Storm you couldn't do anything about but make the storm count go higher on a turn...Thousand Year Storm can be removed from the board at instant speed or countered before it gets onto the board and costs 6. The two are not comparable.
Lol. I love how wizards not only didn't recognize how powerful delve would be, but they did so with flying colors. I'd love to hear the pitch for treasure cruise. "Let's print a sorcery speed ancestral recall, with the proviso that you have a ton of cards in your graveyard to cast it!" "How many is a ton?" "Seven sounds good, right?" "Seems weak. Let's make it a common."
To be fair, it was common level. The only big distinguisher on power level is “how bad will this be in Limited?” And in Limited it was ok, not bad, but fine at common as even in Khans’s reasonably slow environment you didn’t want more than one.
Have you watched the r+d episode for the sultai? Where they state, the cards get better in eternal formats, and the best delve card is probably murderous cut and how they expect it to see play in modern... oh how naive you were wotc
For as much as we can say that Treasure Cruise and Dig Through Time were aimed at Standard and limited, it's REALLY hard to look past the fact WOTC didn't think hard enough on how these cards would interact with eternal formats. I remember the moment those 2 were spoiled I knew it was a mistake. I'm even more somewhat surprised that Murderous Cut still doesn't see alot of eternal play but it's hard to beat out Gurmag Angler and Logic Knot in modern alone.
Worth pointing out that Devotion is literally just a rebranding of Chroma (or at least a subset of Chroma) which was on the worst mechanics list. Really highlights how it's not just the mechanic that's busted, but how Wizards chose to apply it.
Yeah I think dominating standard because they have good synergy in their own set isn't necessarily a sign of being broken -- just that the set wasn't balanced well. On the flip side, it's really interesting that some of the most broken mechanics weren't that broken in standard
1. Chroma was on very few cards in its one and only set and devotion appeared on a lot of cards in the 3 sets it was in 2. Chroma relied entirely on reminder text while devotion was quantifiable in it of itself. Example: Springjack Shepherd had the ability chroma which made you create a number of 0/1 white goats equal to the white symbols in the mana costs of your permanents while Master of Waves makes a number of 1/0 red elementals equal to your devotion to blue. See what I mean 3. Not all chroma cards checked permanents while devotion only ever checked permanents Chroma was bad because it was poorly implemented and was replaced by devotion because devotion was far more streamlined
I have no idea why they feel Delve has a future. Sure, you could make Delve cards that aren’t broken! By making Delve nearly pointless or making them total shit! But you could do the same damn thing with Storm.
@@TheShinyFeraligatr It's easier to "Fix" Phyrexian Mana and Delve than Storm because they don't have any inherent oversights. All of the 10s on the storm scale are there because they're unfixable. Things like Artifact Lands, Ante, or Storm all have some reason that they're pretty much unusable. In the case of Storm, it's probably the fact that it's so easy to turn it into this huge spell that can't be countered. Delve and Phyrexian mana can both ideally be fairly costed, although it'd take a miracle for them to return, which is what an 8 on the storm scale means anyways.
@@TheShinyFeraligatr Honestly, the easiest way to fix Delve would be to make a variant of it, sort of how "Hexproof from Black/White" was on those two cards from Dominaria. You could do something like this: "Delve 4 (Up to four cards can be exiled from your graveyard as you cast this spell. Each card you exile pays for 1)". Boom. Easy, simple, still lets you get the payoff but isn't nearly as busted.
Yeah, Infect is one of those things that seem intimidating to newer players. The issue with Infect is that a lot of creatures with that ability are very weak, so creature removal spells really destroy these strategies. Also, if a deck plays Merlia, the whole strategy just folds.
Infect is STRONG, but it isn't BROKEN. Infect isn't hard to deal with, because it's only really good when you have the element of surprise, and you can kill your opponent in THAT moment. But even after that, once you get to round 2, the x factor's basically gone. The most infect does now is force people to sacrifice creatures they didn't want to lose early by swinging into them, but most infect creatures are scrawny enough that you're losing that creature in the process. Again, strong card, just not BROKEN.
any token, creature, or removal based decks can all deal with infect pretty easily with only 1 exception, Blightsteel Colossus and maaaaaybe Inkmoth Nexus
The Storm Scale isn't just about power, Stork is the namesake because it also requires a lot of memory to keep track of how many spells have been cast.
I gotta say, I absolutely remember Dredge being huge in standard. We had Narcomoeba, Bridge From Below, Dread Return and Flame-Kin Zealot all in standard at the same time as the Dredge mechanic. Nearly every standard deck at the time side boarded Leyline of the Void or Tormad's Crypt, often times both actually.
I'm loving these double uploads. It gives me twice the chance to flex the most powerful mechanic of all, the Request Video Topic Mechanic. It allows me to request top 10 vintage cards.
@@julianlastname5730 The name is Power 9, not Power Ten, and no, Timetwister is not better than Bazaar of Baghdad, Mishra's Workshop or Library of Alexandria. You have no idea what you're talking about.
Sean Hrecho many people consider library of Alexandria to be just as strong as the power nine, and therefore call it the power ten instead. You don’t need to assume I don’t know what I’m talking about
@@julianlastname5730 Black Lotus, Mox Pearl, Mox Sapphire, Mox Jet, Mox Ruby, Mox Emerald, Sol Ring, Time Walk, Ancestral Recall, and Timetwister. Done. Well okay maybe Library of Alexandria instead of Timetwister, but still
Blows my mind that they printed a card that can be played in any deck, costs 2 life and no mana, and let's you both see your opponent's hand AND draw a card. What were they thinking.
The question they have never been able to answer is how much life is a card worth. And I think that is in part because it's variable. If it doesn't kill you any amount of life is worth a card.
I have always viewed annihilator as simply the most unhealthy mechanic. I'd rather get combo'd off by storm or have to deal with early threats with dredge or delve effects then deal with that stupidity of annihilator.
I guess how that math fail comes together is that he took reference to 2 different sets of phyrexian mana cards the one who has phyrexian mana in the card cost (where are proably 23 around) and cards that have normal mana cost but phyrexian mana active abilities + cards with phyrexian mana cost (34)
Mmm I don’t think it’s worth very much tbh - it’s one of the less useful mechanics out of all of them. I’d rather have lifelink, and that one isn’t that insane either.
