facebook

CoolStuffInc.com

Destination Unknown Sale ends Sunday!
   Sign In
Create Account

Top 10 Cards I Need to Remind You Exist

Reddit

I feel that one of my major jobs as a writer is to remind folks about cards that already exist. Considering the number of cards that are out there, that just makes sense, right? Whenever I’m creating a deck project like Commander, I like to add in a card or two that’s not commonly played, that is on theme, and that is strong.

Today, what I want to do is to bring out ten cards that aren’t seeing a lot of play, just to remind you that they exist. From Ice Age to the modern age, we have a lot of strong cards for your consideration. Are you ready?

10 — Hobble

Hobble has a few things going for it right off the bat. First of all, it’s free . Play it, and draw a card when it arrives at the battlefield. Because of that, the Hobble is never a lost card, and it’s important to remember that—it’s not subject to the normal card disadvantage of Aura-based removal spells at times. Second, it’s a decent you-can’t-attack card, and you can toss it on a commander as way to keep it from beating down without taking it off the board and allowing the replay. And if the given card in question is black, this is a full-on Pacifism for 3 mana that’s card-free. Not only is it good, but it also works well in shells that either love enchantments or Flicker effects.

9 — Tomorrow, Azami's Familiar

Is it Tomorrow yet? It will be soon. The only issue with Tomorrow is the sticker price. And I get that. Paying 6 mana for a 1/5 . . . wow is that not great. But once you take the wheel of this baby, you are going to see a tremendous boost to your card quality. Every card draw is a baby Impulse. Every card draw clears off the top three cards of your deck and digs. Every card draw is a winner. I’ve played the Familiar to a great result numerous times, and let me tell you, once it’s out, you aren’t going to care that you paid Keiga, The Tide Star mana for essentially 1/5 Wall.

Hobble
Tomorrow, Azami's Familiar
Splinterfright

8 — Splinterfright

I like a cheap beater that uses the graveyard to enhance itself and then also fills that ’yard at the same time. That’s what you are receiving for your 3-mana investment here. It checks off a lot of boxes, as a sort of cheaper self-Llhurgoyf that has trample and builds with self-milling. Want to blast some folks down? Eviscerate them all day? And play into a lot of graveyard-centric roles? From cards like Sidisi, Brood Tyrant to Whetstone, it has juice. Then say, “Hello again,” to Splinterfright.

7 — Void Stalker

Void Stalker saw some play in Commander, after being released, for tucking commanders. Then, tucking commanders stopped being an answer to them, and I kept playing my Stalkers. Know what? They are still good. They are still a rare mono-blue answer to a creature-based threat. I like blocking one attacker to send out another, and I like stopping two fronts of damage. Void Stalker is a great tool.

6 — Flux

I like card-draw and sifting spells that help me out. But many options, like Windfall, Wheel of Fortune, and Memory Jar force me to discard everything, or just some cards, like Winds of Change and Tolarian Winds. The problem is that the first slate of cards force me to discard everything, even if there are a few cards I’d rather hold onto. The second set are usually card disadvantage. That’s where Flux fits. It’s a selective card that lets you pitch what you don’t like, keep what you do, and draw for the stuff you send away, and you draw a card afterward for the card to replace itself. Then, you can let your opponents do it as well, and they can pitch and draw as needed. Everyone likes it, it discards the cards so it triggers madness for you, it fills up your graveyard, and it is just a good, solid, quality spell for your game. Don’t forget that it was printed as a common, so it’s mega-cheap to buy as well.

Void Stalker
Flux
Root Elemental

5 — Root Elemental

Now that we have completed another block with morph or megamorph, I think I ought to remind you that we have some great morph cards that seem to be forgotten for a bit. Root Elemental is chief among them. You can morph it over for both a 6/5 beater and a free creature from your hand right onto the battlefield for no extra mana. That has a compelling level of power to it. And as top-end creatures become better and better, the free drop of the best one in your hand becomes increasingly threatening. Two creatures for one! That’s great card advantage, right? And if you layer in the right creature, like Woodfall Primus, you have a beater and the destruction of an opposing threat or engine. You can imagine how quickly this thing scales up if you are dropping Sun Titan or Karmic Guide or something. (Imagine you drop Karmic Guide and then recur Sun Titan and bring back Eternal Witness and bring back some powerful sorcery or instant for another go.) Root Elemental is nasty and strong, and it slides right alongside a lot of the mana-making and threat-dealing that empowers green.

4 — Grab the Reins

I like the various Ray of Command/Threaten effects that Magic has in print. In my mind, this trick works best on an instant, and the various sorceries red has invariably play poorly compared to the instant variants. For example, when attacked, you can steal a creature from one player, block another that’s attacking, and potentially kill two targets. That’s why Grab the Reins is one of my favorite red tricks. It steals a creature, and you can use it to attack, block, or whatever. And then you can entwine it if you want and steal the creature, sacrifice it, and then deal out some damage to someone’s face. (Or you can kill a creature instead, if that’s your thing. Remember you can redirect damage from a player to someone’s Planeswalker, which I’ve done a few times in my career to good effect with the GtR.) Because it sacrifices, any creature you target can be taken out, even with regenerate or indestructible. And sometimes, you can just cast it to Fling a creature at a target, or you’ll want to sacrifice one creature and steal another. It has layers of playable possibilities that always make it a useful card to draw at the kitchen table.

3 — Krovikan Horror

And again, let me remind you that this guy is a thing. You combine a Goblin Bombardment sacrifice engine (just spend a mana to sac and dole out some damage) with a self-recursive creature that’ll return to your hand for no mana, as long as a creature card is directly above it. One key to playing with it is to remember that it triggers at the end of the turn, not during someone’s upkeep. You can get a creature to your graveyard after it dies and then return it at the end of your turn, or you can discard it to some effect, or sacrifice stuff to others, in order to send it to your hand. It’s both the engine and the creature in one card, and it provides useful redundancy to a lot of decks that care about the graveyard or sacrificing.

Grab the Reins
Krovikan Horror
Minion Reflector

2 — Minion Reflector

There are a lot of strategies out there that involve playing creatures. I’m sure you know of a few, right? Right! So that’s why the Minion Reflector is such a good and solid way to make creatures for no extra cards. Did you cast a creature? Fork it on arrival for a couple of mana—the copy gains haste and dies at the end of the turn, but you can get one big swing from a beater, one free trigger of a creature with an enters-the-battlefield ability, one death trigger for something like Dictate of Erebos, and a lot more fun. It works with every color since guys from Eternal Witness to Liliana's Specter to Solemn Simulacrum are all solid entries for Reflection. Nekrataal? Aether Adept? Sakura-Tribe Elder? Weathered Wayfarer? Yavimaya Elder? Shoot, Shivan Dragon? Pretty much anything is great when it doesn’t cost another card to get.

1 — Spoils of Evil

Spoils of Evil
This rare is a powerful and forgotten spell that really offers a lot for modern deck-builders. For a simple 3 mana investment, you can produce an amount of colored mana equal to the artifacts and creatures in a foe’s graveyard. Later in the game, it’s a great way to harness some serous mana-making (and life-gain, too, by the by). One of the old issues with this card was the potential for mana burn, but with that rule gone the way of the dodo bird, I’m surprised Spoils of Evil didn’t catch on more in Casual Land. I run it in a variety of black-based decks that harness an injection of mana later on to fuel something big, like a Stroke of Genius, Tooth and Nail, Decree of Justice, or Comet Storm. And if you are running a deck that puts cards in opponents’ graveyards from their libraries (such as Millstone and friends), you have a powerful, reliable, and nasty tool for your consideration.


And there you have it: commons, uncommons, and rares, are all here to blast out some folks. From a tool like Flux to a trick like Grab the Reins to a threat like Root Elemental to an engine like Krovikan Horror, there are a ton of great cards you either forgot about or never knew existed. Grab some overlooked cards!

I hope you found one or two or ten cards here that you are looking forward to rocking at your next Magic night. Enjoy unleashing fun cards that do interesting, wonky, and great things that push the fun, power, and potential of your deck!


Order Shadows over Innistrad at CoolStuffInc.com today!

Limited time 30% buy trade in bonus buylist