Ten Cards I Want Online

I have recently been playing some really old decks, bashing them head to head against decks from all time periods.  Doing this has reminded me of just how great some of the old cards were.  It has also reminded me of some of my favorite old-time decks.  The decks were cool, the cards were cool - and many of them are already on MTGO.  Not all, though.  We still have a few great cards that have not  yet made it online.   Some are already scheduled - waiting for Urza's Destiny and Masques block.  Others are unprinted cards from pre-Mirage sets.  We can only hope that those cards will be in MED IV or something similar. 

I thought about including some Masques cards.  I love cards like Dominate (UX, Instant, gain control of target permanent with converted mana cost of X or less - great verses man-lands) and Rishadan Port, but including them seems like writing a preview article, not "what I want online."  I know when those cards will hit MTGO.  Talking about Destiny or Masques cards is like saying "I hope M11 will be online sometime."  It will, and we know when.  Pointless.  Instead, I'll limit the list those cards that are not already scheduled for release.  And this is my list - other peoples lists may vary.   For that matter, at other times, I may have other cards in my top ten. 

Mana Vault

I'm starting with a favorite I have played recently, in an awesome deck.  

Mana Vaut is not Black Lotus or a Mox, but it is insane mana acceleration.  It was also in several sets, including 5th Edition.  It is, of course, restricted in Vintage, along with every other good mana accelerator.  When it was legal - in Standard - it allowed some amazing decks to function.  Here's one of the very best.  Truth be told, this is a favorite only if you are playing it.  It is 20 kinds of hell to play against.   Being beaten by it is like being glued in place and crushed by a steamroller being driven by a guy who drives very slowly and takes a lot of coffee breaks. 

Tolarian Blue

a/k/a "Academy" - Chris Warren, IL States, 2000 - Standard format

Creatures 0 cards Other Spells 4 Mana Vault 4 Lotus Petal 4 Mox Diamond 4 Twiddle 3 Mind Over Matter 1 Rescind 1 Voltaic Key 1 Scroll Rack 4 Intuition 4 Brainstorm 4 Time Spiral 4 Windfall 3 Stroke of Genius 41 cards

Lands 4 Tolarian Academy 4 Blasted Landscape 4 Remote Isle 1 Ancient Tomb 2 City of Brass 4 Island 19 cards Sideboard 4 Pyroblast 3 Power Sink 1 Fireball 8 cards

People ask why I like playing this deck.  Here's an example.  Tolarian Blue is on the play.

Opening Hand:  Tolarian Academy, Mana Vault, Mana Vault, Voltaic Key, Lotus Petal, Lotus Petal, Time Spiral

Play Lotus Petal.  Break Petal for Vault, tap Vault, play Key, play Vault 2, tap Vault, untap Vault with Key, play Petal #2, play Academy, tap Academy, cast Time Spiral untapping Academy and floating 2UU.

Time Spiral draws Mox Diamond, Blasted Landscape, Windfall, Voltaic Key, Scroll Rack, Twiddle, Island

Play Mox Diamond discarding Landscape, play Key, untap Vault, tap Vault, tap Academy for UUUUU, Twiddle Academy.  Cast Windfall (drawing 7 cards because opponent has seven), with UUUUUU1 floating. 

Draw Remote Isle, Mox Diamond, Mind over Matter, Brainstorm, Windfall, Ancient Tomb, Tolarian Academy.

Play Mox Diamond discarding Remote Isle, tap Academy, play Mind over Matter, play Brainstorm (drawing City of Brass, Voltaic Key and Time Spiral.)  Put back Time Spiral and Ancient Tomb.  Play Key, untap Vault, tap Vault for 3 mana.  Tap Academy for UUUUUUUU.  Discard the Academy in hand to Mind Over Matter untap the Academy in play.  Only card in hand is now Windfall - cast it to draw seven new cards, floating 11 blue and 1 colorless mana.

Draw Time Spiral, Ancient Tomb, Mind over Matter, Mox Diamond, Stroke of Genius, Twiddle, City of Brass.  Discarding a card to Mind over Matter to untap Academy, which now generates eight blue mana per card in hand.  Discard everything but Intuition to make mana, leaving 56 mana in your pool.  Cast Stroke of Genius for 52 cards targeting your opponent.  This will deck him, since the two Windfalls have already put 14 cards in his graveyard.  If not, you could Stroke yourself to draw most of your library, use Scroll Rack, if necessary, to find another Stroke, then discard lots more cards for mana and Stroke your opponent for the win.

Just a reminder - this was turn one, on the play.  The opponent has done nothing but resolve mulligans, and draw and discard hands of seven cards.  The opponent never got a turn.

Turn one kill, baby.

This was a STANDARD legal deck, btw.

Maybe it would not be nice to see this deck back in the format, but it would be fun to see Mana Vault back.  Without Voltaic Key, Vault is not really broken.  Even with Key, it is merely very good.  Grim Monolith is better.  