I think one of the issues with Vigilance is how oppressive the mechanic is when it's good and how useless it often is when it's bad. When good: For instance if you control a huge fatty with Vigilance with no chance of it dying (or bounce off) to the opponent's blockers, then you can attack for free while still keeping a strong shield up that definitely can block and kill any of your opponent's attackers. That means your opponent cannot efficiently block nor attack. When bad: If you have a weak creature with Vigilance you cannot attack for free. And if you do and the creature dies, it would be no different than if it did not have Vigilance. If your opponent's creatures are all tapped, you can attack for free and still have it up as a blocker for the next turn. However since you couldn't attack for free before your opponent tapped out or attacked with the specific problematic creatures, your Vigilance creature is more likely to chump block than to bounce into one of your opponent's attackers. When Vigilance is bad but still applicable, you're basically trading life losses with your opponent at a worse rate than his attacks - otherwise he wouldn't attack. If you have ways to capitalize on these tradings, either by buffing or gaining life to tip the trading in your favor, then it makes sense. Otherwise I would rather have the stats or another keyword on my creature. The best scenario for Vigilance when bad but applicable is to combine it with evasion to make the attacks free but still keep the potential for a blocker up. However that is using two keywords instead of straight stats and it makes Vigilance on its own poor. When Vigilance is good, it is almost too good and oppressive because it is always active for combat. When Vigilance is bad, it is either useless or only applicable in fringe situations. This volatile nature of two extremes is a reason why I think not that many naturally good Vigilance creatures are printed compared to most other evergreen keywords. Same thing with Double Strike, although when Double Strike is bad, it has many more applications than Vigilance IMO. It is also easier to make Double Strike good than to make Vigilance good. Vigilance almost has the opposite synergy of Deathtouch. You want your Deathtouch creatures to be as cheap and small as possible to maximize the effect of Deathtouch. When your Deathtouch creatures are also fatties, like 5/5, the value of Deathtouch diminishes drastically. The opposite is true for Vigilance. Other evergreen keywords that are only "good" sometimes, like Reach or Trample is often not costing much in terms of stats or mana but Vigilance more often than not is.
I loved storm for what is WAS (concept and play), not how badly it was broken. That said, the mechanic that came out a few sets later called Split Second would stop a storm deck in an heartbeat, if only there were more than 5-6 cards in all of magic. Interrupts and split second should make a slight come back so we can see more diversity and break up combo decks a little.
Question about methodology: would it have made more sense, instead of using your usual point-counting methods for this list, to instead count banned and restricted cards with that mechanic? I suppose it depends on personal definitions of "broken," but when I hear that word, I'm not thinking of strong-but-"fair" cards like Sakura Tribe Elder or Kird Ape; I'm thinking of degenerate combo pieces/enablers/hard locks/format-warpers like Black Lotus and Necropotence. You could try a scale such as: 2 points for each banning in Standard, Block, Pauper, or Commander 3 points for each banning in Modern or Extended 4 points for each banning in Legacy or restriction in Vintage I get that there is a downside of less reliability, because sometimes bannings or restriction decisions have been controversial - for instance, is Frenzied Raptors really more broken than Hazoret? - but perhaps that method would get to more of the truly broken mechanics while leaving out a fundamentally powerful-but-fair mechanic like Flashback. Flashback is really powerful, don't get me wrong, as a built-in 2-for-1, and there have been some overpowered flashback cards (Faithless Looting?) - but it's inherently oriented towards long-term value and limited to just two shots at an effect, rather than fitting hand-in-glove with instant combo wins (like Storm) or infinitely repeatable soft locks (like Buyback).
I made same point about grave storm. It's only on one card and that's because it's just as broken or in the hands of token decks more broken, than normal storm, but it was printed on one card, and only works in token decks or second sunrises, but it's super mill so you don't have to worry about go to graveyard effects.
Number 2: Counter target spell. There are only 2 kinds of people who ever try to defend the storm mechanic: Storm players and people lying about not being storm players.
I remember delve and I remember hating it but I did not expect it to be the top of the list. Looking back, every deck in standard was either Abzan Rhinos or B/U Delve, so I guess it makes sense.
Well considering they created the storm scale to determine the power level of mechanics and if it can be reprinted because storm was so broken they cant really reprint it cause it's too powerful to reprint in any significant amount.
I think just that it hasn't appeared in standard or modern for the most part cause wizards realized how crazy it is. There is a reason that some of the most powerful decks in the least limited formats.
@@SeanHrecho I assume all of the *blank*cycling effects were just classified as cycling...like how "bands with other" would just be considered banding.
They never said that. Storm Scale, like all of Maro's scales, is for Standard, not supplemental sets. There's another Delve card in MH1 that isn't busted, Magmatic Sinkhole.
Cool vid Its interesting that storm, dredge and delve wernt really broken in standard but became troublesome in formats with larger card pools. One way to view this is that the broken aspects of those formats are best utilized by these mechanics, rather than the problem being with the mechanics themselves. Perhaps a similar analysis looking only at standard (and possibly pauper) would be an interesting comparison. I suspect phyrexian mana and affinity would still be busted using that methodology.
My very first mtg product I ever owned or played with was the izzet vs golgari duel deck I got when I was 13. Because of that dredge has a special place in my heart for giving me a copy of grace troll, life from the loam, Jared, and other fun cards like stinkweed imp
Fun fact: Bands With Other (a worse version of worst mechanic according to Nizzahon's scale, saved only by the fact that it only had 8 cards printed) is an 11 on the Storm scale. It's so confusing and bad that they had to pull a Spinal Tap.
You think it would be possible to use Phyrexian mana in tandem with regular colored mana? So a spell could cost, like, 2 colorless, a black mana, and a phyrexian black mana. That way, the card can't literally be jammed into every deck imaginable because you still have to pay some colored mana. I feel that might still have too much potential to be busted, but who knows.
while possible it would be a little..... ugly. a more elegant fix would be just increasing the amount of generic mana required. adding 1 to every cost would make a lot more cards fair. would still be too splash able but would mean paying extra to do so.
The storm scale is the likelihood of it showing up in a standard legal set. In fact, most of his scales have this caveat. Just wanna mention that, as "This will never show up again" isn't necessarily true.
I like it! I actually have Aetherworks Marvel in my Red/Blue Niv Mizzet Izzet Deck. It's funny because I have both the storm mechanic and energy in that deck but 1 card each, the storm works well for the marvel as every copy of a spell I cast adds an energy counter. My gf hates the deck because I have a timewalk card in that deck as well that I normally use the storm mechanic for so take multiple extra turns in a row and absolutely dominate her lol
I have a deck that uses miracle! It's a red blue wizards deck, with the card in question being thunderous wrath. It's paired up with sage of epityr, which basically lets you arrange a top deck.
One of my friends plays a commander deck built around storming off with Veyran, Voice of Duality and it’s the most frustrating thing I’ve ever experienced in this game
Just a thought, but I'd really like to see you distinguish mechanics and keyword abilities here. Top 10 keywords would make a great list on its own. Great vid though.
I agree, by metrics, it's surprising, but just on feel, it seems like it's just extra on the cards that have it, you would probably still win without it.
Its powerful. However the card with it are usually 8+ mana, so getting them out is very difficult. Also, annihilator is usually not the best effect on these massive Eldrazi,
Top wasn’t banned because of miracles. It was banned because it made games take a really long time and provided card selection to decks that shouldn’t have it.
People may notice the trend, that the best mechanics were printed in one or two sets and because it would be a waste of RnD's time for a new mechanic to not be played, they have to push the mechanic MaRo made an excellent podcast on why the Kaladesh cards were too powerful.
Hexproof is awesome. I get such a wonderful feeling in Arena when a control or mono-red scoops out in frustration when they can't mash the "I WIN" button.
I like Battle Screech a little bit more than Lingering Souls. Get 4 1/1 Flying Birds for 2WW and tap three creatures for it's flashback. Can't forget Prismatic Strands! Bird decks were made awesome thanks to the Odyssey and Onslaught Block, cards like Suntail Hawk, Soulcatcher, Soulcathers' Aerie, Commander Eesha, Mystic Familiar, Cloudreach Cavalry, Coat of Arms. Later on things like concerted effort, healer's hawk, courier hawk, seller of song birds, Rustwing Falcon, Squadron Hawk, Aven Squire. It's actually not to expensive to make a good Bird Deck, some people splash blue and make a commander deck with Kangee. I want to see top 10 BIRDS! I had a friend have to make a Squirrel deck with Hurricane just to beat it most of the time.
alright, before i start the vid i just wanna try to guess what he says, just for fun. 10. regeneration 9. landwalk 8. proliferate 7. indestructable 6. flashback 5. infect 4. shadow 3. dredge 2. storm 1. affinity
welp. i was a little bit off, lmao. at least i kinda got storm/dredge right, being in the top 3. good vid, quite interesting, i liked the idea behind how you structured this
I really hope they bring back Energy... I love that mechanic. Just as long as there is a way to interact with it such as Suncleanser, it won't be too bad.
good vid, just personally found a couple problem. grey merchant of asphodel does (or did) see play in mono black control and death cloud in modern, master of waves sees play in modern and legacy formats in merfolk (albeit not as competitive in legacy per se), and shrine to nyx also sees play in modern elves as a sort of gaia's cradle lite. While yes these decks aren't as huge as things like phoenix, they're also not getting completely dumpstered either. Next issue is the claim that divining top was banned because the miracles mechanic was too strong. this is not only incorrect, but also shows an inability to research a topic properly. Top was banned because the deck was a very dominant control deck, but wasn't overly concerning to wizards until coverage was involved. this led to up to 10 minute turns for a player using the card over and over and over again and whilst the game itself progressed, nothing visible changed. its power in combination with counterbalance was so forgiving to poor play that to save time and energy of coverage audience and players wotc finally banned the card. if you want to see exactly how powerful top was on its own without miracles, give it a go, and aside from a few tweaks to the deck for the early game you'll find the deck is still extremely powerful and consistent. yes this is heavily nitpicking, and particularly so towards gathering data and basing all arguments off the specific information contained within, without regard to the cards themselves or the decks containing them. some (most) are self explanatory, and are covered pretty well here. but a couple others are not quite so much, as the reason many of the cards saw the play they did was because of what the cards themselves did compared to what the mechanic did. will say that this was certainly worth the time to watch, so kudos there as well.
I think you could make the argument that Delve never broke Standard the way other mechanics did. If you focus on Standard impact which is largely what drives this game (as well as card design), Energy and Affinity would have to be on top, given how ridiculous they were. Storm was a bit too inconsistent in Standard to be relevant, ditto for Drege without any real crazy graveyard kill in Standard. Delirium is something you could consider, there were several very solid cards with that keyword played at GP and PT level.
First Strike and Double Strike are redundant, because Double Strike is already "First Strike damage + Normal Damage". It's like trying to give something lifelink twice.
@@Stray7 that's not my question... I'm wondering how the author of this videos list, would count the effective abilities. Does Double Strike also count towards the numbers for the First Strike ability, because DS also has first strike damage inherently done. Or does the author decide to not count an instance of DS on a Grand Prix card, because it's a separate ability. Game play issues, weren't part of my question. Peace!✌😇✝
I still enjoy unleashing my Ravenger Affinity deck on the younglings down at the public library. It has all of the old cards with little upgrades like four Mishras workshops and other wicked cards that old farts like me have tucked away in dusty binders.
How did you deal with old cards with mechanics that would be errata'd to updated keywords and or still have that text without the keyword? Good example canopy cover and hexproof.
Problem with going back to Theros. The previous block highlighted a major turning point in Greek/Roman history as the element of the story. Heliod taking over, mirrored how the pantheon of Helios, god of the sun and heavens, overthrew the other pantheons as a precursor to Catholicism. Continuing that trend, a return to Theros block would have to be a heavy Catholic themed set. The only way they could get around that is retconning the entire original Theros block...which also retcons the entire Gatewatch Saga. I've mentioned this before, still holds true. Another reference to this is Elspeth's name as well. Her name is Gaelic and means "Chosen of God". Her destiny was to die at the hands of Heliod.
I'll admit I'm no master of the MTG Meta, but I'm a little surprised the Surveil Mechanic isn't somewhere on this list. It essentially allows you to both selectively topdeck your cards while also filling your Graveyard and speeding through your Deck to other cards to bring out your win condition. That's three birds with one stone.
Love both the mechanics lists this week. Major kudos for the mod to the rating system. Before that I thot the best mechanics list would just be a bunch of evergreen mechanics. I would love to see if you can do a best mechanics in commander vid. Although, I don’t know how you’d rate them. Can something like edhrec stats be used? Well, there is my challenge to you. You obv find ways to rate cards that are reflective of their deserved spot on a list. Can you do that with edh? Badger out
I mean the reason affinity is so low is because they did a decent job of balancing it, combined with the artifact lands being banned in basically every format, which were the biggest enablers.
Again man fantastic video just like Wednesday's video you obviously put a lot of work into it, but I'm very very surprised when talking about flashback you didn't mention Feeling of Dread. I'm not 100% sure the impact it completely had on tours but I'm pretty sure it was immense. That card with azorius being a powerhouse during that time made it into a staple card.
Again not trying to down play your views on it, but it was just an observation. I always love your videos. But hey! Bring back worst card types/whatever again those videos were hilarious. How about worst mechanics...oh wait... Ok how about worst color combination of winning decks from pro/grand tour? I guess it might be hard to talk a out why but maybe you can come up with something. Always love your videos and love seeing them pop up.
I didn't mention more than a few cards for each mechanic, because that would have gotten insane! I mostly only showed/talked about top performers/iconic cards. Feeling of Dread saw play for sure - it has 7 points - but it wouldn't make the top 10 flashback list, or really come close, because the mechanic is so sracked. Basically, it isnt a top performing card for the mechanic and I don't think its iconic either, so I didn't mention it/show it - but there are dozens that I didn't!
@@NizzahonMagic Wow really!? That surprises me. Prolly cause most of the guys I play with are dicks and love azorius prolly haha so I saw it a lot more often. Thanks for quick reply man.
Affinity is a very dangerous ability on colorless artifacts or some 1 pip cards, as with any cost reduction ability, but most of the affinity cards are blue not artifact and don't feed into each other, and there were not cheap colorless rare affinity cards to compare with the power level of the cheap Arcbound Ravager. If there was a cheap affinity artifact card with more of a payoff than just cost reduction to a free 2/2, 4/4, or 4/5 that would be extremely dangerous That said, the first generation Mirrodin actual affinity decks before Darksteel and Arcbound Ravager were already a thing, and some to all of the cheap colorless affinity cards were used in the 2004 affinity decks at Pro events. One of the top 16 decks at Kobe 2014 uses every one of the 4 common colorless affinity artifacts.
Hey Nizzahon, have you ever considered a video over the top 10 keywords? Maybe have a restriction like have the keyword be prominent in at least three sets (with reprints from older sets with the keyword not counting)
It is sometimes too funny to rewatch these videos from time to time. "thankfully we are not going to see storm ever again" Modern horizons II: hold my beer
I would have thought dredge/storm would top this, but I guess they don't have something delve/phyrexian mana has - versatility. If you play a card with dredge, you have to be a graveyard deck. If you play a card with storm, you have to be a storm deck. But you can play a card with delve/phyrexian mana in any deck (although delve kind of needs cantrips and such).
Nizzahon Magic: *They will never, ever print storm or dredge again!* Modern horizons: *Weather the Storm, Hogak the Arisen Netroplis* Nizzahon Magic: *Suprised Pikachu Face*
As someone who knows next to nothing about magic (I'm trying to get back into it), can someone explain that cranial plating card? Can you attach and equip it to separate creatures? What's the difference between attach and equip in this case?
Did you consider the pitch spells a mechanic? Force of will is of course the most famous, but bounty of the hunt and contagion also saw play from the alliances cycle, and Misdirection and Unmask from the masques cycle and commandeer, fury of the horde and now allosaurus rider from coldsnap. As for the shoals nourishing and disrupting have seen play.
You know it is funny you said this - because just yesterday I realized I didn't include them and should have. (Spoiler alert)I wrote the script this morning for this Wednesday's video is on the pitch spells, and they would have had around 13 points per card, so would have made this list.
I'm actually OK with energy if there was a way to interact with it instead of it being a one sided non-interactive resource. If it's a repeat of the kaladesh block, keep it away. But if it becomes interactive, that's fine.
Not a keyworded mechanic per se, but the "free spells" (Palinchron, Cloud of Faeries, etc etc) were completely ridiculous, even more so than phyrexian mana and delve. Pitch spells have also repeatedly proven to get out of hand. Hell, even 0 mana activated abilities have produced at least one silly infinite combo resulting in classics like Daru Spiritualist seeing play in Legacy. The lesson here is that allowing people to do things for no mana is generally not a good idea. Every five years or so, someone at WOTC will think they've solved this problem, and make a new mechanic that does it, and then it turns out that the problem is not solved.
I came in to this not thinking 1 word mechanics but general mechanics like gaining mana, summon from grave, summoning from deck (chord of calling, birthing pod, company...) other stuff like that
Mark Rosewater: "We'll never print another card with Storm again."
WotC: *Prints Thousand-Year Storm*
WotC: prints Aetherflux Reservoir
Storm you couldn't do anything about but make the storm count go higher on a turn...Thousand Year Storm can be removed from the board at instant speed or countered before it gets onto the board and costs 6.
The two are not comparable.
@@derrickmelton5844 ... thousand year *STORM*
You do get that.. yes?
@@randomcatname7792 Yeah but it also happened to be the only way to make storm an actually balanced mechanic.
@@randomcatname7792 that what they are saying is either non-sequitur to the actual storm mechanic or a crappy meme post...yeah I got it.
Note:
If there's a deck named after the mechanic it is probably broken.
Simic flash
@@God-ch8lq Flash is an amazing ability
Top busted mechanic in Magic is (tap to add one blue mana).
you gotta remember the five colors in mtg: red, green, white, black, and cheating.
Blue mana isnt op, blue mana is the worst mana, nobody uses it, at least not in commander.
@@spidohman6723 Blue is by far the strongest color in commander. Every best cedh deck used blue.
@@spidohman6723 agree only commander decks I've seen with blue in them are dragon, and spellslinger decks.
@@wizardsmix7961 i win 80% of the games i play with my mono white evra commander deck
And all my opponents have blue mana in their decks
Lol. I love how wizards not only didn't recognize how powerful delve would be, but they did so with flying colors. I'd love to hear the pitch for treasure cruise.
"Let's print a sorcery speed ancestral recall, with the proviso that you have a ton of cards in your graveyard to cast it!"
"How many is a ton?"
"Seven sounds good, right?"
"Seems weak. Let's make it a common."
To be fair, it was common level. The only big distinguisher on power level is “how bad will this be in Limited?” And in Limited it was ok, not bad, but fine at common as even in Khans’s reasonably slow environment you didn’t want more than one.
Have you watched the r+d episode for the sultai?
Where they state, the cards get better in eternal formats, and the best delve card is probably murderous cut and how they expect it to see play in modern... oh how naive you were wotc
@@TheShinyFeraligatr It wasn't broken in Limited. It didn't dominate Standard either. So it made sense for it to be a common.
Kelsier12 _ m
For as much as we can say that Treasure Cruise and Dig Through Time were aimed at Standard and limited, it's REALLY hard to look past the fact WOTC didn't think hard enough on how these cards would interact with eternal formats. I remember the moment those 2 were spoiled I knew it was a mistake. I'm even more somewhat surprised that Murderous Cut still doesn't see alot of eternal play but it's hard to beat out Gurmag Angler and Logic Knot in modern alone.
"Wizards is gonna have to be careful if they ever bring phyrexian mana back"
Wizards: *prints K'rrik*
with recurring phyrexian themes throughout the years id say dominaria needs more phyrexia lol it would be cool to see phyrexian slivers
You want busted? I have a phyrexian storm deck.
CommanderX3001 I don’t think they will ever bring it back
@@donovanwalker7908 Holy sweet jesus! Can I have the deck list ?!
Phyrexian mana brought the whole idea of life being a resource. But I do like that my million playsets of dismember are worth a nice bit now lol.
Worth pointing out that Devotion is literally just a rebranding of Chroma (or at least a subset of Chroma) which was on the worst mechanics list.
Really highlights how it's not just the mechanic that's busted, but how Wizards chose to apply it.
@vulkan435 I know pauper was not a format considered when making these lists, but I immediately thought of Skarrgan Pit-Skulk.
Remember also that fifteen of the Devotion cards are the absurdly powerful Gods.
Yeah I think dominating standard because they have good synergy in their own set isn't necessarily a sign of being broken -- just that the set wasn't balanced well.
On the flip side, it's really interesting that some of the most broken mechanics weren't that broken in standard
RespectYourViews I wish Pauper would get a half point
1. Chroma was on very few cards in its one and only set and devotion appeared on a lot of cards in the 3 sets it was in
2. Chroma relied entirely on reminder text while devotion was quantifiable in it of itself. Example: Springjack Shepherd had the ability chroma which made you create a number of 0/1 white goats equal to the white symbols in the mana costs of your permanents while Master of Waves makes a number of 1/0 red elementals equal to your devotion to blue. See what I mean
3. Not all chroma cards checked permanents while devotion only ever checked permanents
Chroma was bad because it was poorly implemented and was replaced by devotion because devotion was far more streamlined
Still waiting for that “top 10 decks named after cereal” list
Captain crunch- Captain of the watch token aggro
I mean, on food themes, I'm a big fan of Eggs.
Cheerios 10 times
Lucky charms- enchantment heavy control deck
Yeah. Ther-O-s' are a definite top recommendation
12:56, actually Nizzahon, Phyrexian Mana and Delve are 8.
Granted, that's pretty much a 10. Yes, I looked up the list.
