Monday, January 5th – We venture into the wild territories of Odyssey and Onslaught Block to find the cheapest, most efficient multiplayer cards for buck. And here we encounter a problem: This is when Wizards finally started to get casual cards.We venture into the wild territories of Odyssey and Onslaught Block to find the cheapest, most efficient multiplayer cards around. And here we encounter a problem:
This is when Wizards finally started to get casual cards.
As such, we had a lot of very popular cards printed in this block that are hideously expensive — Goblins became a popular deck at last, cards like Akroma, Angel of Wrath got used in Grand Prix-winning Constructed decks, and overall the bar rose. There are a lot of solid casual cards that were used in Extended right up until the day they rotated out.
So we have a surfeit of solid cards, and many of the best cards are too expensive. But never fear! We can find good cards — they’re just a little narrower and more limited, for the great cards are too well-known to be bargains.
I should also add that a couple of folks have asked, “Could you please put the rules text underneath the card?” And my answer is a fiendish “No, I will not.” See, the thing about this is that I am an employee of StarCityGames.com — and I want you to click through to our customized page that shows you the card, giving you one additional temptation to purchase it and registering as yet another ad impression for our advertisers. In my ideal world, you would buy every one of these cards and keep my paychecks a-rollin’ in.
Now, I don’t go out of my way to obscure the rules texts; I just talk about what’s interesting about the card, and I assume the card’s of sufficient interest to you then you’ll follow up if you don’t know. But while you want convenience, I want sales, and as such our interests digress for just that little bit.
(That said, I didn’t write the series to go, “Hey, lemme shill for SCG!” I wrote it because I was looking for inexpensive cards to buy as Christmas presents for my friends and I went, “Hey, some of these are so awesome there’s hardly an excuse not to have them. I should tell people.” I never write articles just to sell for my home company — but if I write something that can sell, I’ll maximize the chances. You dig?)
Some of you will no doubt be offended that I’m trying to earn a living here with filthy money. There’s a considerable percentage of Magic fandom that’s offended that we don’t show up on their doorsteps and hand them free cash and ponies every day, believing in their heart of hearts that we should entertain them out of our inherent love for them. But pal, I gotta eat, and expecting me to go hungry for your convenience is monstrously selfish.
Okay, see that pedestal? I’m stepping down now. Let’s talk cards.
Aether Burst ($0.25)
Flexibility: 6
Price: 8
Overall: 7
If you’re looking for a multiplayer-friendly, instant-speed bounce spell, it’s hard to do better than this; at 1U it’s very attractively priced and gets better with each copy you cast, allowing you to do some major disruption later on. You’ll rarely get to bouncing four creatures, but bouncing three for two mana in the late game is a combat trick that can really hurt.
Akroma’s Vengeance ($3.00)
Flexibility: 8
Price: 4
Overall: 7
One of the best board-sweepers in multiplayer Magic, for six mana you axe all creatures, enchantments, and artifacts — well, all the creatures, enchantments, and artifacts that can’t regenerate, which is almost as good. Plus, if you can’t get to three mana, you can cycle it, making it one hell of an addition to a multiplayer deck.
It’s cheap for a board-sweeper because it’s far too expensive for Legacy play, but as far as I’m concerned, if you’re playing a White deck that’s at all concerned with artifacts and enchantments in addition to creatures — which is to say, enchantment- or artifact-heavy decks — then you should totally have this in there.
Anger ($0.75)
Flexibility: 4
Price: 7
Overall: 5
The biggest problem with Anger is that it’s often difficult to get it into the graveyard when you need it; too often, you get a four-mana 2/2 that nobody wants to block, making it nice but not particularly strong.
The good news is that once you get it into the graveyard, it might as well have the text “Pay no mana: Everyone forgets about it.” From that moment on, you can use your Viashino Heretics and Stonehewer Giants immediately, and everyone will go, “Wait, what?” In the flurry of spells that follow, I guarantee you that someone will forget that your next topdeck will have auto-haste, and as such will take some damage they weren’t expecting.
This is especially useful when battling Blue mages, who will often decide not to Counterspell some ugly critter because it’s not a threat now. And then, when it hits the table and you squeeze your hurt in instantly, they’ll cry, “Wait! It has summoning sickness!”
Aurification ($0.50)
Flexibility: 4
Price: 7
Overall: 4
I would have never picked this card as a star for multiplayer without proof of its efficiency, but damn if it hasn’t killed us once or twice. The trick is, you cast this and nobody wants to attack you — they have other targets to pick off, and they don’t want to lose the ability to attack with their guys. And it’s not that much of an inconvenience, so nobody wastes Naturalizes on it right away; everyone goes, “Well, I’ll just attack him later.” And then he builds up all his cards so that when you eventually do make the big push, he’s got fistfuls of answers. It’s like a cut-rate Pernicious Deed.
That said, I don’t know whether it’ll work in your multiplayer group, but boy howdy — it’s lulled us into victory at least three times.
Avarax ($0.25)
Flexibility: 4
Price: 8
Overall: 4
At five mana, it’s overpriced for a 3/3, but a) it does have haste, and b) it’s a solid way of keeping a steady stream of threats going. The Avarax-chain isn’t the best mana-deal in Magic, but it works well in mono-Red aggro decks.
Balthor the Defiled ($2.00)
Flexibility: 7
Price: 5
Overall: 6
Let me introduce to you a card that is almost worthless when it’s on the table. It gives Minions +1/+1; who cares? It’s a black Zombie Dwarf; who cares?
But what does matter is that it is, effectively, an instant-speed, often one-sided Living Death for you — in the late game, when you have 2BBBBB, you get to return everything in your yard (for you are playing Black/Red when you play Balthor), at a time when you damn well want. Generally, that’s at the end-of-turn phase just before you’re at-bat.
This is a way to refill the field — and assuming you have stuff like Spirit of the Night and Kokusho the Evening Star in your yard, this can get very nasty indeed.
Beast Attack ($0.25)
Flexibility: 6
Price: 8
Overall: 7
You have to love a 4/4 instant-speed as an expensive combat trick, especially when you can squeeze another usage out of it with its flashback. This isn’t going into anything but a mono-Green deck, of course, and in a mono-Green deck it’s slightly undercreatured for the price — for this kinda mana, you can get Deus of Calamity or Spectral Force — but the double-duty makes it worthwhile in multiplayer, where multiplying your threat density is always good.
Bladewing the Risen ($2.50)
Flexibility: 4
Price: 4
Overall: 4
There is but one usage for this card: In a Dragon Reanimator deck, where a third-turn Buried Alive followed by an Exhume can drag this out, which chains out Rorix Bladewing and Bladewing’s Thrall out of the graveyard, which makes things very ugly.
Blatant Thievery ($0.75)
Flexibility: 4
Price: 7
Overall: 7
Many players swear by this; I swear it’s really expensive and too hard to cast in anything but a dedicated Blue deck (though at three-U, it’s often doable by the time you get to seven mana). And you don’t want to pack a full complement of four, since that’s just going to clog your hand.
That said, for seventy-five cents, it’s hard not to justify buying one or two for those Stealy Blue decks that everyone loves.
Brawn ($0.40)
Flexibility: 6
Price: 7
Overall: 5
This gives all your creatures trample once it dies, and for four mana a 3/3 is a solid threat.
That said, the only reason it’s not a must-buy is because a) most of Green’s good creatures already have trample, and b) getting it into the graveyard without a Wild Mongrel can be tricky.
Butcher Orgg ($0.50)
Flexibility: 5
Price: 7
Overall: 6
This is a great finisher for Red if you can’t get a Dragon — or sometimes, even if you can get a Dragon. Though it’s a ground-pounder, you can use its ability to destroy a ton of utility creatures that didn’t even block. I often throw this one in as a random one-of solution in heavy Red decks, since it can go to the face or just send itself out in a kamikaze attempt to kill a bunch of 1/1s.
This is actually a better card than its Flexibility score would indicate — it’s just that Red has more than its share of seven-mana finishers, and so this is kinda replaceable.
Cabal Coffers ($5.00)
Flexibility: 7
Price: 2
Overall: 5
Here’s the deal: This is the most expensive card in your Mono-Black Control deck. After that, everything is gravy. And you only really need three, so if you’re building a Mono-Black Control deck (or don’t mind putting in a couple of Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth), this is a must-have.
Mind you, I’m pretty sure that every player should have a Mono-Black Control deck on standby. It’s powerful, and it can go for the throat if someone gets out of line.
Caller of the Claw ($2.00)
Flexibility: 7
Price: 5
Overall: 6
Solid in an Elf deck, which allows you to recover from Wrath of God effects instantly, allowing you to overextend at will as long as you keep the three mana open. (Too many n00bs tap out, risking the turn; don’t.) They Wrath, and wham! You have a ton of 2/2s.
Also good in other mono-Green decks, where you get a consolation prize after the Wrath. Unfortunately, most Elves are 2/2s and under, and most of your non-Green decks will have guys larger than the standard-issue bear-butt, making this somewhat of a trade down…. But it’s better than nothing.
Catapult Squad ($0.25)
Flexibility: 3
Price: 8
Overall: 4
This is not a great card. But in a Soldier deck, where you can use this with his fellow soldiers to control the flow of anyone’s combat, it is a must-have.
Cephalid Looter ($0.10)
Flexibility: 2
Price: 9
Overall: 3
Again, not a good card in most decks. But I should add for you Shadowmoor-happy guys that this has been errataed to be a Rogue, meaning that it can filter through yours cards in your U/B Rogue deck, serving as early defense and getting you to that Notorious Throng that much quicker.
Chartooth Cougar ($0.10), Elvish Aberration ($0.20), Noble Templar ($0.10)
Flexibility: 8
Price: 9
Overall: 7
The best of this cycle (so to speak) is Twisted Abomination (also known as the A-Bomb), but that was reprinted in Time Spiral and so it doesn’t count for purposes of this series. However, any of these three are great land-fetchers in the early game and reasonable threats later on — the Chartooth Cougar in particular is a help in Red decks that don’t otherwise have access to land-thinning. If you’re running mono-Red, four of these help you more than you can know.
Contested Cliffs ($0.50)
Flexibility: 2
Price: 7
Overall: 4
This is the definition of a narrow card. If you’re not playing an R/G Beasts deck, then you neither want nor need this. If you are, then this is the card that makes your deck tick, allowing your Krosan Cloudscraper to pick off anything you like before you finally attack with it. And R/G Beasts is a surprisingly potent deck in multiplayer.
Day of the Dragons ($1.50)
Flexibility: 4
Price: 6
Overall: 5
The best usage for this is in a U/G deck. The idea? Churn out as many frickin’ tokens as you can put on the table, using Green’s ability to make Saprolings, and then cast Day of the Dragons to get a monstrous horde of 5/5 fliers.
Unfortunately, this leaves a one-turn window for someone to Wrath of God or find a Naturalize — and at seven mana, chances are good you won’t have a whole lot of mana left for Counterspells. Still, if your group is light on both enchantment hatred and the dreaded WoG, then it can really pants them.
Decree of Justice ($5.00)
Flexibility: 7
Price: 2
Overall: 4
This costs a lot of dosh to get into your deck, because what casual player doesn’t love Angels? And what player, period, doesn’t love end-of-turn massive amounts of weenies? With Decree of Justice, you can have both.
This is an excellent fit for many decks — so excellent that in fact I’m going to say that if you want to spend twenty bucks kitting out some heavy-mana control deck, this is a good way to spend your hard-earned money. When you can create an army of heavy-hitting fliers or a swarm of 1/1 soldiers at will, that makes for an extremely enticing card.
That said, it’s pushing the definition of “a bargain.” This is a great card, but twenty’s a lot for the price ranges we’ve been discussing in this series.
Decree of Pain ($1.50)
Flexibility: 8
Price: 6
Overall: 7
…this Decree, on the other hand, is one of the better deals around for Black decks. It’s not too hard to get to eight mana in multiplayer, and when you do you will generally draw an insane amount of cards. I’ve won many a game thanks to the rebound a Decree of Pain gave me — my opponents recovered, but I had outdrawn them by twelve cards.
The cycling is nice, too, since it will protect you. The problem with Wrath effects is that often you wait one turn too long to cast them, and someone attacks you, and you’re just helpless. The -2/-2 effect will help you survive almost any combat, and in a pinch it’s an uncounterable way of sending weenies shuffling off to the grave.
Divert ($1.00)
Flexibility: 2
Price: 6
Overall: 3
This is much less inexpensive than Misdirection, but that’s mainly because it sucks so much more. It’s good against decks that like to tap out for targeted burn spells, figuring that what the hell, it’s not going to hurt to run face-first into a Counterspell — but if they don’t tap out, then this gets kind of useless.
Still, I have used it in certain metagames, so I point it out here. Still, if you can afford it, Misdirect instead.
Equal Treatment ($0.25)
Flexibility: 4
Price: 8
Overall: 5
This card will confuse the heck out of a lot of people. I discovered this when I mentioned it in a Magic article and about fifty people emailed me to go, “Mwuh?” But this essentially reads, “Every source of non-zero damage this turn does two damage instead of what it would normally do. Draw a card.” And that effect will blunt the onslaughts of Dragons and Beasts and Angels, nerf Fireballs, and lower the damage from someone’s Overrun.
It’s a solid (if slightly narrow) combat trick, and nobody expects it. It can also magnify someone’s pain in the case of a weenie rush.
Eternal Dragon ($4.00)
Flexibility: 8
Price: 4
Overall: 6
I said that Twisted Abomination was the best land-cycler; this is the second-best, but it’s so much more expensive than the others that I had to rate it on its own.
Eternal Dragon is reusable land-thinning that’s excellent when you have no other plays in the late game, and can turn into a 5/5 flying threat. At $16, it’s still a card you’ll use in almost any mono-White deck, and in more than a few mixed-color decks, so definitely consider picking this up. You won’t regret it.
False Cure ($1.75)
Flexibility: 2
Price: 5
Overall: 6
Here’s a first: It’s the only card with an Overall rating higher than either its Flexibility or its Price. And the reason for that is that this is a very narrow card, almost useless in 95% of all cases. But it is the axe held behind the safety glass, to be broken out once your group discovers the joys of infinite Beacon of Immortalities and Kokushos and Congregates, dispatching those annoying lifegaining gits with a single spell.
When you need it, you need it now.
Flaring Pain ($0.25)
Flexibility: 3
Price: 8
Overall: 7
Another very narrow card, this one essentially reads, “Screw your protection from Red, I’m going to kill you.” Handy to have if someone gets over-happy with the Circle of Protection effects.
Forgotten Ancient ($2.00)
Flexibility: 5
Price: 5
Overall: 5
Ironically enough, people have forgotten about this card. What’s wrong with you people? You made the damn card, after all! And this is an incredibly potent multiplayer card, often swelling to a 10/10 after the first turn you cast it… And you can distribute those +1/+1 counters on your upkeep so that all your eggs are not in one very mossy basket. If you have a Simic deck, this deserves a place, no questions asked. If you have a mono-Green deck, this will supercharge it.
It’s hard to cast on turn 3 for many decks, which is when you really want it, making this slightly less desirable, but it’s immune to singleton Lightning Bolts. You really only need fear Black’s Terror effects or Blue’s stealing it.
Sincerely,
The Ferrett
TheFerrett@StarCityGames.com
The Here Edits This Site Here Guy