Sinkhole

Wizards has stopped printing good land destruction.  Ever since Alpha, land destruction has been a possible strategy to build a deck around.  Stone Rain was in Alpha, and in Standard until 8th Edition.  Other colors got Stone Rain effects:  green had Thermokarst and Winter's Grasp.   Black had Choking Sands and Rain of Tears.  Blue had stuff to steal and bounce lands:  (Boomerang, Political Trickery, Annex, etc.)   White had Armageddon.   However, only one color had a two mana,  no drawback land destruction.  Black had this:

Sinkhole is one of the best mana denial spells ever printed, and while Stone Rain is not fast enough for Legacy, Sinkhole can be.  Here's an example.

Eva Green variant

Paul Reitlz - T8, G Chicago

Creatures 2 Dark Confidant 4 Hypnotic Specter 4 Nantuko Shade 4 Tarmogoyf 2 Tombstalker 16 cards Other Spells 4 Dark Ritual 1 Diabolic Edict 2 Duress 4 Hymn to Tourach 4 Sinkhole 2 Snuff Out 4 Thoughtseize 1 Umezawa's Jitte 16 cards

Lands 4 Bayou 4 Bloodstained Mire 4 Polluted Delta 6 Swamp 4 Wasteland 22 cards Sideboard 1 Choke 1 Diabolic Edict 1 Dodecapod 4 Engineered Plague 4 Leyline of the Void 1 Pithing Needle 3 Seal of Primordium 15 cards

I'm not really sure if Sinkhole is good enough to play in the current Legacy metagame, but it would be pretty sweet to be able to find out. 

Note that Nantuko Shade is being reprinted in M11.  Welcome back, evil bug.

Sol Ring

I am of two minds about whether I want to see the Power Nine in Classic.  Adding the P9 certainly makes some archetypes possible, but it kills others stone cold dead.  Sometimes the idea of that trade-off makes me happy, sometimes it makes me sad.  I don't know if i want to see Classic mirro paper Vintage or not.  Vintage is pretty insane.  

All that aside,  I do want to see this card reprinted. 

In the paper world, I very, very rarely play my power.  However, I play Sol Ring a lot.  I haven't counted, but I know that Ingrid and I own at least a dozen copies of Sol Ring - probably two dozen.  Sol Ring is just good, splashable mana acceleration that fits in pretty much any deck.  I want to see it online. 

I'm not going to include a decklist.  Pretty much every deck from back in the day, and most Vintage decks today, play Sol Ring. 

(Edit - as I was finishing this article, I saw the spoiled list for the next From the Vaults.  Sol Ring is on the list.  I hope that's correct. )

Maze of Ith

Here's another card that is almost guaranteed to be in MED IV, since it is a critical part of current Legacy decks like 42 Land.  It is also a great EDH and casual card.  Once again, it is a card that Ingrid and I own many of, and play frequently in paper and EHD decks.

Maze of Ith basically eliminates an attacking creature.  The creature is not destroyed, but it deals no damage.  Effects which trigger when the creature deals damage - e.g. Deathtouch - do nothing.  In multiplayer, since it also untaps the creature, you can use it to create a blocker for an opponent you want to ally with, which can have political benefits.  Of course, you can also untap your own attacking creature, after damage has resolved, provided you set the stop during the end of combat step.

Here's the current Oracle text for Maze of Ith:  tap:Untap target attacking creature. Prevent all combat damage that would be dealt to and dealt by that creature this turn.

And here's my favorite Maze of Ith based deck.  This deck looks pretty straightforward, but it is not.  My philosophy in multiplayer is to appear innocuous and powerless, to do nothing, and - more importantly, annoy no one - until I win.  My favorite phrase in multiplayer is "I win now - let me explain."

This deck looks like it is all about ramping up and dropping fatties, but it isn't, really.  They are just cover - and fun to play with.  Sure, once in a while, a fattie will crash through and kill someone, but that is just a side effect.  The actual win condition is a lot more subtle.   

Didn't See that Coming...

Creatures 4 Wall of Blossoms 4 Wall of Roots 4 Argothian Elder 1 Verdant Force 2 Nullmage Shepherd 2 Eternal Witness 1 Genesis 1 Kodama of the North Tree 2 Silvos, Rogue Elemental 2 Silklash Spider 1 Child of Gaea 3 Yavimaya Elder 27 cards

Lands 4 Maze of Ith  20 Forest 24 cards Other Spells 3 Rocket Launcher 2 Gaea's Blessing 2 Whetstone 2 Beacon of Creation 9 cards

Have you spotted it, yet?

Here's a sample game:

Turn one: Forest, go

Turn two:  Forest, Wall of Roots, go

Turn three: Forest, Argothian Elder (off Wall token), go

Turn four:  Maze of Ith, Whetstone, attack with the Elder for 2.

Turn five:  um, there isn't one.  I won last turn. 

Let me explain.

I attacked with the Elder.  Maze of Ith untapped the Elder and prevented all combat damage it would have dealt, but it did not remove it from combat.  The Elder was still attacking, so I could target it again with the Maze.  First, I tapped the Elder to untap the Maze of Ith and a Forest.  Then, I tapped the Forest for G and the Maze to untap the Elder.  Rinse and repeat gave me infinite green mana, then I milled everyone's libraries into their graveyards and passed the turn.  I have Gaea's Blessings, so my graveyard was shuffled back into my library - and the infinite mana combo works equally well with Rocket Launcher, if someone else had Blessings.

I love this deck.

Ashnod's Altar

Here's another fun card that can turn into a monster.  It converts creatures into mana.  

A free sacrifice outlet is quite useful with a number of cards and effects.  It is quite good with reusable (Control Magic) effects, like (Sorceress Queen) and Vedalken Shackles, or temporary ones, like Act of Treason.   (M11 note:  both Act of Treason and Fling are in M11, at common.  It's the return of Grab the Reins.)  Ashnod's Altar is also good with cards like Corpse Dance, if you want to keep getting the same creature without having it RFGed.  However, here's the best combo I have found:

+ +

Intuition puts a Retriever into your hand, and two into the graveyard.  Casting a Retriever, then sacrificing it to the Altar lets you put one from the graveyard into your hand, and gives you the mana to play that one.  You can keep the sequence going indefinitely.  That may not seem like much, but it does mean an unbounded number of spells have been played, and an unbounded number of artifact creatures have hit the graveyard.  That would be relevant with any of these cards... 

or   or

Just saying. 

Titania's Song

The next card is not here because I built a great deck around it.  (I did build decks around it, a long time ago,  but nowadays Karn, Silver Golem does the job better.)  I just want this card as another, better answer to artifacts than Null Rod. 

Titania's Song isn't a cheaper March of the Machines.  Well,  actually, it is, but it is so much more.  It also removes all abilities from non-creature artifacts.  With Titania's Song in play, Mana Vault and Voltaic Key beat for one, but they don't produce mana / untaps.  In Ravager decks, artifact lands just die and Cranial Plating is a Grizzly Bears.  Titania's Song is almost a Humility for non-creature artifacts.

I don't want this back because it was a bomb - I want this back because it messes with bombs.   I also have a lot of found memories of asking judges questions involving this card.   (For example:  Mycosynth Lattice is in play.  Player casts Replenish returning Titania's Song, 2 * Opalescence, Humility and Standstill to play.   Player B casts Pyroclasm the following turn.  What happens to Standstill?) 

Note:  the latest changes to the Layers rules make this a lot easier to answer than it used to be.   In the past, this depended on time stamps, which made including Replenish in the question almost evil, and the dependencies were trickier.

REB / BEB

These are simply tournament staples.  I strongly expect that they will appear in MED IV.  The online Legacy metagame needs them.

 and    

 I already hear people asking "We already have Hydroblast and Pyroblast - do we need these, too?"

Yes, we do.  For two reasons. 

First, decks like Imperial Painter, in the paper world, play seven or eight red Blasts - both REB and Pyroblast.  

Second, the rules text is slightly different.  REB targets a blue permanent.  Pyroblast targets a permanent and destroys it if it is blue.  Why does this matter?  Assume that you want to blast a Back to Basics that is making your life miserable.  Back to Basics is the only blue permanent in play.  If you cast Pyroblast, the blue mage - assuming she has the right spell* - can change the target from Back to Basics to some random land.  Pyroblast will do nothing to the land (it isn't blue) - but the important thing is that it will not kill the Back to Basics.  REB, OTOH, requires a blue target, so the spell cannot be redirected to a land.      

*The right spell is Misdirection, from Masques block.

Power Artifact

Here is another powerful card and effect.  It was banned in some formats, and while it is not restricted in Vintage, most of its targets are.

Power Artifact is another card that needs to be in Classic, if Classic is ever going to resemble paper Vintage.  Power Artifact has, over the years, been part of the kill in a number of decks.  Just slap this on Grim Monolith to build one of the simplest infinite mana engines around.  Grim Monolith plus Power Artifact plus Stroke of Genius equals a win.  It even works with Mana Vault, but only during upkeep. 

Mishra’s Workshop

Teletubbies

 

Creatures 4 Goblin Welder 4 Juggernaut 4 Su-Chi 2 Masticore 2 Triskelion 2 Squee, Goblin Nabob 1 Gorilla Shaman 1 Thunderscape Battlemage 1 Genesis 1 Wonder Other Spells 4 Survival of the Fittest 1 Regrowth 1 Time Walk 1 Ancestral Recall 1 Tinker 1 Memory Jar 7 SoLoMox 1 Grim Monolith

Lands 4 Taiga 3 Tropical Island 4 City of Brass 3 Wasteland 1 Tolarian Academy 1 Library of Alexandria 4 Mishra's Workshop 1 Strip Mine

Lifeforce