I have no idea why they feel Delve has a future. Sure, you could make Delve cards that aren’t broken! By making Delve nearly pointless or making them total shit! But you could do the same damn thing with Storm.
@@TheShinyFeraligatr It's easier to "Fix" Phyrexian Mana and Delve than Storm because they don't have any inherent oversights. All of the 10s on the storm scale are there because they're unfixable. Things like Artifact Lands, Ante, or Storm all have some reason that they're pretty much unusable. In the case of Storm, it's probably the fact that it's so easy to turn it into this huge spell that can't be countered. Delve and Phyrexian mana can both ideally be fairly costed, although it'd take a miracle for them to return, which is what an 8 on the storm scale means anyways.
Mattman324 There _is_ a such thing as middle ground. “Totally broken” and “absolutely useless” aren’t the only two possible outcomes.
@@blazingelse9104 Bands with others was just too fucking OP.
@@TheShinyFeraligatr Honestly, the easiest way to fix Delve would be to make a variant of it, sort of how "Hexproof from Black/White" was on those two cards from Dominaria.
You could do something like this: "Delve 4 (Up to four cards can be exiled from your graveyard as you cast this spell. Each card you exile pays for 1)".
Boom. Easy, simple, still lets you get the payoff but isn't nearly as busted.
I thought infect may have been in there. Thanks again doc!
There is quite a lot of pretty shit infect cards. Which pulls the averages down by a lot.
Yeah, Infect is one of those things that seem intimidating to newer players. The issue with Infect is that a lot of creatures with that ability are very weak, so creature removal spells really destroy these strategies. Also, if a deck plays Merlia, the whole strategy just folds.
The supporting mechanic to infect, proliferate makes it busted but by itself it's pretty benign
Infect is STRONG, but it isn't BROKEN. Infect isn't hard to deal with, because it's only really good when you have the element of surprise, and you can kill your opponent in THAT moment. But even after that, once you get to round 2, the x factor's basically gone. The most infect does now is force people to sacrifice creatures they didn't want to lose early by swinging into them, but most infect creatures are scrawny enough that you're losing that creature in the process.
Again, strong card, just not BROKEN.
any token, creature, or removal based decks can all deal with infect pretty easily with only 1 exception, Blightsteel Colossus and maaaaaybe Inkmoth Nexus
"We'll never see storm again."
Mark Rosewater: "hold my squirrels"
The Storm Scale isn't just about power, Stork is the namesake because it also requires a lot of memory to keep track of how many spells have been cast.
Wizards will likely never print energy cards again.
*Wizards: Modern Horizons 3.*
I gotta say, I absolutely remember Dredge being huge in standard. We had Narcomoeba, Bridge From Below, Dread Return and Flame-Kin Zealot all in standard at the same time as the Dredge mechanic. Nearly every standard deck at the time side boarded Leyline of the Void or Tormad's Crypt, often times both actually.
I'm loving these double uploads. It gives me twice the chance to flex the most powerful mechanic of all, the Request Video Topic Mechanic.
It allows me to request top 10 vintage cards.
Literally just the power ten
@@julianlastname5730 The name is Power 9, not Power Ten, and no, Timetwister is not better than Bazaar of Baghdad, Mishra's Workshop or Library of Alexandria. You have no idea what you're talking about.
Sean Hrecho many people consider library of Alexandria to be just as strong as the power nine, and therefore call it the power ten instead. You don’t need to assume I don’t know what I’m talking about
@@julianlastname5730 Black Lotus, Mox Pearl, Mox Sapphire, Mox Jet, Mox Ruby, Mox Emerald, Sol Ring, Time Walk, Ancestral Recall, and Timetwister. Done. Well okay maybe Library of Alexandria instead of Timetwister, but still
Library is much stronger than twister, but twister is still on the list. I don’t see why they can’t both be
Loved this one. Can't wait for Top 10 Soldiers and/or Warriors. :)
+1 soldiers would be nice ( Brimaz was the sh*t👌👌)
Blows my mind that they printed a card that can be played in any deck, costs 2 life and no mana, and let's you both see your opponent's hand AND draw a card. What were they thinking.
Gitaxian probe being printed as a common was the most hilarious thing ever printed by Wizards
The question they have never been able to answer is how much life is a card worth. And I think that is in part because it's variable. If it doesn't kill you any amount of life is worth a card.
Surprised Infect and Annihilator didn’t make it :O
Annihilator was only in one set on less than 15 cards if i recall
@@ArchevalsArchives Same with Miracle, but it made the list.
@@Dreznin more than likely because you can stop annihilator easily with any tap or bounce effect, or any effect that remove the ability to attack
Same
I have always viewed annihilator as simply the most unhealthy mechanic. I'd rather get combo'd off by storm or have to deal with early threats with dredge or delve effects then deal with that stupidity of annihilator.
The storm scale is only for standard legal sets. They could print storm or dredge cards into modern horizons for example.
Seems highly unlikely, given that those decks are already strong in Modern and Dredge is only held in check by bannings.
Love the video as always, but uhhh quick math question. For Phyrexian Mana, how does 13/34 equate to 55.8% of the pool?
I came to the comments just to see if anyone else caught this. Math fail ftl
I guess how that math fail comes together is that he took reference to 2 different sets of phyrexian mana cards the one who has phyrexian mana in the card cost (where are proably 23 around) and cards that have normal mana cost but phyrexian mana active abilities + cards with phyrexian mana cost (34)
It's Phyrexian mana. Pay 2 life increase % in video.
It's a weighted average
Phyrexian mana: is busted
Krrik, son of Yawgmoth: "Nice"
Storm is so good it is outright banned in pauper.
I think vigilance is incredibly underrated
Not busted but underrated
deathtouch as well.
@@ulipeterson6112 you got to respect the 1/1 deathtouch weenie.
Mmm I don’t think it’s worth very much tbh - it’s one of the less useful mechanics out of all of them. I’d rather have lifelink, and that one isn’t that insane either.
XCodes yeah, sometimes it’s pretty powerful, but I tend to find the things like flying or death touch are preferable
I think one of the issues with Vigilance is how oppressive the mechanic is when it's good and how useless it often is when it's bad.
When good:
For instance if you control a huge fatty with Vigilance with no chance of it dying (or bounce off) to the opponent's blockers, then you can attack for free while still keeping a strong shield up that definitely can block and kill any of your opponent's attackers. That means your opponent cannot efficiently block nor attack.
When bad:
If you have a weak creature with Vigilance you cannot attack for free. And if you do and the creature dies, it would be no different than if it did not have Vigilance. If your opponent's creatures are all tapped, you can attack for free and still have it up as a blocker for the next turn. However since you couldn't attack for free before your opponent tapped out or attacked with the specific problematic creatures, your Vigilance creature is more likely to chump block than to bounce into one of your opponent's attackers.
When Vigilance is bad but still applicable, you're basically trading life losses with your opponent at a worse rate than his attacks - otherwise he wouldn't attack. If you have ways to capitalize on these tradings, either by buffing or gaining life to tip the trading in your favor, then it makes sense. Otherwise I would rather have the stats or another keyword on my creature.
The best scenario for Vigilance when bad but applicable is to combine it with evasion to make the attacks free but still keep the potential for a blocker up. However that is using two keywords instead of straight stats and it makes Vigilance on its own poor.
When Vigilance is good, it is almost too good and oppressive because it is always active for combat. When Vigilance is bad, it is either useless or only applicable in fringe situations. This volatile nature of two extremes is a reason why I think not that many naturally good Vigilance creatures are printed compared to most other evergreen keywords. Same thing with Double Strike, although when Double Strike is bad, it has many more applications than Vigilance IMO. It is also easier to make Double Strike good than to make Vigilance good.
Vigilance almost has the opposite synergy of Deathtouch. You want your Deathtouch creatures to be as cheap and small as possible to maximize the effect of Deathtouch. When your Deathtouch creatures are also fatties, like 5/5, the value of Deathtouch diminishes drastically.
The opposite is true for Vigilance.
Other evergreen keywords that are only "good" sometimes, like Reach or Trample is often not costing much in terms of stats or mana but Vigilance more often than not is.
I loved storm for what is WAS (concept and play), not how badly it was broken. That said, the mechanic that came out a few sets later called Split Second would stop a storm deck in an heartbeat, if only there were more than 5-6 cards in all of magic. Interrupts and split second should make a slight come back so we can see more diversity and break up combo decks a little.
Question about methodology: would it have made more sense, instead of using your usual point-counting methods for this list, to instead count banned and restricted cards with that mechanic? I suppose it depends on personal definitions of "broken," but when I hear that word, I'm not thinking of strong-but-"fair" cards like Sakura Tribe Elder or Kird Ape; I'm thinking of degenerate combo pieces/enablers/hard locks/format-warpers like Black Lotus and Necropotence.
You could try a scale such as:
2 points for each banning in Standard, Block, Pauper, or Commander
3 points for each banning in Modern or Extended
4 points for each banning in Legacy or restriction in Vintage
I get that there is a downside of less reliability, because sometimes bannings or restriction decisions have been controversial - for instance, is Frenzied Raptors really more broken than Hazoret? - but perhaps that method would get to more of the truly broken mechanics while leaving out a fundamentally powerful-but-fair mechanic like Flashback. Flashback is really powerful, don't get me wrong, as a built-in 2-for-1, and there have been some overpowered flashback cards (Faithless Looting?) - but it's inherently oriented towards long-term value and limited to just two shots at an effect, rather than fitting hand-in-glove with instant combo wins (like Storm) or infinitely repeatable soft locks (like Buyback).
I made same point about grave storm. It's only on one card and that's because it's just as broken or in the hands of token decks more broken, than normal storm, but it was printed on one card, and only works in token decks or second sunrises, but it's super mill so you don't have to worry about go to graveyard effects.
Lack of Annihilator surprised me. It's main reason people play emrakul in sneak attack, show and tell decks, through the breach.
While it’s not a named mechanic, the “free” mechanic from Urza block that untaps lands is one of the primary contributors to combo winter.
By my count only 9 cards use that mechanic . Nizza mentioned in the bottom 10 video that he was only including mechanics with at least 10 cards.
For this list you should have added 1 more parameter "How likely is your opponent to flip the table when playing against it?"
Number 2: Counter target spell.
There are only 2 kinds of people who ever try to defend the storm mechanic: Storm players and people lying about not being storm players.
It's pretty amazing that you were able to come up with a metric for measuring how strong these mechanics are!
Your best video yet. I had so much fun watching this one.
I remember delve and I remember hating it but I did not expect it to be the top of the list. Looking back, every deck in standard was either Abzan Rhinos or B/U Delve, so I guess it makes sense.
Anyone here when they announced theros is coming back, he was right
Broken cards like Gary, i hope they never print them again
Wizards: yeah... sure....
He was wrong about the power level dropping. Gary is here and MBD will be a thing...
Nope
I thought Storm would be #1...but that might be because I was a Legacy player for a long time.
Well considering they created the storm scale to determine the power level of mechanics and if it can be reprinted because storm was so broken they cant really reprint it cause it's too powerful to reprint in any significant amount.
I think just that it hasn't appeared in standard or modern for the most part cause wizards realized how crazy it is. There is a reason that some of the most powerful decks in the least limited formats.
I thought it would be Wizardcycling
@@SeanHrecho I assume all of the *blank*cycling effects were just classified as cycling...like how "bands with other" would just be considered banding.
"...the next time we go to Theros, trust me, it's coming."
Thassa's Oracle. Nuff said.
A little surprised Madness wasn't in there. With cards like Scepter of Fugue and Unwinding Clock, they're essentially free decks.
Affinity decks in pauper actually have cards with the affinity mechanic. Artifact lands being legal might have something to do with that.
Wizards: "We'll never print delve again."
Hogaak "It's free real estate."
They never said that. Storm Scale, like all of Maro's scales, is for Standard, not supplemental sets. There's another Delve card in MH1 that isn't busted, Magmatic Sinkhole.
Cool vid
Its interesting that storm, dredge and delve wernt really broken in standard but became troublesome in formats with larger card pools. One way to view this is that the broken aspects of those formats are best utilized by these mechanics, rather than the problem being with the mechanics themselves.
Perhaps a similar analysis looking only at standard (and possibly pauper) would be an interesting comparison. I suspect phyrexian mana and affinity would still be busted using that methodology.
My very first mtg product I ever owned or played with was the izzet vs golgari duel deck I got when I was 13. Because of that dredge has a special place in my heart for giving me a copy of grace troll, life from the loam, Jared, and other fun cards like stinkweed imp
I’ve recently discovered your channel after getting back into Magic. I am loving it.
Welcome back to Magic!
Fun fact: Bands With Other (a worse version of worst mechanic according to Nizzahon's scale, saved only by the fact that it only had 8 cards printed) is an 11 on the Storm scale. It's so confusing and bad that they had to pull a Spinal Tap.
You think it would be possible to use Phyrexian mana in tandem with regular colored mana? So a spell could cost, like, 2 colorless, a black mana, and a phyrexian black mana. That way, the card can't literally be jammed into every deck imaginable because you still have to pay some colored mana. I feel that might still have too much potential to be busted, but who knows.
while possible it would be a little..... ugly. a more elegant fix would be just increasing the amount of generic mana required. adding 1 to every cost would make a lot more cards fair. would still be too splash able but would mean paying extra to do so.
The storm scale is the likelihood of it showing up in a standard legal set. In fact, most of his scales have this caveat. Just wanna mention that, as "This will never show up again" isn't necessarily true.
A 10 is "I never say never, but it would take a major miracle."
I'm ready for devotion in TBD. ELD really set up devotion decks, with all its triple and quadruple pip cards.
I thought energy was really cool, and would like to see it return (maybe in a slightly less busted form, but still).
I like it! I actually have Aetherworks Marvel in my Red/Blue Niv Mizzet Izzet Deck. It's funny because I have both the storm mechanic and energy in that deck but 1 card each, the storm works well for the marvel as every copy of a spell I cast adds an energy counter. My gf hates the deck because I have a timewalk card in that deck as well that I normally use the storm mechanic for so take multiple extra turns in a row and absolutely dominate her lol
I have a deck that uses miracle! It's a red blue wizards deck, with the card in question being thunderous wrath. It's paired up with sage of epityr, which basically lets you arrange a top deck.
Split Second was one of my favorite of all time, but didn't have many cards that featured it.
This
One of my friends plays a commander deck built around storming off with Veyran, Voice of Duality and it’s the most frustrating thing I’ve ever experienced in this game
Just a thought, but I'd really like to see you distinguish mechanics and keyword abilities here. Top 10 keywords would make a great list on its own. Great vid though.
Anticipating Best common cards and Worst Rare cards of all time.
I am a bit surprised that we didn't see annihilator. It seems there are extremely few cards with the keyword, cards that are all rather powerful
I agree, by metrics, it's surprising, but just on feel, it seems like it's just extra on the cards that have it, you would probably still win without it.
Its powerful. However the card with it are usually 8+ mana, so getting them out is very difficult. Also, annihilator is usually not the best effect on these massive Eldrazi,
Lol phyrexian mana. I still love it, we had no idea how good it was during spoilers lol
Top wasn’t banned because of miracles. It was banned because it made games take a really long time and provided card selection to decks that shouldn’t have it.
i think as a stand alone Keyword "Infect" is pretty busted too. It just has shitty support cards aide from the OTK buff decks
That's the point... It's not just the keywords but the physical cards they are printed on. Infect they did a good job to give creatures decent stats
People may notice the trend, that the best mechanics were printed in one or two sets and because it would be a waste of RnD's time for a new mechanic to not be played, they have to push the mechanic MaRo made an excellent podcast on why the Kaladesh cards were too powerful.
Hexproof is awesome. I get such a wonderful feeling in Arena when a control or mono-red scoops out in frustration when they can't mash the "I WIN" button.
Good top ten. #2 has a bad % per card listing. 13 of 34 cards is approximately 38%
I like Battle Screech a little bit more than Lingering Souls. Get 4 1/1 Flying Birds for 2WW and tap three creatures for it's flashback. Can't forget Prismatic Strands! Bird decks were made awesome thanks to the Odyssey and Onslaught Block, cards like Suntail Hawk, Soulcatcher, Soulcathers' Aerie, Commander Eesha, Mystic Familiar, Cloudreach Cavalry, Coat of Arms. Later on things like concerted effort, healer's hawk, courier hawk, seller of song birds, Rustwing Falcon, Squadron Hawk, Aven Squire. It's actually not to expensive to make a good Bird Deck, some people splash blue and make a commander deck with Kangee. I want to see top 10 BIRDS! I had a friend have to make a Squirrel deck with Hurricane just to beat it most of the time.
alright, before i start the vid i just wanna try to guess what he says, just for fun.
10. regeneration
9. landwalk
8. proliferate
7. indestructable
6. flashback
5. infect
4. shadow
3. dredge
2. storm
1. affinity
welp. i was a little bit off, lmao. at least i kinda got storm/dredge right, being in the top 3. good vid, quite interesting, i liked the idea behind how you structured this
The Ramen Man ! I’m surprised indestructible didn’t make the list
I really hope they bring back Energy... I love that mechanic. Just as long as there is a way to interact with it such as Suncleanser, it won't be too bad.
good vid, just personally found a couple problem. grey merchant of asphodel does (or did) see play in mono black control and death cloud in modern, master of waves sees play in modern and legacy formats in merfolk (albeit not as competitive in legacy per se), and shrine to nyx also sees play in modern elves as a sort of gaia's cradle lite. While yes these decks aren't as huge as things like phoenix, they're also not getting completely dumpstered either. Next issue is the claim that divining top was banned because the miracles mechanic was too strong. this is not only incorrect, but also shows an inability to research a topic properly. Top was banned because the deck was a very dominant control deck, but wasn't overly concerning to wizards until coverage was involved. this led to up to 10 minute turns for a player using the card over and over and over again and whilst the game itself progressed, nothing visible changed. its power in combination with counterbalance was so forgiving to poor play that to save time and energy of coverage audience and players wotc finally banned the card. if you want to see exactly how powerful top was on its own without miracles, give it a go, and aside from a few tweaks to the deck for the early game you'll find the deck is still extremely powerful and consistent.
yes this is heavily nitpicking, and particularly so towards gathering data and basing all arguments off the specific information contained within, without regard to the cards themselves or the decks containing them. some (most) are self explanatory, and are covered pretty well here. but a couple others are not quite so much, as the reason many of the cards saw the play they did was because of what the cards themselves did compared to what the mechanic did. will say that this was certainly worth the time to watch, so kudos there as well.
The banning of gitaxian probe in legacy made me cry. Oops all spell and Charbelcher have never been the same.
Wow, I didn't expect energy on this list
I think you could make the argument that Delve never broke Standard the way other mechanics did.
If you focus on Standard impact which is largely what drives this game (as well as card design), Energy and Affinity would have to be on top, given how ridiculous they were.
Storm was a bit too inconsistent in Standard to be relevant, ditto for Drege without any real crazy graveyard kill in Standard.
Delirium is something you could consider, there were several very solid cards with that keyword played at GP and PT level.
FYI - Wizards could print a fixed Phyrexian mana: e.g either pay U, or 1+1life. That way it still costs mana, but you can include in any deck.
How'd you resolve First Strike/Double Strike?
After all double strike might also count towards First strike.
First Strike and Double Strike are redundant, because Double Strike is already "First Strike damage + Normal Damage". It's like trying to give something lifelink twice.
@@Stray7 that's not my question...
I'm wondering how the author of this videos list, would count the effective abilities.
Does Double Strike also count towards the numbers for the First Strike ability, because DS also has first strike damage inherently done.
Or does the author decide to not count an instance of DS on a Grand Prix card, because it's a separate ability.
Game play issues, weren't part of my question.
Peace!✌😇✝
I still enjoy unleashing my Ravenger Affinity deck on the younglings down at the public library. It has all of the old cards with little upgrades like four Mishras workshops and other wicked cards that old farts like me have tucked away in dusty binders.
How did you deal with old cards with mechanics that would be errata'd to updated keywords and or still have that text without the keyword? Good example canopy cover and hexproof.
mind's desire, the only card i can think of that was restricted in vintage before it was even legal to play . ( maybe chrome mox)
Problem with going back to Theros. The previous block highlighted a major turning point in Greek/Roman history as the element of the story. Heliod taking over, mirrored how the pantheon of Helios, god of the sun and heavens, overthrew the other pantheons as a precursor to Catholicism. Continuing that trend, a return to Theros block would have to be a heavy Catholic themed set. The only way they could get around that is retconning the entire original Theros block...which also retcons the entire Gatewatch Saga. I've mentioned this before, still holds true. Another reference to this is Elspeth's name as well. Her name is Gaelic and means "Chosen of God". Her destiny was to die at the hands of Heliod.
This list was actually a surprise for me, i thought it would be storm 1, dredge 2 and affinity 3. Your explanation on affinity was great btw
Theros Beyond Death is laughing at this video sooooo hard rn.
Reverent Hoplite is gonna be funnnnnn
For phyrexian mana how is it that 13/34 come to over 50%? Am I misunderstanding how that percentage is found?
I assume he meant to write 24 instead of 34.
Yeah there was a few typos. There are 26 cards with Phyrexian mana. 27 if you count Spike from Unstable.
@@Northish66 gotcha! Thanks!
6:45 i would imagine that next time we go to theros is soon, and we get only such busted cards...
I'll admit I'm no master of the MTG Meta, but I'm a little surprised the Surveil Mechanic isn't somewhere on this list. It essentially allows you to both selectively topdeck your cards while also filling your Graveyard and speeding through your Deck to other cards to bring out your win condition. That's three birds with one stone.
Love both the mechanics lists this week. Major kudos for the mod to the rating system. Before that I thot the best mechanics list would just be a bunch of evergreen mechanics. I would love to see if you can do a best mechanics in commander vid. Although, I don’t know how you’d rate them. Can something like edhrec stats be used? Well, there is my challenge to you. You obv find ways to rate cards that are reflective of their deserved spot on a list. Can you do that with edh? Badger out
I mean the reason affinity is so low is because they did a decent job of balancing it, combined with the artifact lands being banned in basically every format, which were the biggest enablers.
Again man fantastic video just like Wednesday's video you obviously put a lot of work into it, but I'm very very surprised when talking about flashback you didn't mention Feeling of Dread. I'm not 100% sure the impact it completely had on tours but I'm pretty sure it was immense. That card with azorius being a powerhouse during that time made it into a staple card.
Again not trying to down play your views on it, but it was just an observation. I always love your videos. But hey! Bring back worst card types/whatever again those videos were hilarious. How about worst mechanics...oh wait... Ok how about worst color combination of winning decks from pro/grand tour? I guess it might be hard to talk a out why but maybe you can come up with something. Always love your videos and love seeing them pop up.
I didn't mention more than a few cards for each mechanic, because that would have gotten insane! I mostly only showed/talked about top performers/iconic cards. Feeling of Dread saw play for sure - it has 7 points - but it wouldn't make the top 10 flashback list, or really come close, because the mechanic is so sracked. Basically, it isnt a top performing card for the mechanic and I don't think its iconic either, so I didn't mention it/show it - but there are dozens that I didn't!
@@NizzahonMagic Wow really!? That surprises me. Prolly cause most of the guys I play with are dicks and love azorius prolly haha so I saw it a lot more often. Thanks for quick reply man.
Affinity is a very dangerous ability on colorless artifacts or some 1 pip cards, as with any cost reduction ability, but most of the affinity cards are blue not artifact and don't feed into each other, and there were not cheap colorless rare affinity cards to compare with the power level of the cheap Arcbound Ravager. If there was a cheap affinity artifact card with more of a payoff than just cost reduction to a free 2/2, 4/4, or 4/5 that would be extremely dangerous
That said, the first generation Mirrodin actual affinity decks before Darksteel and Arcbound Ravager were already a thing, and some to all of the cheap colorless affinity cards were used in the 2004 affinity decks at Pro events. One of the top 16 decks at Kobe 2014 uses every one of the 4 common colorless affinity artifacts.
My favorite commander deck I've built uses Dredge and Delve for some fun shenanigans
Phirexian mana mechanic works very well with Rage Extractor as long as ur mana ramped creates a good burn deck
Hey Nizzahon, have you ever considered a video over the top 10 keywords?
Maybe have a restriction like have the keyword be prominent in at least three sets (with reprints from older sets with the keyword not counting)
It is sometimes too funny to rewatch these videos from time to time. "thankfully we are not going to see storm ever again" Modern horizons II: hold my beer
Haha well not in Standard
@@NizzahonMagic yeah that's a good point but in standard it doesn't seem so powerful to me, not enough combo potential present there
So many of these are common cards. Which is why I get frustrated when people only look at the card rarity rather than the card function to price it...
Did you account for cards with unnamed abilities like tireless tracker?
Dude...if the ability is unmanned, of course it's not going to be here...
@@TheGloriousLobsterEmperor I think randy is referring to the fact that tireless tracker has landfall, except its not called that.
I would have thought dredge/storm would top this, but I guess they don't have something delve/phyrexian mana has - versatility. If you play a card with dredge, you have to be a graveyard deck. If you play a card with storm, you have to be a storm deck. But you can play a card with delve/phyrexian mana in any deck (although delve kind of needs cantrips and such).
Nizzahon Magic: *They will never, ever print storm or dredge again!*
Modern horizons: *Weather the Storm, Hogak the Arisen Netroplis*
Nizzahon Magic: *Suprised Pikachu Face*
Modern Horizons isn't a standard-legal set, so it doesn't count!
They weren't satisfied to give Hogaak just one broken ability. They gave it two. And it's dominating Modern now. Shocker!
Wizards should legitimately hire you for analytics in R&D ^^
given the sheer number of cost reducers that made this list, i'm kinda surprised convoke didn't score high enough.
White is just such a bad colour that it can stop a cost reducer mechanic from being good.
@@cinderheart2720 white is bad?
Miracles is still a top deck in Legacy and still definitely tier 1. Otherwise, great video!
I honestly wonder if they made Whirlwind Denial with Storm in mind, just as a safeguard.
As someone who knows next to nothing about magic (I'm trying to get back into it), can someone explain that cranial plating card? Can you attach and equip it to separate creatures? What's the difference between attach and equip in this case?
Mark Rosewater: Storm is way too overpowered it will never be reprinted again!
Aetherflux res. And thousand year storm: *exists*
MaRo's scales are only for Standard. Also, TYS doesn't grant things Storm.
Storm Scale is for Standard legal sets. All bets are off for supplemental, non-Standard legal sets.
How in the hell was annihilator not on this list????????????
Did you consider the pitch spells a mechanic? Force of will is of course the most famous, but bounty of the hunt and contagion also saw play from the alliances cycle, and Misdirection and Unmask from the masques cycle and commandeer, fury of the horde and now allosaurus rider from coldsnap. As for the shoals nourishing and disrupting have seen play.
You know it is funny you said this - because just yesterday I realized I didn't include them and should have. (Spoiler alert)I wrote the script this morning for this Wednesday's video is on the pitch spells, and they would have had around 13 points per card, so would have made this list.
I'm actually OK with energy if there was a way to interact with it instead of it being a one sided non-interactive resource. If it's a repeat of the kaladesh block, keep it away. But if it becomes interactive, that's fine.
Not a keyworded mechanic per se, but the "free spells" (Palinchron, Cloud of Faeries, etc etc) were completely ridiculous, even more so than phyrexian mana and delve. Pitch spells have also repeatedly proven to get out of hand. Hell, even 0 mana activated abilities have produced at least one silly infinite combo resulting in classics like Daru Spiritualist seeing play in Legacy.
The lesson here is that allowing people to do things for no mana is generally not a good idea. Every five years or so, someone at WOTC will think they've solved this problem, and make a new mechanic that does it, and then it turns out that the problem is not solved.
I came in to this not thinking 1 word mechanics but general mechanics like gaining mana, summon from grave, summoning from deck (chord of calling, birthing pod, company...) other stuff like that