklists from Pro Tours and GPs and just Limited musings in general. I was absorbing everything I came across and I distinctly remember that during this time it was INN-RTR Standard and there were so many awesome multicolor decks hanging around.

The one that caught my eye the most was one using Resto + Acidic Slime + Unburial Rites in a deck titled Abzan Rites that was this beautiful combination of midrange resiliency and land destruction that just looked awesome to pilot. Resto was a card that showed me the real depth of the game via interactions and got me right back into Magic nearly 13 years ago.

Spoiler: #4

Around that same time, U/x decks were still a big thing through Modern (which quickly became my favorite format) and Vendilion Clique was just the total package. So many clever ways to play this card and there was so much value to be extracted with sequencing decisions and when you could turn the corner and start beating down. It's everything I love in Magic design with a card that is elegant, simple to read and understand, but hides a ton of potential complexity that can be opened up. I've played a lot of these as a one-of in various Modern decks and I've always had fun resolving it. No better feeling that the Thoughtseize impression you get to pull off at draw step.

Spoiler: #3

Shadow over Innistrad came out near the end of my time in college and this was when I was very deep into the game playing all formats with a super active playgroup right on campus. This set was the first introduction of Clues and led to a real refinement when it came to Limited Magic by giving the first glimpses into the first of many "smoothing" mechanics that helped imbue games with more decision-making. Tireless Tracker is probably my favorite design in modern Magic just combining a variety of great and simple mechanics to make an absolute workhorse of a card.

I definitely underrated it in my first draft when my buddy in the same pod played it on curve and proceeded to just demolish me with pure value over the next couple of turns after which I spent that weekend scouring eBay for a copy to put into my cube ASAP. It's got a solid base 3/2 body, it scales with the proliferation of Landfall effects and opportunities you can introduce ala fetches, and Clues just smoothed out games and draws leading to a better experience overall. This was one of the first of a flood of amazing 3 drops in Green that came in the following years, but it's a stone-cold staple for me and will never leave my list.

Spoiler: #2

I don't think I've ever had more fun resolving a single spell in Magic as much as Fact or Fiction. As a kid who started by playing just Green and Red decks turning dudes sideways and swinging, this was a card that made me understand how strong Blue could be. Firing it off to grab 2 or 3 cards was always a good time and the mini-game of making piles was always fun to be a part of regardless of which side you were on. Iconic art, that beautiful old school blue frame (older blue and black cards just look amazing to me), and it's obvious power level when you actually got to cast it just made it perfect.

I was very happy being able to track down a NM Foil from Invasion earlier this year which will continue to live in my cube forever. Will never ever cut this card no matter what gets printed.

Spoiler: #1

Has nothing to do with cube, everything to do with getting me into Magic as a kid in elementary school. The art on Patagia Golem just completely captured my attention back in the day and made me want to check out this game with such cool art. The old-school artifact frame was unique, the composition of colors, and the flavor text just sold me on the game as a whole. 7th Edition as a whole was just the best possible entry point as a kid where the starter decks came out with the iconic Thorn Elemental art by RK Post (I've got one in a toploader pinned to the board near my desk at work). I didn't really know the depth of the game at the time, but I had fun playing my Mono-Red and Mono-Green decks against my friends at lunch-time between classes.

I still have a major fondness and nostalgia for 7th Edition as a whole. I loved the stylized set symbol which was by far the coolest looking of those releases and all the new (especially to me) art really made me fall for the game as a whole. I still loved Pokemon and Yu-Gi-Oh at the time (mostly due to the cartoons), but Magic just felt different and more mature and serious when you saw pieces like this which were just great art. Some of my most prized cards among the thousands that I own nowadays include 7th edition foils of Verduran Enchantress (a steal at $30 a decade ago), Wrath of God (paid a pretty penny but my god that shooting star and it's going to remain in my cube forever), and finally a Patagia Golem I picked up earlier this year just to finally own again after 20+ years.

I'm not the only one with a fondness for this awesome piece of art; Sam from Rhystic Studies summed it better than I ever could: