On Vizzerdrix: The reason it is a rare is because it was a color pie break. Blue did not get big creatures without downsides at the time. Still a bad card, but it exists to show one of blue's weaknesses.
I still remember getting that 2 player starter set and being mad and confused about my brother getting an uncommon 7 mana 7/7 while i had a rare 7 mana 6/6 . Didn't teach me about the color pie, I just thought the game was rigged.
Color pie break he says, when Mind Bomb is a combination mutual burn and/or discard for U a whole three editions earlier as an uncommon, before it was upgraded to Rare in The Dark.
@@BeaglzRok1 blue had so much burn back then that this doesn't feel outrageous. Psyonic Blast, Prodigal Sorcerer and such. The discard is different tough but even then, blue got everything that was considered "tricky" and discard effects are, in theory as "tricky" as card draw. This is not realy an accurate comparison because it enforces the modern color pie on old cards made before it was considered color pie breaking.
I had a friend who actually found a use for One With Nothing in his Damia commander deck. Since Damia draws you up to seven if you have less than that on your upkeep, he used one with nothing as a one mana wheel. He'd use it right before the start of his turn, discard a bunch of junk cards, and get a fresh hand
In hearthstone theres a broken deck which is called discard warlock which funtion as follows: there are tons of cards that are simply casted or make their effects of you either play it normally or discard it from your hand. That way, a card that is a boardwipe but also discards your hand is actually a super mana cheat. One with nothing could be broken if enough cards like that were printed Imagine for example if there was a creature in magic 6/6 with an etb to summon a copy of itself with mana value 9 but madness 0, or a sorcery that draws you 3 cards with mana value 6 but madness 0 as well. This is what discard warlock would look like in mtg. So basically, wizards can easily make one with nothing decks voable if they made overcosted spells that just have madness 0
@@PauloRicardo-fb8do have a suspicion that wouldn’t even do it, though, seeing as there tend to be much more specific discard outlets in Magic and even in a madness deck where you want to be discarding a lot of cards, you still almost always have some you’d rather keep in your hand.
there is one more good usage of the “One with Nothing”. If Syr Konrad is on the battlefield and you casted ”Peer into the Abyss” before ”One with Nothing”.
I think the point of banding was somewhat misrepresented here. Banding is MUCH better on defense than on offense, and many old-school players will tell you that banding is extremely good in limited formats. It effectively prevents your opponent from ever attacking favorably if you have banding creatures on board. For example, if your opponent attacks with a 4/4, you can block it with your 4/4 and a 1/1 and send all the damage to the 1/1. Or if they attack with a 2/2, you can block with two 2/2s and assign 1 damage to each. Just an absolute nightmare. Helm is still not a good card, but it’s actually kind of a limited bomb which can’t be said about the rest of the cards on this list.
About that of the 2 2/2 creatures is wrong, you have to deal all combat until leathal of one of them, then you may decide if you want to deal only to it or to the next 1 at the time. So they will kill one creature. But if they have blightsteel and you block with a 1/1 with banding you can assign 11 infect to the creature.
@@ScorpioneOrzion Tbf banding did work that way when banding cards were actually being printed, it was only more recent rules changed that made it so you had to assign lethal damage to one creature before assigning any to the next.
@@ScorpioneOrzion i believe banding circumvents this, its hard to find an exact ruling, or a judge with enough free time to figure it out. edit: During the combat damage step, if an attacking creature is being blocked by a creature with banding, or by both a [quality] creature with “bands with other [quality]” and another [quality] creature, the defending player (rather than the active player) chooses how the attacking creature’s damage is assigned. That player can divide that creature’s combat damage as they choose among any creatures blocking it. This is an exception to the procedure described in rule 510.1c. Edit 2: 510.1c is the one that cares about lethal damage
@@asteros6387 banding effectively means that you may choose how they would deal the damage, or in other words of all possible combinations they could divide the damage that is still legal given by the restrictions of 510.1 you choose one of the legal combinations the could make, for the example of the 3 2/2 creatures dealing 1 damage between both of your 2 2/2 creatures is not a legal declaration of damage they can make, so you can't ether.
@@ScorpioneOrzion letting you choose how damage is distributed is not the only thing banding does, banding also allows you to divide damage as you choose among creatures, while this change doesn't matter during attacks, it does change blocks, again, rule 702.22j, and rule 702.22k both state that banding is an exception to the procedure of 510.1c and 510.1d respectively
Kind of disagreeing with Wormfang Manta being so high on the list. The extra turn doesn't require it to die, just to leave the battlefield. If you have a card like Hushbringer to stop the turn skip when it enters, as well as a repeatable blink source, you can take infinite turns. You can also use alternatives like turning into a copy of it, or manifesting it, so it can leave play without technically entering. Not something you'd see in any 60-card constructed format, but still waaaaay better than Wood Elemental.
@@pumkinswift8263 Husbringer cancels it out it if dies. But if you blink Wormfang Manta with Hushbringer out, you'll still get the extra turn without losing one.
I managed to win a game thanks to Blessed Wind once. When I was starting to play, there was a guy with an Elf deck who could gain hundreds of life points per turn. He had above one thousand life when I managed to tap all his creatures, then I used Blessed Wind on him and attacked with everything, witch was just a little bit above 20 damage.
You could’ve told me Battlewagon had indestructible instead of killing itself after attacking, and I would’ve believed you. And it would still be bad. Edit: Well, it looks like I’ve been proven wrong. Honestly, I think it would be fun to see a commander group where each person picks a bad card and makes a slight errata to base their deck around it.
The fact that the Keldon Battlewagon doesn't specify "another creature" means you can tap the wagon to give *itself* +X/+0, after all your other creatures already contributed. You can then combo with any number of untap engines to keep doubling its power, then cap it off with a fling.
@@EnderPryde Even without that, it would be pretty good in white with any kind of vigilance anthem. Attack with your creatures, contribute their power, then tap Battlewagon and double its power. Now you’re attacking with triple force, and 2/3 of that has trample and indestructible.
Vizzerdrix was created to show new players that you don’t get efficient big creatures. The flavor text even indicates this. It’s a cool card for different reasons than stats.
One With Nothing was a niche sideboard card that helped you survive against a certain combo deck that wanted you to have lots of cards in your hand. This makes it better than an unplayable draft rare, because unlike all of those, at actually saw play.
After winning a game with One With Nothing, I will defend that card to my dying breath. Also, Wormfang Manta was part of a pretty brutal infinite turn combo back in its day.
@@beanslinger2 Yeah, throw in a few channels to cheat Barren Glory out early and load up with lands and creatures with sacrifice abilities with One With Nothing as one of the ways to drop your hand and you are in business.
@@beanslinger2 Barren Glory works better with Kaervek's Spite and Academy Rector, that's an instant win combo. Always wanted to make a deck with those, thankfully i got the pricey Academy Rector in my pocket and Barren Glory, the other is worth pennies.
A lot of these cards are situationally still decent, that's one of the best things about magic. If you want to build around a specific card you think is cool, you can totally do it
One With Nothing + Hivemind + Ertai, Wizard Adept or some other non-spell counter ability to counter your original One With Nothing. One With Nothing might also be playable with Ensnaring Bridge.
Fun fact about the Magister Sphinx: it's set a player's life to 10 is not a may. In a draft the other day, I faced a situation where they bounced my Sphinx, and I had to make them gain life or set myself to 10. Didn't actually end up mattering because I was pretty handily winning, but it did buy the opponent another turn to draw out of the situation. The leech is a pretty clear example of some of the lessons MtG had to learn about the power level of one mana creatures. For a long time there was an established rate, that creatures typically have power at least equal to their mana value, or else significant upsides to make up for it. The problem is that while a 1 mana 1/1 fits this rate, it's also just too low impact to be worth a card. Even in limited formats, some of the lowest power level where commons and uncommons see play, 1 mana creatures were just a trap that would make your deck worse by including them. So cards like the leech looked good on paper at the time for being an above rate card with a downside, but that rate was just never worth it to begin with at that mana cost. Recently, they've started to rework that thought process for one drops. While they don't push one drops above rate too often, they have learned to just load them up with utility. Abilities to cash in the creature late in the game with some expensive draw effect, repeatable utility, and similar effects mean that it's not a complete disaster to draw the card after the first two turns of the game, where the creature becomes outclassed in combat.
This list misses what I personally feel is the actual worst rare in all of Magic - "Pale Moon" One With Nothing is very very bad, certainly - but it actually does the thing it says on the card when you play it, and that thing *can* impact the state of the game in a meaningful way. Pale Moon is a 2 mana Instant in blue that makes nonbasic lands (for both players) make colorless mana instead of their usual type, until end of turn. That's it. Some obvious issues: 1) There is no way to actively gain benefit from Pale Moon. There is nothing that happens as a result of Pale Moon that makes it easier for you to play your own cards, to attack your opponent, or to build your board state. You gain no benefit from playing this card; the only possible positive effect is that it might be used to hinders you opponent at a critical moment 2) The effect does not actually hinder your opponent in the vast majority of cases. Many nonbasic lands already produce colorless, making the effect irrelevant. Nonbasic lands used for color fixing are clearly the target of this effect, however if it is late enough in the game, your opponent probably has enough lands out to not be worried about losing a little color from their nonbasics. If it is early enough in the game that your opponent's mana base is small enough that this effect might matter, then it *still* only matters if they happen to be wanting to play a card that requires that color fixing on that specific turn when you play the Pale Moon 3) Even if your opponent is in the narrow situation where the effect *might* hinder them, you have almost no way of knowing whether that is the case before they actually try and play a spell - by which point it is too late. The only way to make this card work is to cast it during their upkeep, before they have the opportunity to tap their lands for mana in a way that can be used to cast things on their main phase; if they actually have something to cast, they can simply respond to the Pale Moon by tapping their mana to float it, then casting that spell after Pale Moon is resolved (if during main phase), or even just casting some Instant or activating some ability in response during the upkeep. If you happen to burn your Pale Moon on a turn when they weren't going to do anything anyway, you've wasted a card, and two mana in the early game, which could have been used advancing your own position. 4) If you use it and it actually manages to stop your opponent from playing anything on a turn when they would have done something, then congratulations - you've managed an effect that was *almost* as good as a Counterspell; except the Counterspell would have gotten rid of the card they tried to play, but since you used Pale Moon, they still have it in hand to try and play later.
You could stop someone popping off as hard as they would otherwise form an Urborg x Cabal Coffers, but it's only delaying it a turn, and they would stil have all their base mana. It's a niche use, but a use non the less.
Wormfang Manta used to be a legit combo piece back when phasing triggered leaves play abilities but not comes into play abilities. We could use Vanishing or Vodalian Illusionist to jut keep phasing it out and getting extra turns. Manta became pretty useless when they changed the rules for phasing
In defense of Banding: It's fairly terrible when used offensively. But it's actually really solid when used defensively. One of the best uses for Banding (in modern rulesets - this didn't apply in the old era) is that it makes it so you can easily chump-block a creature with Trample. Because a Trampling creature has to kill ALL of the enemies blocking it, Banding makes it so that you can simply apply all of the damage to the weakest creature so that doesn't happen. Banding is still a bit niche, but it definitely has its moments when played for blocking rather than attacking.
I personally think that any card that saw play at the highest levels of competitive should automatically be DQ'ed from a list like this...least of all take the top spot.
I had an EDH deck once which incorporated One with Nothing into my favorite wincon for the deck. With an Academy Rector on the field, I could Renounce everything, then One with Nothing to drop an active Barren Glory at the end of the previous player's turn, and go straight into upkeep, win the game trigger. So many vulnerabilities, but so much fun when it actually pulled it off.
If I'm correct, Vizzerdrix saw competitive success as a sideboard option as well, although not because the card was actually used but because some players liked its plain weirdness enough to put it in the sideboard of competitive decks. Which doesn't make the card good, but I think it's interesting and I also like the fact that it shows that even at competitive levels some players found ways to sneak in pet cards or bad cards just out of passion or to have fun.
Hey, Wormfang Manta can be used for infinite extra turns if you set something to cancel ETBs and manage to blink it at least once each turn, like Conjurer's Closet or Brago.
You'll notice that pretty much all of these cards are very old, from back when they were still learning how to really make the game. I think the newest one is One With Nothing and it's clearly there as a skill testing card. Nowadays you're more likely to see really weird, experimental cards at Mythic Rare since they show up less frequently and can screw up draft environments less than a regular rare.
I've watched only a few videos from this creator and I've noticed that as well. Not just rip on the old cards, but then the card will get compared to a relatively newer card (often printed many, many years after) as a way to demonstrate how bad it is. It's easy to criticize the early years of Magic (especially banding) but in a game 30 years old, I'd love to see more of a focus on newer cards. Maybe I've just been unlucky in the videos I've selected? Maybe he does focus on newer cards in other "worst" videos?
@@vancefox He did a video about the worst Mythic Rares and those are somewhat newer since Mythics didn't exist at the start of the game. It is easy to rip on old cars, but it's also fun.
@@vancefox I agree, the videos seem very poorly researched, the explanations are basic or plain wrong and the comparasion of 20 year old cards with newer ones when there's natural power creep in a game like magic is just a clear sign of how much effort is put on these videos
Not just that, a lot of the old cards HAD niche uses at the time, ether as side deck cards or other things. Like there was no other counter to massive life gains back in the day, so blessed wind had some use. I feel another instance is when he was doing the top 10 worse alternative win conditions and stuck dark steel reactor at like 5. Stating it was too slow for 20 turns and had very little other ways to gain tokens. Completely ignoring the fact that charge counter decks existed (and still exist if you want to use it) and was played at the time, allowing you to get like all 20 tokens on reactor in like 1-3 turns.
I remember one of the people at my multiplayer table playing a 5 color deck with all of the leeches in it, but every other card in the entire deck was either a colorless artifact or a land, so unless he had 2 or more of the same leech, there were no downsides. Back in 2004, this wasn't actually *that* bad as the leeches were mostly ahead of curve at the time, and the Sunburst mechanic was now a part of the game.
I think you misstated banding a bit there. If creatures are blocking in a band only ONE creature has to have banding. Not "all but one" like when creatures attack in a band. This actually makes Helm of Chatzuk pretty decent in Limited. There are many situations in which it just straight-up stops your opponent from attacking since just one single bander will radically change what happens. Most banding cards were very good in Limited. Even offensive banding could be useful in lots of situations. Great video though overall.
The helm card doesn’t seem too terrible. You’re able to use it on your opponents creatures so you could target one and make it sit out the attack or it’ll be really easy for you to block it.
One with nothing can actually be a good card if you play it in the right deck, and I think that the top 2 should be Sorrow's Path and Teferi's Isle which somehow didnt make the list.
This list shows just how much the creature power curve has accelerated over time. Shivan Dragon and Mahamati Djinns were top of the pyramid as on-cost P/T with evasion. Then the Terror hit. The feels-bad was strong.
This list is about bad rares, yet you keep comparing them to good mythics. It would be better to compare them to similar commons to show how bad they are instead of mythics that are supposed to be the best.
I know banding is not a great keyword, but you give a very bad example for them, like why even use a 3/3 and a 1/1 to block a 2/2, the purpose was more to the point on blocking to use an high attack banding creature and a high toughness creature like a 0/8 wall of stone, so you could in theory bury one attacker without loosing your high power creature. WotC even thought that use of banding was so strong they printed anti support for it with battering ram, a artifact 1/1 creature with baning that would automaticaly destroy any wall that blocked its bands attack.
The helm is not bad, banding on blockers doesn't just let the blocker assign the damage order, it lets them assign the damage. For example if you attack with a 10/10 I can block with 2 4/4s and a 2/2 with banding, then I can kill your 10/10 and assign all the damage to the 2/2.
whilst that interaction is true. would you not be better off removing the 10/10 or racing whilst playing a 1 mana 1/1 to fodder block as it will yield an extremely similar impact to the game. You are not wrong that that interaction is not bad but cards like thopter foundry, shadow spear, currency converter, pithing needle and avarice totem are a lot better in many more scenarios and they are just 1 mana artefacts I can name (would recommend reading Urza's saga). Also what happens if the opponent removes a creature before they attack, what if they don't attack until they can remove a creature, what if you don't draw a creature. The natural variance of the game makes it extremely unlikely that helm of chatzuk impacts the game. Don't get me wrong every card needs to be tested, that's how we learnt the power of power conduit or death's shadow. But for a card to be good it needs to be consistent or occasionally game winning to be considered a decent card.
I'd love to see card prices added to the videos - just as a small number below the presented cards. I feel like it adds some context regarding supply and demand. It also saves a google search if you're considering adding the card to your deck, such as in your utility land video :)
On One With Nothing - there was once a release with Hellbent mechanic, that gave creatures extra abilities, usually extra stats if you had no cards in hand. So technically you could make a deck with an 'attack gamble' where you lineup your hellbent creatures, discard entire hand and attack all at once, for 'all or nothing'.
So, most of the cards you're mentioning are pre 8th edition, and you're comparing them to post 8th edition cards. Early magic cards were a much wider gambit on power level. Rares are supposed to be either more powerful, cost less mana, be more complex, or break the color wheel. Since 8th edition the average power level of cards has gone up, and they break color wheel restrictions more often, as well as bend the wheel a bit. there are many bad rares in magic that saw some level of play simply because at the time the cards around them were also for the most part fairly mediocre especially if you're comparing them to cards made much more recently, even at the common level. I think some of the point of your argument gets lost when you're comparing cards printed more than two years apart from each other. Not that it makes those cards seem better in that sense, but in standard a lot of cards get used, and in modern, legacy, and vintage, only the best cards get used. and it's not particularly fair to compare cards like Splendid Reclamation to Black Lotus as an example. They're just from very different times.
He's a Yugioh main. Hes using logic from a different game to judge Magic. Such as the fact that lifegain is useless in Yugioh, but there are white strats in magic that literally revolve around lifegain. Hell, the best deck I've ever played with was an orzhov vampire deck.
@@ofox716 so then it's like comparing Blowback Dragon to The Weather Painter Moonbow. Still completely different eras of Yu gi oh, and not very appropriate to compare when calculating value. Completely different times of the game. Both for the players as well as for the game designers. and as Yugioh only has Advanced and Traditional Format, which are equivalent to Legacy and Vintage. Most cards will fall under the useless category. And in some of these example cases it's like comparing a super rare to a secret ultra rare. obviously one card is going to intentionally be built different.
@@MetalPheonix He does this in his Yugioh videos, too, sometimes. I think it's just a general flaw in his outlook, maybe? Though I have seen the attitude of 'magic bad' from yugioh players before, usually siting old, old depreciated card rules that were poorly worded, or sub-game cards. Usually also missing that Yugioh started life as a magic clone and benefited greatly from MtG existing and doing a lot of the stumbling on its behalf.
Mishra's War Machine from Antiquities was shockingly bad... even for the time. 7 Mana to cast a 5/5 artifact creature (with banding... Yeah!) It required you to discard a card rom your hand on your upkeep, or the creature became tapped and you lost 3 life.
"Use Helm of Chatzuk to give my (Cho-Mano/Mogg Maniac/Brash Taunter) banding, band it with this big trample-y thing with a really low toughness and swing. How much damage do YOU want to take?"
I really highly disagree with how you're downplaying banding. It's really quite a powerful effect, although it's not put on anything at reasonable cost, especially with current power levels in mind.
@@justinkarels6028 He's described it with blocking in another video, but still downplays it a lot. The example he uses really bugs me. "You can just block a whole band with one creature." I mean yeah, that's the point. The person declaring a band wants that to happen. You wouldn't want banding in a deck you're running your opponent's life total down. It's a control keyword.
The downside of Wormfang manta can be dealt with kinda easily with cards that prevent ETB effects from triggering. Keep bouncing it at the end of your turn and you can more or less just lock your opponent(s) out of the game if they dont have anyything to interrupt the combo with.
Strict Proctor to prevent the ETB effect, and any cheap blink effect to pop the leave the battlefield effect. If the Manta was legal in Pioneer, I swear I'd try to make it into a deck.
The explanations in this video are painfully basic and the cards on the list are just old cards exploring certain concepts that weren't in the game yet or doing neat things, like the big blue vanilla, it's a rare because it's an old ass big blue vanilla, you can compare any very old card with any new card and point out how the later makes the old card obsolete and it's just because of the natural power creep of a card game over so many years Honestly bad video, just your quick to make, poorly researched top 10 trying to bait some views, one of the lowest forms of content
Everyone misunderstands One With Nothing. It was printed at the same time as Hellbent cards. Also, it's a black card that puts stuff into your graveyard
Do you just, not research the meta of the blocks prior to these cards come out and ignore the context in which the cards come out? Your content is hard to watch because it’s common to all your videos I’ve watched.
A lot of people point out that certain notoriously bad cards have some niche uses in commander. But that's really a moot point because just about any card in existence can find some niche use in commander due to the nature of the format.
For Wood Elemental: Dauntless Dourbark is a later card that’s just strictly better. Cost: 3G. P/T equal to the number of Forests you control, and has two tribe synergies. No land sacrifice needed.
Usually these cards are terrible for their cost. Sometimes its a fun thought experiment to debate what cost would make one of these bad cards worth it.
There was a period of time where Wormfang Manta had combo potential with phasing. Currently, phasing in/out doesn't count as entering/leaving the battlefield, but for a time the rules said phasing out *did* cause triggers, while phasing in did not. So if you could find a way to phase the manta out, you would get an extra turn but not have to skip one. I don't think this was ever competitively viable due to the manta's mana cost, but i had fun with it around the kitchen table.
@@Registeel1234 it does mske sense with cards with etb you don't want and ltbs you do want. UW and U have ways to tutor out torpor orb so its not huge obsticle. Mantra doesn't exist in a vacuum. Any deck focusing on ltbs can be strong with that combo in it. The video is supposed to be the worst rares, not rares that require minor work arounds not counting legacy formats.
The Vizzerdrix entry reminds me of another mtg video with the worst removals having Vengeance among them. Vizzerdrix is the best colored beater blue would have for years since it's release, similar to how vengeance dates back to when white didn't have as many cheap removals. Both are much worse by today's standards and were never GOOD, but they didn't start off as THE WORST.
Maybe, but both Air Elemental and Mahamoti Djinn were already a thing, and both are helluva lot better then Vizzbunny. I remember some guys making fun of Djinn because it was "basic", but he then had no answer when I drop Djinn into play and it start smacking him in two turns.
As for the Leeches, the Red, Blue and White ones have a home in Zedruu the Greathearted decks in commander. As giving them to your opponent benefits you because you draw cards when you do.
Dude… One with nothing is awesome! I play it with Bone Miser when I don’t have Zombie Infestation available to me. I gives me mana, zombies, and draw. You just make sure you play Shadow Of The Grave on the stack holding priority and play One with nothing so that it goes off first and you get your cards back to use the mana. Best used with a big hand from Peer Into the Abyss. Then you‘ll possible get to discard down again for cleanup and get more triggers and if you play it nicely you can have multiple cleanups and instant plays like a Gitrog or Hapatra deck! Having flash or an Emergence zone to sack and give flash works awesomely here.
You know i respect players loving a gimicky card like one with nothing but its hard to argue that this card is or was ever good, just because there are so many other cards that are actually doing its job way better or being more versatile. Love your gimick cards, but dont call it good of the combo is way to convoluted
@@WiiTara I play the card in 3 decks and it works fine. In fact it is often a perfect card. Most cards that people say are “powerful or good” are crap without a board state or support cards. If you look at a commander like Balthor, the Defiled you’ll understand why it’s great. Nothing convoluted about a 1 drop, it can be an instant win in my deck!
You only looked at the Helm of Chatzuk from the offensive side instead of the defensive side, where it is much more useful. Here, if at least one creature that is blocking an attacker has banding, the defender gets to choose how to assign damage. This means that if you block a 5/4 trampling creature with 4 - 1/1 creatures and give one of them banding, you can choose how to assign the damage, assigning all of it to one creature. You can even choose not to assign any trample damage to yourself.
Every time hes brought up banding hes only looked at it offensively, it's such an interesting defensive control slow down mechanic to protect utility creatures
Was hoping to see Aladdin's Ring on here. It was printed at rare for dozens sets before finally being downshifted. That card is literal toilet jewelry.
Top 10 best jokes in goblin cards... I know since my university days, that the flavor text from Goblins where always jokes. Well on a more serious suggestion, how about best/worst keywords in MTG (Trample, Lifelink, etc.)
I actually have a pretty efficient deck using one with nothing as a combo piece for a win condition. Having hive mind and megrim on the field you can make your opponents draw a bunch of cards and then have them discard all they're hand to kill them.
Just chose a lot of very old and niche rares and compared them to modern power creep, plus banding is most effective defensively against trample to conserve utility creatures
I feel *One With Nothing* could be considered with Self-mill in Commander if you focus more on your graveyard as your main "hand" than the actual hand. But that is still very risky and difficult to do.
At least, in commander, Blessed Wind is more mana effective than a Fireball. Not taking life gain into consideration, but if you have a player late game that hasn't taken any damage and sits at 40, you take 20 life from him for 9 mana. A Fireball would have to pay 21 mana to do this, and people fondly remember Fireball.
I actually ran Eater of Days back in the day in my blue white deck, I played it together with that blue counter spell that countered triggered abilities so it basically was a 5 drop 9/8 flying trample that made you discard a card. Pretty good but definitely not quite as good as the other stuff around at that time.
Hi, as a long time player of Magic, i have seen a few of your videos recently and have realised that you are taking the cards out of context. Some of these cards were useful because of when they were released. You are comparing really old card to modern cards where the dynamic of the game has changed entirely. Kjeldon battlewagon was meant to break white defense decks, protection vs artifacts was weak and as such all damage from the wagon would kill any creatures, or at least threaten to, it was also meant as a last move one hit kill. Blessed wind was not meant to be used on yourself but to reset another player life total back DOWN to 20 because there were many near infinite life gain decks in white, and for One with nothing, there were many combos that needed you to have no cards in hand in order to search your deck or draw multiple cards. Please understand that some of the explanations you are giving are needless, almost nobody plays those cards anymore anyway, especially since they are no longer valid in standard play ( which only include the last 2 years of cards, or about 6 released series ).
Manta has a good synergy with things that counter etb effects. Counter it the first time and you have a time walk on a 6/1 stick. Easy to bring earlyd o the game with exhume or something. Then again nowdays creatures are much stronger.
Seems kinda dishonest to compare Vizzerdrix, a 1999 card, to a bunch of mythic rare cards--a rarity that didn't even exist until almost 10 years later. By the time mythic rares came out, power creep was in full effect. Besides, as others have already pointed out, it's a pretty strong blue creature. Those weren't too common at the time. Finally, it was first printed as part of the 1999 *Starter* set, meaning it was for new players. That's another reason it doesn't have a bunch of crazy abilities. In fact, I actually bought that starter set back in the day, and I fondly remember using it to teach myself, my brothers, and even my mother how to play Magic. Since I'm still playing today, I guess it got the job done.
I've made some research for this (I was really bored), and Helm of Chatzuk is actually pretty good in a dedicated Commander banding deck. It's a very niche commander deck, but at least it's not as useless as North Star or the Battlewagon.
Re:wormfang manta It fits as a top end in Torpor Orb Jank, on account of Torpor Orb turning off *all* enter the battlefield triggers on creatures passively. You effectively turn it into a 5 mana time walk with a 2 mana 6/1 flyer attached. Granted, that's obviously not meta, and as stated, Eater of Days is *way* better (as is Phyrexian Dreadnaught) in that deck, but there *are* conditions you can find where it is so much better than Vizerdrix
did you know: If you give Helm of Chatzuk to an Indestructible, any creature Banded together with it also becomes Indestructible. *Banding = a way to make multiple creatures indestructible, basically.*
If One with nothing was red or blue it would be good in a wheel deck. Like Rielle the Everwise where with her power being the number of instant and sorceries in your graveyard.
When the Eater of days had just come out, my group got stomped by this guy who would stifle the effect. could consistently get it on turn 3. on turn 4 he would equip that sucker with the hammer that gives lifelink and +2 attack and just whomp on you. without stifle, the strat was useless though.
Not going to say that banding is good, but it works a lot better on defense than you’re giving it credit for. It doesn’t let the defending player decide damage order, it lets the defending player decide how damage is assigned. If a 3/3 hill giant attacks and is blocked by a 1/1 benalish hero and two 1/1 soldier tokens, the defending player can assign all three damage to a single 1/1 token, only causing you to lose a single 1/1 and the 3/3 still dies. Without banding, you’d get 3 for 1’d.
There were two starter decks where one player has 6/6 Trained Orgg as a win condition, and the other player has 6/6 Vizzerdrix. The player who got their 6/6 first, or protected it better, would win the game. It would only make sense for that bomb to be rare.
People talk about making one with nothing work when you can just... play Putrid Imp? Same mana cost, but you get a body and can discard any amount of cards whenever you want instead of all at once.
holy smoke, the first one would be bad as a common, 1/1 per mana is the base level, if you are below that, you need something to compensate, like cannot lose until in play or similar small effects.
I recall a comment on Gatherer where someone said Wood Elemental's art looks like Nazi-era propaganda and I think of that whenever I see the card because it totally does 😄
hahaha, Mungha Wurm and Keldon battlewagon do not belong on this list. I'm not sure Alabaster Leech or Vizzerdrix does either. Not when stuff like Pale Moon and Mudhole exists. Aysen Highway a 3WWW enchantment that gives white creatures plainswalk.
Keldon Battlewagon could have been salvaged if it returned to hand instead (simulating the idea that it was to go back to the garage for repairs) 😅 The Mana cost would have to come down too. (3) at most.
Didn't i see One with Nothing in another video of yours? Was it the video about alternate win conditions or something? Pretty sure you mentioned it in another video.
Rhystic Studies did an amazing video on One with Nothing, and even gave a olay pattern to use it to commit MTG-Seppukku. It's a really beautiful opening sequence that leaves you empty handed and dead on board on turn 1
Back in the halycon days of 2010, my FLGS used to use Vizzerdrix cards with your store credit value in sharpie written on them. Only time I've seen a Vizz worth more than $5. Also why does every MTG youtuber use the "If you have a 1/1 and a 3/3 and I have a 2/2" scenario to explain banding? You're showing you don't actually understand the value of the ability or you're just aping shit you heard without every playing against it.
Helm of Chatzuk is great with certain cards. Think Taunting Elf, and either Darksteel Myr or Predator Ooze. Band them together for (1), attack with all creatures, everything defending players HAS to block the elf/myr (or ooze) band and all other creatures deal damage. Then also YOU assign all the damage to myr/ooze. Better effect, add Seedborne Muse and untap them all :) Now, One with Nothing..... with Ensnaring Bridge. Think on that for a bit.
So which ones do i have? Did i ever use them? -Vizzerdrix, useful back in the day where blue had almost nothing to attack with, and it was a starter deck card, just as good, or should i say, bad, as that 6/6 red ogre in the other starter deck. I did use it back in the day, but now?, hell no. -Keldon Battlewagon, just garbage -Blessed Wind, once decreased someones HP from like 150 back to 20, that was fun :P -Alabaster Leech (also got Jade Leech), just trash cards.
Vizzerdrix is an old creature so comparing it with modern time creatures is not fair! ;) Overall comparing cards outside their time or meta they existed in, is not a really fair way to evaluate cards since also Magics design philosophy has changed A LOT! Just take your example of North Star vs. Chromatic Lantern, there is a time gap of 20! years between these two. Some cards are rare for reasons to not get pulled too often in Drafts or just for the simple reason they're doing too much back in the day/ beeing a wall of text *cough* Keldon War Wagon *cough*. I'd recommand redoing this video and then putting cards in different eras, since I already explained a lot goes into evaluating a card. :) Here some infos on some of the cards: Vizzerdrix as explained was a bit of a color break, doing something blue wasn't know for which is why it was a rare. Also for Draft reasons to prevent blue to get too many of them. Also it comes from the Starter 1999 set, which was designed for beginers. One for Nothing might be bad but it saw tournament play which is just bonkers! It was a sideboard tech against a certain deck in Standard that won when your opponent had too many hand cards, burning them hard. Blessed Wind sets life to a certain point, if you combine it with something like Tainted Remedy, you can kill opponents since they now get the life missing up til 20 as damage. Not that bonkers but it has some use.Also the effect was pretty unique back in the day and for a long time the maybe biggest life gain you could get from a single card for a long time. Mungha Wurm falls in the category old cards are mostly weaker cards when it comes to creatures. A 6/5 for 4 was strong back then! Also this card needs to be seen in its "ecosystem"/meta/format. Prophecy was one of the weakest sets ever printed and had this wierd untapped/tapped lands cards with effects based on those. So in a way you could abuse/benefit from its effect. Oh and there was something called Mana Burn back in the day, that if you just tapped land for mana without using the mana it would deal damage, so you couldn't just tap lands to get the effects of certain cards without sideffects. ;) Alabaster Leech, again... Old card, older times, much older design philosophy. The whole cycle is kinda bad and it is but back then we never saw a 1/3 for 1 really. So it got the rare threatment. Back then a 2/1 for W was worth beeing rare, just to set it a bit in perspective. Today it would be a common, ofc, but like I keep saying, older days, older designs. ;) Wood Elemental is from Legends the third set Magic ever made, so ofc they were testing themselves out and got not the designs down yet. There is a reason why so many old cards are either absolute trash or absolute bonkers! ;) This falls in the first catagory. Wormfang Manta might be bad when played but if you can kinda blink it and somehow negate its ETB effect it gets decent. As stated with Vizzerdrix, blue wasn't really the color with the big beaters and this is an insanely big beater with flying. Also certain effects like extra turns, are so good, that they'll always be on a rare.
A truly bad rare doesn't just ruin your own day, but set your opponent up for a win at the same time. Look no further than Sky Swallower, and Tempting Wurm. Sky Swallower is 5 mana for an 8/8 with Flying and Trample which, when it enters the battlefield, has your opponent gain control of ALL other permanents you control, even your lands. The creature is large and threatening, especially for a Blue creature, but setting yourself SO far back on resources while also rocketing your opponent ahead in one go is tantamount to handing them the game just like that. Tempting Wurm is a similar boat, being a 5/5 for only 2 mana. However, it allows your opponent to put any number of non-planeswalker permanents from their hand into play, for free. Divine Gambit is considered a bad card for giving your opponent ONE free permanent from their hand. At best, your opponent has a fistful of instants/sorceries and you can have your smug satisfaction. On average, the opponent will put several lands, and a blocker into play for free. At worst, your opponent can drop several lands, a useful enchantment, and a creature that outstrips your Wurm by a country mile, which will be ready to attack on their turn. It goes without saying that casting Tempting Wurm in a Commander game with three opponents is merely an exercise to see how badly you can screw yourself out of a game with one card.
Since I haven't seen anyone else say it, 1) All of Prophecy kinda sucked. Even the novel sucked. Some people would say the whole Masques block, although I'm pretty fond of the other 2 sets. 2) Keldon Battlewagon was printed when damage still used the stack. So you could attack for 0, force your opponent to declare blockers first, and then buff its power according to their decisions. Since it can't survive combat anyway, you could channel all your other creatures through it for a hit, once, at no risk.Not that it was ever good, but it used to be better than it is now. EDIT: After seeing the rest of this video, that's true of most of these cards: they were either better when printed than they are now, or they're part of combos you don't know about.
Keldon Battlewagon is the ancestor of "Crew" and/or equipment Honestly, comparing super old card to new card it kind of unfair. except the power9, very few card from Antiquity time period can compare to the most recent set... Mungha wurm is GREEN, meaning you got a million mana ramp (like elfs) that are not land right beside it to summon it and suchs... Wormfang is fine. the opponent do NOT want to kill it nor remove it (since it will give you an extra turn) making it's 1 toughness a strenght and not a weakness. so Husbringer it or use some blue spell to freeze your opponent land to limit what he can do in a single turn... bring the Wormfang out and watch your opponent choose between taking a 6 damage to the face or block it and give you an extra turn... and if you can blink it in and out (and control your opponent next turn) you could have a lot of extra turn, while giving a few weak limited extra turn to your opponent
Every card is bad when you're using it wrong. Helm of chatzuk is a defensive card. Banding on defense let's you manipulate damage to an insane degree. It blanks first strike and trample. People most players think lol bAnDiNg iS So cOnFuSiNg. Banding got the axe not because it was complicated but bc it just stopped combat.
I understand that One with Nothing is famously a bad rare, but it was a key piece of my Rakdos deck back when Ravnica first came out, I'd blitz mana ramp and get a Pit Dragon on the field with Taste for Mayhem(s) on it, then swing for lethal on turn four/five by using fatal Frenzy then One with Nothing in response. It was surprisingly effective.
I've won games off the back of One with Nothing in a set roulette challenge once. Legal sets were urzas block, kamigawa block, and bfz block. Turn one on the play, swamp, dark ritual, exhume, hold priority, one with nothing, discarding the void winnower in my hand
the helm is correct as a bad card when using it for attacking but defense you could make it really hard to get threw you can just drain all the trample damage for example. but reality is your better off using "Defensive Formation" since it grants the control to assign damage how they want if they are attacked. morning star is pretty bad to add the tiniest little not you could make it better by using Zirda or Power conduit (or both) bcause it would make that ability cost 2 instead of 1. but reality is your better off using "Chromatic lantern" or "Chromatic orrery" there was easier arguments for wind...you could have just pointed out "Resolute Archangel" for 2 mana less it saids your life total becomes your starting life total so you just go start back to the beginning. even better still is "Oketra's last mercy" same thing for only 3 mana but you don't get to untap your lands but you could have a "Wilderness reclamation" effect in play and the wurm and whatever colored leech('s) just use them in bad gifts.
Vizzerdrix was rare because his Little Cousin was a tv and vhs Star. Check out "Magic the Gathering Starter Instructional VHS • 60 FPS 1999" and "Magic: The Gathering: Fluffy Bunny"
Regarding One with nothing: I have a Hellbent-Deck which is pretty fun (but not that good nontheless) to play. It's not bad to get the Hellbent-effect instantly with one mana...
It really makes no sense to put cards that have seen competitive play and/or actually have an use in the list when there are cards like Circle of Life, Common Cause, Assembly Hall, Wintermoon Mesa, Sorrow's Path and friggin Pale Moon. And wood elemental at #7? Really?
Vizzerdix was in a "preconstructed" deck which was given for free, it was a pure blue deck with 15 cards, and there was also a similar red deck, with another 6/6 7 mana card. It was never really a rear, you could get any number of it if you wanted. But generally comparing 20 years old cards to recent ones is not fair, then the game was much slower, and especially creatures were much weaker.
Helm of Chatzuk is one of the worst rares ever? That doesn't seem right. Out of all the banding cards, Helm of Chatzuk is probably the best one because it lets you give banding to creatures that don't suck (while all the actual banding creatures are terrible by today's standards), and it's so cheap to cast and activate. There are so many absolutely awful rares in this game that it's ridiculous that Helm of Chatzuk would be in the top ten. Worse than all those 1/1s for 4 with bad abilities?
On Vizzerdrix: The reason it is a rare is because it was a color pie break. Blue did not get big creatures without downsides at the time. Still a bad card, but it exists to show one of blue's weaknesses.
Well, you beat me to it
I still remember getting that 2 player starter set and being mad and confused about my brother getting an uncommon 7 mana 7/7 while i had a rare 7 mana 6/6 . Didn't teach me about the color pie, I just thought the game was rigged.
I remember growing up though if you had a foil vizzerdrix it was still worth big bucks
Color pie break he says, when Mind Bomb is a combination mutual burn and/or discard for U a whole three editions earlier as an uncommon, before it was upgraded to Rare in The Dark.
@@BeaglzRok1 blue had so much burn back then that this doesn't feel outrageous. Psyonic Blast, Prodigal Sorcerer and such. The discard is different tough but even then, blue got everything that was considered "tricky" and discard effects are, in theory as "tricky" as card draw. This is not realy an accurate comparison because it enforces the modern color pie on old cards made before it was considered color pie breaking.
I had a friend who actually found a use for One With Nothing in his Damia commander deck. Since Damia draws you up to seven if you have less than that on your upkeep, he used one with nothing as a one mana wheel. He'd use it right before the start of his turn, discard a bunch of junk cards, and get a fresh hand
Nice! That's actually a great use for that card.
Another reason that card exists. The worse a card looks, the harder the players who enjoy it will try to find a cool thing to do with it somewhere.
In hearthstone theres a broken deck which is called discard warlock which funtion as follows: there are tons of cards that are simply casted or make their effects of you either play it normally or discard it from your hand. That way, a card that is a boardwipe but also discards your hand is actually a super mana cheat. One with nothing could be broken if enough cards like that were printed
Imagine for example if there was a creature in magic 6/6 with an etb to summon a copy of itself with mana value 9 but madness 0, or a sorcery that draws you 3 cards with mana value 6 but madness 0 as well. This is what discard warlock would look like in mtg.
So basically, wizards can easily make one with nothing decks voable if they made overcosted spells that just have madness 0
@@PauloRicardo-fb8do have a suspicion that wouldn’t even do it, though, seeing as there tend to be much more specific discard outlets in Magic and even in a madness deck where you want to be discarding a lot of cards, you still almost always have some you’d rather keep in your hand.
there is one more good usage of the “One with Nothing”. If Syr Konrad is on the battlefield and you casted ”Peer into the Abyss” before ”One with Nothing”.
I think the point of banding was somewhat misrepresented here. Banding is MUCH better on defense than on offense, and many old-school players will tell you that banding is extremely good in limited formats. It effectively prevents your opponent from ever attacking favorably if you have banding creatures on board.
For example, if your opponent attacks with a 4/4, you can block it with your 4/4 and a 1/1 and send all the damage to the 1/1. Or if they attack with a 2/2, you can block with two 2/2s and assign 1 damage to each. Just an absolute nightmare.
Helm is still not a good card, but it’s actually kind of a limited bomb which can’t be said about the rest of the cards on this list.
About that of the 2 2/2 creatures is wrong, you have to deal all combat until leathal of one of them, then you may decide if you want to deal only to it or to the next 1 at the time. So they will kill one creature. But if they have blightsteel and you block with a 1/1 with banding you can assign 11 infect to the creature.
@@ScorpioneOrzion Tbf banding did work that way when banding cards were actually being printed, it was only more recent rules changed that made it so you had to assign lethal damage to one creature before assigning any to the next.
@@ScorpioneOrzion i believe banding circumvents this, its hard to find an exact ruling, or a judge with enough free time to figure it out.
edit: During the combat damage step, if an attacking creature is being blocked by a creature with banding, or by both a [quality] creature with “bands with other [quality]” and another [quality] creature, the defending player (rather than the active player) chooses how the attacking creature’s damage is assigned. That player can divide that creature’s combat damage as they choose among any creatures blocking it. This is an exception to the procedure described in rule 510.1c.
Edit 2: 510.1c is the one that cares about lethal damage
@@asteros6387 banding effectively means that you may choose how they would deal the damage, or in other words of all possible combinations they could divide the damage that is still legal given by the restrictions of 510.1 you choose one of the legal combinations the could make, for the example of the 3 2/2 creatures dealing 1 damage between both of your 2 2/2 creatures is not a legal declaration of damage they can make, so you can't ether.
@@ScorpioneOrzion letting you choose how damage is distributed is not the only thing banding does, banding also allows you to divide damage as you choose among creatures, while this change doesn't matter during attacks, it does change blocks, again, rule 702.22j, and rule 702.22k both state that banding is an exception to the procedure of 510.1c and 510.1d respectively
Kind of disagreeing with Wormfang Manta being so high on the list. The extra turn doesn't require it to die, just to leave the battlefield. If you have a card like Hushbringer to stop the turn skip when it enters, as well as a repeatable blink source, you can take infinite turns. You can also use alternatives like turning into a copy of it, or manifesting it, so it can leave play without technically entering. Not something you'd see in any 60-card constructed format, but still waaaaay better than Wood Elemental.
Hushbringer also steals leaves the battlefield triggers. You need a Torpor Orb for that to work. just fyi
@@pumkinswift8263 Husbringer cancels it out it if dies. But if you blink Wormfang Manta with Hushbringer out, you'll still get the extra turn without losing one.
@@AbystomaMexicanium That's correct, I misremembered Hushbringer's ability
Two words: Strict Proctor. You are probably combining it with Lotus Field already, so the mana cost isn't even a big deal.
Don't forget Tocatli Honor Guard. That way, even if the creature were to die (to removal or something), you'd still get an extra turn.
I managed to win a game thanks to Blessed Wind once.
When I was starting to play, there was a guy with an Elf deck who could gain hundreds of life points per turn.
He had above one thousand life when I managed to tap all his creatures, then I used Blessed Wind on him and attacked with everything, witch was just a little bit above 20 damage.
Blessed Wind is my favourite burn spell
You could’ve told me Battlewagon had indestructible instead of killing itself after attacking, and I would’ve believed you. And it would still be bad.
Edit: Well, it looks like I’ve been proven wrong. Honestly, I think it would be fun to see a commander group where each person picks a bad card and makes a slight errata to base their deck around it.
It'd be good if it had that, and you're running Exalted.
@@calemr That’s true, it would make a good payoff for Exalted decks. It should’ve been that.
If it had that I feel it'd be edh viable. Having tons of 1/1 tokens and turning them into a big monster would be nice.
The fact that the Keldon Battlewagon doesn't specify "another creature" means you can tap the wagon to give *itself* +X/+0, after all your other creatures already contributed.
You can then combo with any number of untap engines to keep doubling its power, then cap it off with a fling.
@@EnderPryde Even without that, it would be pretty good in white with any kind of vigilance anthem. Attack with your creatures, contribute their power, then tap Battlewagon and double its power. Now you’re attacking with triple force, and 2/3 of that has trample and indestructible.
Vizzerdrix was created to show new players that you don’t get efficient big creatures. The flavor text even indicates this. It’s a cool card for different reasons than stats.
A game flavour win but not a good card. Cool is fine
9th also had a 7 cost Green 6/6 with trample. All big monsters from back then were horrible
@@mattezuka1274 yeah there were a lot of inconsistencies with earlier magic, but I believe Vizzerdrix was stated to be intentionally bad at least...
I'm pretty sure the flavor text of the Vizzerdrix is meant to indicate how strong and dangerous the creature is, not that it is worthless.
One With Nothing was a niche sideboard card that helped you survive against a certain combo deck that wanted you to have lots of cards in your hand. This makes it better than an unplayable draft rare, because unlike all of those, at actually saw play.
After winning a game with One With Nothing, I will defend that card to my dying breath. Also, Wormfang Manta was part of a pretty brutal infinite turn combo back in its day.
I know, completely ignoring the "The Cheese Stands Alone" strat.
@@SBBurzmali its come back as Barren Glory, its a fun deck to play.
@@beanslinger2 Yeah, throw in a few channels to cheat Barren Glory out early and load up with lands and creatures with sacrifice abilities with One With Nothing as one of the ways to drop your hand and you are in business.
@@beanslinger2 Barren Glory works better with Kaervek's Spite and Academy Rector, that's an instant win combo. Always wanted to make a deck with those, thankfully i got the pricey Academy Rector in my pocket and Barren Glory, the other is worth pennies.
That’s scrub tech. Go take a bath 🖕🏻🫵🏻
A lot of these cards are situationally still decent, that's one of the best things about magic. If you want to build around a specific card you think is cool, you can totally do it
One With Nothing + Hivemind + Ertai, Wizard Adept or some other non-spell counter ability to counter your original One With Nothing. One With Nothing might also be playable with Ensnaring Bridge.
Fun fact about the Magister Sphinx: it's set a player's life to 10 is not a may. In a draft the other day, I faced a situation where they bounced my Sphinx, and I had to make them gain life or set myself to 10. Didn't actually end up mattering because I was pretty handily winning, but it did buy the opponent another turn to draw out of the situation.
The leech is a pretty clear example of some of the lessons MtG had to learn about the power level of one mana creatures. For a long time there was an established rate, that creatures typically have power at least equal to their mana value, or else significant upsides to make up for it. The problem is that while a 1 mana 1/1 fits this rate, it's also just too low impact to be worth a card. Even in limited formats, some of the lowest power level where commons and uncommons see play, 1 mana creatures were just a trap that would make your deck worse by including them. So cards like the leech looked good on paper at the time for being an above rate card with a downside, but that rate was just never worth it to begin with at that mana cost. Recently, they've started to rework that thought process for one drops. While they don't push one drops above rate too often, they have learned to just load them up with utility. Abilities to cash in the creature late in the game with some expensive draw effect, repeatable utility, and similar effects mean that it's not a complete disaster to draw the card after the first two turns of the game, where the creature becomes outclassed in combat.
I wonder what cards you could be talking about?
@@jackcois6077 Magister Sphinx, which is briefly mentioned as a better alternative to Blessed Wind, and Alabaster Leech.
This list misses what I personally feel is the actual worst rare in all of Magic - "Pale Moon"
One With Nothing is very very bad, certainly - but it actually does the thing it says on the card when you play it, and that thing *can* impact the state of the game in a meaningful way.
Pale Moon is a 2 mana Instant in blue that makes nonbasic lands (for both players) make colorless mana instead of their usual type, until end of turn. That's it. Some obvious issues:
1) There is no way to actively gain benefit from Pale Moon. There is nothing that happens as a result of Pale Moon that makes it easier for you to play your own cards, to attack your opponent, or to build your board state. You gain no benefit from playing this card; the only possible positive effect is that it might be used to hinders you opponent at a critical moment
2) The effect does not actually hinder your opponent in the vast majority of cases. Many nonbasic lands already produce colorless, making the effect irrelevant. Nonbasic lands used for color fixing are clearly the target of this effect, however if it is late enough in the game, your opponent probably has enough lands out to not be worried about losing a little color from their nonbasics. If it is early enough in the game that your opponent's mana base is small enough that this effect might matter, then it *still* only matters if they happen to be wanting to play a card that requires that color fixing on that specific turn when you play the Pale Moon
3) Even if your opponent is in the narrow situation where the effect *might* hinder them, you have almost no way of knowing whether that is the case before they actually try and play a spell - by which point it is too late. The only way to make this card work is to cast it during their upkeep, before they have the opportunity to tap their lands for mana in a way that can be used to cast things on their main phase; if they actually have something to cast, they can simply respond to the Pale Moon by tapping their mana to float it, then casting that spell after Pale Moon is resolved (if during main phase), or even just casting some Instant or activating some ability in response during the upkeep. If you happen to burn your Pale Moon on a turn when they weren't going to do anything anyway, you've wasted a card, and two mana in the early game, which could have been used advancing your own position.
4) If you use it and it actually manages to stop your opponent from playing anything on a turn when they would have done something, then congratulations - you've managed an effect that was *almost* as good as a Counterspell; except the Counterspell would have gotten rid of the card they tried to play, but since you used Pale Moon, they still have it in hand to try and play later.
You could stop someone popping off as hard as they would otherwise form an Urborg x Cabal Coffers, but it's only delaying it a turn, and they would stil have all their base mana. It's a niche use, but a use non the less.
Wormfang Manta used to be a legit combo piece back when phasing triggered leaves play abilities but not comes into play abilities. We could use Vanishing or Vodalian Illusionist to jut keep phasing it out and getting extra turns. Manta became pretty useless when they changed the rules for phasing
I was looking for this comment!
Helm of Chatzuk is no joke.. the defensive plays are amazing
In defense of Banding: It's fairly terrible when used offensively. But it's actually really solid when used defensively.
One of the best uses for Banding (in modern rulesets - this didn't apply in the old era) is that it makes it so you can easily chump-block a creature with Trample. Because a Trampling creature has to kill ALL of the enemies blocking it, Banding makes it so that you can simply apply all of the damage to the weakest creature so that doesn't happen.
Banding is still a bit niche, but it definitely has its moments when played for blocking rather than attacking.
I personally think that any card that saw play at the highest levels of competitive should automatically be DQ'ed from a list like this...least of all take the top spot.
That is very much one of the reasons why Nizzahon's "bottom 10" lists source data from EDHRec.
I had an EDH deck once which incorporated One with Nothing into my favorite wincon for the deck. With an Academy Rector on the field, I could Renounce everything, then One with Nothing to drop an active Barren Glory at the end of the previous player's turn, and go straight into upkeep, win the game trigger. So many vulnerabilities, but so much fun when it actually pulled it off.
If I'm correct, Vizzerdrix saw competitive success as a sideboard option as well, although not because the card was actually used but because some players liked its plain weirdness enough to put it in the sideboard of competitive decks. Which doesn't make the card good, but I think it's interesting and I also like the fact that it shows that even at competitive levels some players found ways to sneak in pet cards or bad cards just out of passion or to have fun.
I had a serious competitive deck with Cosmic Horror in the sideboard just for fun back in the day.
Similar to Dark/Black Flare Knight; it's a terrible card put into their fusion deck back in the day because it looks cool.
Similar to Dark/Black Flare Knight; it's a terrible card put into their fusion deck back in the day because it looks cool.
Hey, Wormfang Manta can be used for infinite extra turns if you set something to cancel ETBs and manage to blink it at least once each turn, like Conjurer's Closet or Brago.
You'll notice that pretty much all of these cards are very old, from back when they were still learning how to really make the game. I think the newest one is One With Nothing and it's clearly there as a skill testing card.
Nowadays you're more likely to see really weird, experimental cards at Mythic Rare since they show up less frequently and can screw up draft environments less than a regular rare.
I've watched only a few videos from this creator and I've noticed that as well. Not just rip on the old cards, but then the card will get compared to a relatively newer card (often printed many, many years after) as a way to demonstrate how bad it is. It's easy to criticize the early years of Magic (especially banding) but in a game 30 years old, I'd love to see more of a focus on newer cards.
Maybe I've just been unlucky in the videos I've selected? Maybe he does focus on newer cards in other "worst" videos?
@@vancefox He did a video about the worst Mythic Rares and those are somewhat newer since Mythics didn't exist at the start of the game.
It is easy to rip on old cars, but it's also fun.
@@vancefox I agree, the videos seem very poorly researched, the explanations are basic or plain wrong and the comparasion of 20 year old cards with newer ones when there's natural power creep in a game like magic is just a clear sign of how much effort is put on these videos
Not just that, a lot of the old cards HAD niche uses at the time, ether as side deck cards or other things. Like there was no other counter to massive life gains back in the day, so blessed wind had some use.
I feel another instance is when he was doing the top 10 worse alternative win conditions and stuck dark steel reactor at like 5. Stating it was too slow for 20 turns and had very little other ways to gain tokens. Completely ignoring the fact that charge counter decks existed (and still exist if you want to use it) and was played at the time, allowing you to get like all 20 tokens on reactor in like 1-3 turns.
I remember one of the people at my multiplayer table playing a 5 color deck with all of the leeches in it, but every other card in the entire deck was either a colorless artifact or a land, so unless he had 2 or more of the same leech, there were no downsides. Back in 2004, this wasn't actually *that* bad as the leeches were mostly ahead of curve at the time, and the Sunburst mechanic was now a part of the game.
I think you misstated banding a bit there. If creatures are blocking in a band only ONE creature has to have banding. Not "all but one" like when creatures attack in a band. This actually makes Helm of Chatzuk pretty decent in Limited. There are many situations in which it just straight-up stops your opponent from attacking since just one single bander will radically change what happens. Most banding cards were very good in Limited. Even offensive banding could be useful in lots of situations. Great video though overall.
The helm card doesn’t seem too terrible. You’re able to use it on your opponents creatures so you could target one and make it sit out the attack or it’ll be really easy for you to block it.
One with nothing can actually be a good card if you play it in the right deck, and I think that the top 2 should be Sorrow's Path and Teferi's Isle which somehow didnt make the list.
This list shows just how much the creature power curve has accelerated over time. Shivan Dragon and Mahamati Djinns were top of the pyramid as on-cost P/T with evasion. Then the Terror hit. The feels-bad was strong.
This list is about bad rares, yet you keep comparing them to good mythics. It would be better to compare them to similar commons to show how bad they are instead of mythics that are supposed to be the best.
I know banding is not a great keyword, but you give a very bad example for them, like why even use a 3/3 and a 1/1 to block a 2/2, the purpose was more to the point on blocking to use an high attack banding creature and a high toughness creature like a 0/8 wall of stone, so you could in theory bury one attacker without loosing your high power creature. WotC even thought that use of banding was so strong they printed anti support for it with battering ram, a artifact 1/1 creature with baning that would automaticaly destroy any wall that blocked its bands attack.
The helm is not bad, banding on blockers doesn't just let the blocker assign the damage order, it lets them assign the damage. For example if you attack with a 10/10 I can block with 2 4/4s and a 2/2 with banding, then I can kill your 10/10 and assign all the damage to the 2/2.
whilst that interaction is true. would you not be better off removing the 10/10 or racing whilst playing a 1 mana 1/1 to fodder block as it will yield an extremely similar impact to the game. You are not wrong that that interaction is not bad but cards like thopter foundry, shadow spear, currency converter, pithing needle and avarice totem are a lot better in many more scenarios and they are just 1 mana artefacts I can name (would recommend reading Urza's saga). Also what happens if the opponent removes a creature before they attack, what if they don't attack until they can remove a creature, what if you don't draw a creature. The natural variance of the game makes it extremely unlikely that helm of chatzuk impacts the game. Don't get me wrong every card needs to be tested, that's how we learnt the power of power conduit or death's shadow. But for a card to be good it needs to be consistent or occasionally game winning to be considered a decent card.
I'd love to see card prices added to the videos - just as a small number below the presented cards. I feel like it adds some context regarding supply and demand. It also saves a google search if you're considering adding the card to your deck, such as in your utility land video :)
On One With Nothing - there was once a release with Hellbent mechanic, that gave creatures extra abilities, usually extra stats if you had no cards in hand. So technically you could make a deck with an 'attack gamble' where you lineup your hellbent creatures, discard entire hand and attack all at once, for 'all or nothing'.
So, most of the cards you're mentioning are pre 8th edition, and you're comparing them to post 8th edition cards. Early magic cards were a much wider gambit on power level. Rares are supposed to be either more powerful, cost less mana, be more complex, or break the color wheel. Since 8th edition the average power level of cards has gone up, and they break color wheel restrictions more often, as well as bend the wheel a bit. there are many bad rares in magic that saw some level of play simply because at the time the cards around them were also for the most part fairly mediocre especially if you're comparing them to cards made much more recently, even at the common level.
I think some of the point of your argument gets lost when you're comparing cards printed more than two years apart from each other. Not that it makes those cards seem better in that sense, but in standard a lot of cards get used, and in modern, legacy, and vintage, only the best cards get used. and it's not particularly fair to compare cards like Splendid Reclamation to Black Lotus as an example. They're just from very different times.
He's a Yugioh main.
Hes using logic from a different game to judge Magic.
Such as the fact that lifegain is useless in Yugioh, but there are white strats in magic that literally revolve around lifegain.
Hell, the best deck I've ever played with was an orzhov vampire deck.
@@ofox716 so then it's like comparing Blowback Dragon to The Weather Painter Moonbow. Still completely different eras of Yu gi oh, and not very appropriate to compare when calculating value. Completely different times of the game. Both for the players as well as for the game designers. and as Yugioh only has Advanced and Traditional Format, which are equivalent to Legacy and Vintage. Most cards will fall under the useless category. And in some of these example cases it's like comparing a super rare to a secret ultra rare. obviously one card is going to intentionally be built different.
He's comparing cards printed almost 2 decades apart
@@MetalPheonix He does this in his Yugioh videos, too, sometimes. I think it's just a general flaw in his outlook, maybe? Though I have seen the attitude of 'magic bad' from yugioh players before, usually siting old, old depreciated card rules that were poorly worded, or sub-game cards. Usually also missing that Yugioh started life as a magic clone and benefited greatly from MtG existing and doing a lot of the stumbling on its behalf.
Mishra's War Machine from Antiquities was shockingly bad... even for the time.
7 Mana to cast a 5/5 artifact creature (with banding... Yeah!)
It required you to discard a card rom your hand on your upkeep, or the creature became tapped and you lost 3 life.
"Use Helm of Chatzuk to give my (Cho-Mano/Mogg Maniac/Brash Taunter) banding, band it with this big trample-y thing with a really low toughness and swing. How much damage do YOU want to take?"
I remember having vizzerdrix when I played magic back in elementary school. Even back then I realized it was bad because it was too expensive.
I really highly disagree with how you're downplaying banding. It's really quite a powerful effect, although it's not put on anything at reasonable cost, especially with current power levels in mind.
Probably because he only described how it works while attacking, not blocking where it is much better.
@@justinkarels6028 He's described it with blocking in another video, but still downplays it a lot.
The example he uses really bugs me. "You can just block a whole band with one creature." I mean yeah, that's the point. The person declaring a band wants that to happen. You wouldn't want banding in a deck you're running your opponent's life total down. It's a control keyword.
I wish I had a One With Nothing card, these types of cards are always memorable and fun to collect.
The downside of Wormfang manta can be dealt with kinda easily with cards that prevent ETB effects from triggering. Keep bouncing it at the end of your turn and you can more or less just lock your opponent(s) out of the game if they dont have anyything to interrupt the combo with.
My solution was Mimic Vat + Torpor Orb.
The ETB triggers never happen, and you create a Wormfang Manta token with haste that self exiles every turn.
Strict Proctor to prevent the ETB effect, and any cheap blink effect to pop the leave the battlefield effect. If the Manta was legal in Pioneer, I swear I'd try to make it into a deck.
The explanations in this video are painfully basic and the cards on the list are just old cards exploring certain concepts that weren't in the game yet or doing neat things, like the big blue vanilla, it's a rare because it's an old ass big blue vanilla, you can compare any very old card with any new card and point out how the later makes the old card obsolete and it's just because of the natural power creep of a card game over so many years
Honestly bad video, just your quick to make, poorly researched top 10 trying to bait some views, one of the lowest forms of content
Everyone misunderstands One With Nothing. It was printed at the same time as Hellbent cards. Also, it's a black card that puts stuff into your graveyard
Kids these days will never understand the OP power of banding. My favourite game mechanic back in the day.
Do you just, not research the meta of the blocks prior to these cards come out and ignore the context in which the cards come out? Your content is hard to watch because it’s common to all your videos I’ve watched.
A lot of people point out that certain notoriously bad cards have some niche uses in commander. But that's really a moot point because just about any card in existence can find some niche use in commander due to the nature of the format.
For Wood Elemental: Dauntless Dourbark is a later card that’s just strictly better.
Cost: 3G. P/T equal to the number of Forests you control, and has two tribe synergies. No land sacrifice needed.
If I'm gonna discard my entire hand, then I better pay 0 and get 3 mana out of it (Lion's Eye Diamond).
Putting One with Nothing at #1 is pretty stupid. It saw competitive play after all.
Who up playing with they Mungha Wurm rn??
Usually these cards are terrible for their cost. Sometimes its a fun thought experiment to debate what cost would make one of these bad cards worth it.
One with Nothing can win games, if played very strategically.
There was a period of time where Wormfang Manta had combo potential with phasing. Currently, phasing in/out doesn't count as entering/leaving the battlefield, but for a time the rules said phasing out *did* cause triggers, while phasing in did not. So if you could find a way to phase the manta out, you would get an extra turn but not have to skip one.
I don't think this was ever competitively viable due to the manta's mana cost, but i had fun with it around the kitchen table.
Blink effect like yoron and thassa bcan make it go nuts in combo with torpor orb
@@mattbutler4953 I mean, yeah, but pairing flicker effects with torpor orb really doesn't make sense aside for wormfang manta
@@Registeel1234 it does mske sense with cards with etb you don't want and ltbs you do want. UW and U have ways to tutor out torpor orb so its not huge obsticle. Mantra doesn't exist in a vacuum. Any deck focusing on ltbs can be strong with that combo in it. The video is supposed to be the worst rares, not rares that require minor work arounds not counting legacy formats.
you should put set/ year printed on screen for those of us who dont know all the set symbols.
The Vizzerdrix entry reminds me of another mtg video with the worst removals having Vengeance among them.
Vizzerdrix is the best colored beater blue would have for years since it's release, similar to how vengeance dates back to when white didn't have as many cheap removals.
Both are much worse by today's standards and were never GOOD, but they didn't start off as THE WORST.
Maybe, but both Air Elemental and Mahamoti Djinn were already a thing, and both are helluva lot better then Vizzbunny. I remember some guys making fun of Djinn because it was "basic", but he then had no answer when I drop Djinn into play and it start smacking him in two turns.
As for the Leeches, the Red, Blue and White ones have a home in Zedruu the Greathearted decks in commander. As giving them to your opponent benefits you because you draw cards when you do.
Swap the blue and white ones for the green and black ones and this also applies to Beamtown bullies decks as well
Dude… One with nothing is awesome! I play it with Bone Miser when I don’t have Zombie Infestation available to me. I gives me mana, zombies, and draw. You just make sure you play Shadow Of The Grave on the stack holding priority and play One with nothing so that it goes off first and you get your cards back to use the mana. Best used with a big hand from Peer Into the Abyss. Then you‘ll possible get to discard down again for cleanup and get more triggers and if you play it nicely you can have multiple cleanups and instant plays like a Gitrog or Hapatra deck! Having flash or an Emergence zone to sack and give flash works awesomely here.
You know i respect players loving a gimicky card like one with nothing but its hard to argue that this card is or was ever good, just because there are so many other cards that are actually doing its job way better or being more versatile.
Love your gimick cards, but dont call it good of the combo is way to convoluted
@@WiiTara I play the card in 3 decks and it works fine. In fact it is often a perfect card. Most cards that people say are “powerful or good” are crap without a board state or support cards. If you look at a commander like Balthor, the Defiled you’ll understand why it’s great. Nothing convoluted about a 1 drop, it can be an instant win in my deck!
You only looked at the Helm of Chatzuk from the offensive side instead of the defensive side, where it is much more useful. Here, if at least one creature that is blocking an attacker has banding, the defender gets to choose how to assign damage. This means that if you block a 5/4 trampling creature with 4 - 1/1 creatures and give one of them banding, you can choose how to assign the damage, assigning all of it to one creature. You can even choose not to assign any trample damage to yourself.
Every time hes brought up banding hes only looked at it offensively, it's such an interesting defensive control slow down mechanic to protect utility creatures
Was hoping to see Aladdin's Ring on here. It was printed at rare for dozens sets before finally being downshifted. That card is literal toilet jewelry.
Top 10 best jokes in goblin cards...
I know since my university days, that the flavor text from Goblins where always jokes.
Well on a more serious suggestion, how about best/worst keywords in MTG (Trample, Lifelink, etc.)
Raging Goblin has always been one of my all-time favorites.
Wood elemental is the worst rare of MTG.
I actually have a pretty efficient deck using one with nothing as a combo piece for a win condition. Having hive mind and megrim on the field you can make your opponents draw a bunch of cards and then have them discard all they're hand to kill them.
A lot of these are used for their time and some have VERY niche uses.
Just chose a lot of very old and niche rares and compared them to modern power creep, plus banding is most effective defensively against trample to conserve utility creatures
I feel *One With Nothing* could be considered with Self-mill in Commander if you focus more on your graveyard as your main "hand" than the actual hand. But that is still very risky and difficult to do.
Oddly I did see a card that might work with it brink of madness its not good but its something
At least, in commander, Blessed Wind is more mana effective than a Fireball. Not taking life gain into consideration, but if you have a player late game that hasn't taken any damage and sits at 40, you take 20 life from him for 9 mana. A Fireball would have to pay 21 mana to do this, and people fondly remember Fireball.
I actually ran Eater of Days back in the day in my blue white deck, I played it together with that blue counter spell that countered triggered abilities so it basically was a 5 drop 9/8 flying trample that made you discard a card. Pretty good but definitely not quite as good as the other stuff around at that time.
Hi, as a long time player of Magic, i have seen a few of your videos recently and have realised that you are taking the cards out of context. Some of these cards were useful because of when they were released. You are comparing really old card to modern cards where the dynamic of the game has changed entirely. Kjeldon battlewagon was meant to break white defense decks, protection vs artifacts was weak and as such all damage from the wagon would kill any creatures, or at least threaten to, it was also meant as a last move one hit kill. Blessed wind was not meant to be used on yourself but to reset another player life total back DOWN to 20 because there were many near infinite life gain decks in white, and for One with nothing, there were many combos that needed you to have no cards in hand in order to search your deck or draw multiple cards. Please understand that some of the explanations you are giving are needless, almost nobody plays those cards anymore anyway, especially since they are no longer valid in standard play ( which only include the last 2 years of cards, or about 6 released series ).
Manta has a good synergy with things that counter etb effects.
Counter it the first time and you have a time walk on a 6/1 stick.
Easy to bring earlyd o the game with exhume or something.
Then again nowdays creatures are much stronger.
Seems kinda dishonest to compare Vizzerdrix, a 1999 card, to a bunch of mythic rare cards--a rarity that didn't even exist until almost 10 years later. By the time mythic rares came out, power creep was in full effect. Besides, as others have already pointed out, it's a pretty strong blue creature. Those weren't too common at the time. Finally, it was first printed as part of the 1999 *Starter* set, meaning it was for new players. That's another reason it doesn't have a bunch of crazy abilities. In fact, I actually bought that starter set back in the day, and I fondly remember using it to teach myself, my brothers, and even my mother how to play Magic. Since I'm still playing today, I guess it got the job done.
I've made some research for this (I was really bored), and Helm of Chatzuk is actually pretty good in a dedicated Commander banding deck. It's a very niche commander deck, but at least it's not as useless as North Star or the Battlewagon.
Re:wormfang manta
It fits as a top end in Torpor Orb Jank, on account of Torpor Orb turning off *all* enter the battlefield triggers on creatures passively.
You effectively turn it into a 5 mana time walk with a 2 mana 6/1 flyer attached.
Granted, that's obviously not meta, and as stated, Eater of Days is *way* better (as is Phyrexian Dreadnaught) in that deck, but there *are* conditions you can find where it is so much better than Vizerdrix
did you know:
If you give Helm of Chatzuk to an Indestructible, any creature Banded together with it also becomes Indestructible.
*Banding = a way to make multiple creatures indestructible, basically.*
If One with nothing was red or blue it would be good in a wheel deck. Like Rielle the Everwise where with her power being the number of instant and sorceries in your graveyard.
When the Eater of days had just come out, my group got stomped by this guy who would stifle the effect. could consistently get it on turn 3. on turn 4 he would equip that sucker with the hammer that gives lifelink and +2 attack and just whomp on you. without stifle, the strat was useless though.
Not going to say that banding is good, but it works a lot better on defense than you’re giving it credit for. It doesn’t let the defending player decide damage order, it lets the defending player decide how damage is assigned. If a 3/3 hill giant attacks and is blocked by a 1/1 benalish hero and two 1/1 soldier tokens, the defending player can assign all three damage to a single 1/1 token, only causing you to lose a single 1/1 and the 3/3 still dies. Without banding, you’d get 3 for 1’d.
There were two starter decks where one player has 6/6 Trained Orgg as a win condition, and the other player has 6/6 Vizzerdrix. The player who got their 6/6 first, or protected it better, would win the game. It would only make sense for that bomb to be rare.
People talk about making one with nothing work when you can just... play Putrid Imp? Same mana cost, but you get a body and can discard any amount of cards whenever you want instead of all at once.
Thanks!
holy smoke, the first one would be bad as a common, 1/1 per mana is the base level, if you are below that, you need something to compensate, like cannot lose until in play or similar small effects.
I recall a comment on Gatherer where someone said Wood Elemental's art looks like Nazi-era propaganda and I think of that whenever I see the card because it totally does 😄
hahaha, Mungha Wurm and Keldon battlewagon do not belong on this list. I'm not sure Alabaster Leech or Vizzerdrix does either. Not when stuff like Pale Moon and Mudhole exists. Aysen Highway a 3WWW enchantment that gives white creatures plainswalk.
Keldon Battlewagon could have been salvaged if it returned to hand instead (simulating the idea that it was to go back to the garage for repairs) 😅
The Mana cost would have to come down too. (3) at most.
Didn't i see One with Nothing in another video of yours? Was it the video about alternate win conditions or something? Pretty sure you mentioned it in another video.
Rhystic Studies did an amazing video on One with Nothing, and even gave a olay pattern to use it to commit MTG-Seppukku. It's a really beautiful opening sequence that leaves you empty handed and dead on board on turn 1
Back in the halycon days of 2010, my FLGS used to use Vizzerdrix cards with your store credit value in sharpie written on them. Only time I've seen a Vizz worth more than $5.
Also why does every MTG youtuber use the "If you have a 1/1 and a 3/3 and I have a 2/2" scenario to explain banding? You're showing you don't actually understand the value of the ability or you're just aping shit you heard without every playing against it.
the vizzerdrix is rare because it is blue, and at that time in magic there were very few big blue creatures
Helm of Chatzuk is great with certain cards. Think Taunting Elf, and either Darksteel Myr or Predator Ooze. Band them together for (1), attack with all creatures, everything defending players HAS to block the elf/myr (or ooze) band and all other creatures deal damage. Then also YOU assign all the damage to myr/ooze. Better effect, add Seedborne Muse and untap them all :)
Now, One with Nothing..... with Ensnaring Bridge. Think on that for a bit.
My deck can easily give me several hundred life. I'm pretty sure that's pretty good.
So which ones do i have? Did i ever use them?
-Vizzerdrix, useful back in the day where blue had almost nothing to attack with, and it was a starter deck card, just as good, or should i say, bad, as that 6/6 red ogre in the other starter deck. I did use it back in the day, but now?, hell no.
-Keldon Battlewagon, just garbage
-Blessed Wind, once decreased someones HP from like 150 back to 20, that was fun :P
-Alabaster Leech (also got Jade Leech), just trash cards.
Vizzerdrix is an old creature so comparing it with modern time creatures is not fair! ;)
Overall comparing cards outside their time or meta they existed in, is not a really fair way to evaluate cards since also Magics design philosophy has changed A LOT!
Just take your example of North Star vs. Chromatic Lantern, there is a time gap of 20! years between these two.
Some cards are rare for reasons to not get pulled too often in Drafts or just for the simple reason they're doing too much back in the day/ beeing a wall of text *cough* Keldon War Wagon *cough*.
I'd recommand redoing this video and then putting cards in different eras, since I already explained a lot goes into evaluating a card. :)
Here some infos on some of the cards:
Vizzerdrix as explained was a bit of a color break, doing something blue wasn't know for which is why it was a rare. Also for Draft reasons to prevent blue to get too many of them. Also it comes from the Starter 1999 set, which was designed for beginers.
One for Nothing might be bad but it saw tournament play which is just bonkers!
It was a sideboard tech against a certain deck in Standard that won when your opponent had too many hand cards, burning them hard.
Blessed Wind sets life to a certain point, if you combine it with something like Tainted Remedy, you can kill opponents since they now get the life missing up til 20 as damage. Not that bonkers but it has some use.Also the effect was pretty unique back in the day and for a long time the maybe biggest life gain you could get from a single card for a long time.
Mungha Wurm falls in the category old cards are mostly weaker cards when it comes to creatures. A 6/5 for 4 was strong back then!
Also this card needs to be seen in its "ecosystem"/meta/format.
Prophecy was one of the weakest sets ever printed and had this wierd untapped/tapped lands cards with effects based on those.
So in a way you could abuse/benefit from its effect. Oh and there was something called Mana Burn back in the day, that if you just tapped land for mana without using the mana it would deal damage, so you couldn't just tap lands to get the effects of certain cards without sideffects. ;)
Alabaster Leech, again... Old card, older times, much older design philosophy.
The whole cycle is kinda bad and it is but back then we never saw a 1/3 for 1 really. So it got the rare threatment. Back then a 2/1 for W was worth beeing rare, just to set it a bit in perspective.
Today it would be a common, ofc, but like I keep saying, older days, older designs. ;)
Wood Elemental is from Legends the third set Magic ever made, so ofc they were testing themselves out and got not the designs down yet.
There is a reason why so many old cards are either absolute trash or absolute bonkers! ;)
This falls in the first catagory.
Wormfang Manta might be bad when played but if you can kinda blink it and somehow negate its ETB effect it gets decent.
As stated with Vizzerdrix, blue wasn't really the color with the big beaters and this is an insanely big beater with flying.
Also certain effects like extra turns, are so good, that they'll always be on a rare.
A truly bad rare doesn't just ruin your own day, but set your opponent up for a win at the same time. Look no further than Sky Swallower, and Tempting Wurm.
Sky Swallower is 5 mana for an 8/8 with Flying and Trample which, when it enters the battlefield, has your opponent gain control of ALL other permanents you control, even your lands. The creature is large and threatening, especially for a Blue creature, but setting yourself SO far back on resources while also rocketing your opponent ahead in one go is tantamount to handing them the game just like that.
Tempting Wurm is a similar boat, being a 5/5 for only 2 mana. However, it allows your opponent to put any number of non-planeswalker permanents from their hand into play, for free. Divine Gambit is considered a bad card for giving your opponent ONE free permanent from their hand. At best, your opponent has a fistful of instants/sorceries and you can have your smug satisfaction. On average, the opponent will put several lands, and a blocker into play for free. At worst, your opponent can drop several lands, a useful enchantment, and a creature that outstrips your Wurm by a country mile, which will be ready to attack on their turn. It goes without saying that casting Tempting Wurm in a Commander game with three opponents is merely an exercise to see how badly you can screw yourself out of a game with one card.
Since I haven't seen anyone else say it, 1) All of Prophecy kinda sucked. Even the novel sucked. Some people would say the whole Masques block, although I'm pretty fond of the other 2 sets. 2) Keldon Battlewagon was printed when damage still used the stack. So you could attack for 0, force your opponent to declare blockers first, and then buff its power according to their decisions. Since it can't survive combat anyway, you could channel all your other creatures through it for a hit, once, at no risk.Not that it was ever good, but it used to be better than it is now.
EDIT: After seeing the rest of this video, that's true of most of these cards: they were either better when printed than they are now, or they're part of combos you don't know about.
Keldon Battlewagon is the ancestor of "Crew" and/or equipment
Honestly, comparing super old card to new card it kind of unfair. except the power9, very few card from Antiquity time period can compare to the most recent set...
Mungha wurm is GREEN, meaning you got a million mana ramp (like elfs) that are not land right beside it to summon it and suchs...
Wormfang is fine. the opponent do NOT want to kill it nor remove it (since it will give you an extra turn) making it's 1 toughness a strenght and not a weakness. so Husbringer it or use some blue spell to freeze your opponent land to limit what he can do in a single turn... bring the Wormfang out and watch your opponent choose between taking a 6 damage to the face or block it and give you an extra turn...
and if you can blink it in and out (and control your opponent next turn) you could have a lot of extra turn, while giving a few weak limited extra turn to your opponent
Every card is bad when you're using it wrong. Helm of chatzuk is a defensive card. Banding on defense let's you manipulate damage to an insane degree. It blanks first strike and trample. People most players think lol bAnDiNg iS So cOnFuSiNg. Banding got the axe not because it was complicated but bc it just stopped combat.
I understand that One with Nothing is famously a bad rare, but it was a key piece of my Rakdos deck back when Ravnica first came out, I'd blitz mana ramp and get a Pit Dragon on the field with Taste for Mayhem(s) on it, then swing for lethal on turn four/five by using fatal Frenzy then One with Nothing in response. It was surprisingly effective.
I've won games off the back of One with Nothing in a set roulette challenge once. Legal sets were urzas block, kamigawa block, and bfz block. Turn one on the play, swamp, dark ritual, exhume, hold priority, one with nothing, discarding the void winnower in my hand
the helm is correct as a bad card when using it for attacking but defense you could make it really hard to get threw you can just drain all the trample damage for example. but reality is your better off using "Defensive Formation" since it grants the control to assign damage how they want if they are attacked.
morning star is pretty bad to add the tiniest little not you could make it better by using Zirda or Power conduit (or both) bcause it would make that ability cost 2 instead of 1. but reality is your better off using "Chromatic lantern" or "Chromatic orrery"
there was easier arguments for wind...you could have just pointed out "Resolute Archangel" for 2 mana less it saids your life total becomes your starting life total so you just go start back to the beginning. even better still is "Oketra's last mercy" same thing for only 3 mana but you don't get to untap your lands but you could have a "Wilderness reclamation" effect in play
and the wurm and whatever colored leech('s) just use them in bad gifts.
lol... I remember Mungha Wurm was suppose to be a stronger Blastoderm (Nemesis) as said by some to pre-release spoilers... how wrong they were.
Vizzerdrix was rare because his Little Cousin was a tv and vhs Star. Check out "Magic the Gathering Starter Instructional VHS • 60 FPS 1999" and "Magic: The Gathering: Fluffy Bunny"
Regarding One with nothing: I have a Hellbent-Deck which is pretty fun (but not that good nontheless) to play. It's not bad to get the Hellbent-effect instantly with one mana...
It really makes no sense to put cards that have seen competitive play and/or actually have an use in the list when there are cards like Circle of Life, Common Cause, Assembly Hall, Wintermoon Mesa, Sorrow's Path and friggin Pale Moon.
And wood elemental at #7? Really?
Vizzerdix was in a "preconstructed" deck which was given for free, it was a pure blue deck with 15 cards, and there was also a similar red deck, with another 6/6 7 mana card. It was never really a rear, you could get any number of it if you wanted. But generally comparing 20 years old cards to recent ones is not fair, then the game was much slower, and especially creatures were much weaker.
Helm of Chatzuk is one of the worst rares ever? That doesn't seem right. Out of all the banding cards, Helm of Chatzuk is probably the best one because it lets you give banding to creatures that don't suck (while all the actual banding creatures are terrible by today's standards), and it's so cheap to cast and activate. There are so many absolutely awful rares in this game that it's ridiculous that Helm of Chatzuk would be in the top ten. Worse than all those 1/1s for 4 with bad abilities?