We’re on the home stretch. Now we’re on to the nitty gritty. Much of what I imagine the top ten to be is not here. Classics like the soon-to-be-reprinted Hypnotic Specter, Ophidian and Masticore will never know how they truly rate on the all of time scale. Recent additions like Eternal Witness will never have their say, the mighty and often underrated Goblin Welder will have to wait with others for a while longer. Jackul Pup, Arcbound Ravager and Birds of Paradise are off to the bar in disgust that no one wanted to write about them. But before we more onto the cards people chose to do that feature in the top ten, here’s a little gem for you. Please reprint these card Wizards!
There are only a handful of people on England’s PTQ circuit that you do not want to play against. There used to be more, but for one reason or another the more skilled have dropped away, whether it be because of level three mage status or lack of interest in the game. With the Pro Tour returning to England, one of England’s consistently finest, Kevin O’Conner, has re-emerged, with all the wit and play skill he disappeared with. His card choice dips back into the past when Wizards were discovering what actually made for a beautifully balanced creature; it is mainly thanks to this guy that five-color creature control continued to exist after the passing of Mirage block. Put more simply, when your opponent had just resolved an Armageddon, you didn’t want this little beauty in play against you!
14th – Tradewind Rider
“Ah-ha!” says the Tradewind as he enters play. “I have arrived, and everything is about to change.”
“Heavens!” exclaim the White, Blue and Green mages, “we can’t remove you, so I guess you stay.”
“Bugger!” exclaims the Red mage, “It’s going to take two of my cards if I want to get rid of you.”
“Well,” says the Black mage, “I can deal with you alright. You’re just a creature.”
“Well you’d better do it quick-smart dear boy, for as I say, everything is about to change.”
And so it has. For now removal spells and combat tricks fizzle, creature-trades result in diminishing returns, and chump blockers can do it forever! Sometimes you’ll end up casting the same creature five turns in a row without it ever recovering from summoning sickness and, if you’re not extremely careful, all your lands will end up back in your hand, and the rest of your permanents will soon follow. Counterspell becomes Desert Twister as your permanents are returned then countered, Meddling Mage always names the most annoying cards, and your opponent never runs out of Eternal Witnesses, Nekrataals or Viridian Shaman.
All this in a 1/4 flying body that, by the way, interacts beautifully with the latest block, being a spirit! The only thing that can be said against this card is that it can be enormously frustrating to play against, especially in the hands of a very good player. Nonetheless, it remains my pick for the coolest creature ever!
With one exception, everything in the last ten costs three or less. Crazy trend eh? Kibler might still try and proclaim that deep down all we really want is dragons and beasts and angels and stuff, but the “facts” say everything for themselves. When we wanna play a guy, we don’t want to pay much for it. We want it to be able to sneak past counterspells, win the game and do it faster than whatever the opponent can do for counter measures. We don’t ask for much do we?
Josh Ravitz is a man of few words. His choice reflects this growing trend of little men with amazing abilities tacked onto them. This one is a bit of a homebrew and is one of the reasons why high hopes should be held for Bob Maher’s Invitational card – Dark Confidant making it to the constructed scene in a way that Rootwater Thief, Voidmage Prodigy and Sylvan Safekeeper never quite managed. Hopefully the presence of Hippy in 9th will do more to make sure we see that guy staring back at us on turn 2. However, this article is about homage to the game’s roots and not prospective banter about its future. Here is one of those cards that Wizards wish they’d thought of first:
7th – Meddling Mage
Meddling Mages chant so loudly that no one can get a spell in edgewise. During a time when Wizards was willing to push cards to ridiculous power levels in exchange for making them more difficult to cast, and their invitational artists hadn’t totally lost their minds, we got this card. Inspired by Chris Pikula “talkative” nature, Meddling Mage can prevent any one single card from being cast for the duration of the game. Your opponent’s combo pieces, ace sideboard cards or just simply the card you’d want them to cast least. Most recently Meddling Mage made it’s impact felt in tandem with Aether Vial at Pro Tour: Columbus, and the PTQs thereafter, but dating back to Zvi’s Win in Tokyo, this card’s power has always been apparent. It will be legal in Extended until 2008, and I have a feeling it will be relevant for the duration.
Few words I told ya, but his summary is an accurate one, expect to see ‘dem meddling kids for a few years to come. Making our way towards that pedestal of perfection, we skip a few notches to see what recent PT champ Geoffrey Siron (with help from Pavlos Akritas) has to say about his favorite creature. Until London, Swap was known almost entirely as a Constructed player with few Limited accomplishes to note, to reflect that he has chosen one of the cards that only a few years ago dominated both Block and Standard before successfully being tried out in Extended decks. I’d love to go into more details but this Belgium duo have covered most of the angles in their paragraph of freedom.
4th – Wild Mongrel*
Before there was chaos… And then Dr. Garfield created Magic… And with the creation of Magic three Gods emerged: The Beatdown, the Control and the Combo.
Each one of them had his faithful followers, although there were some players that worshiped a different God every time depending on his current power level. Like every other God, the Beatdown had a lot of children to serve him. Most of them were too inefficient and with only limited value, like Moss Kami. Others were mediocre like grizzly bears. And then there was the elite squad. Jackal Pups and Kird Apes belonged there, but even in an elite squad you must have a star. The star was the Beatdown’s favorite child: The Wild Mongrel.
If anyone wanted to serve the Beatdown God from the Green end of the spectrum, the Mongrel is one of the first to be recruited. Actually the Mongrel is so versatile that the other two Gods constantly try to claim it as their own. The Control God loves to say no, but to say no comes at a price… Not anymore. Use the Mongrel and the Logic of things certainly becomes Circular. Even traditional non-Blue control strategies like The Rock just add four Mongrels to their arsenal and suddenly they become beatdown Rock. The Combo God loves to break the rules of the game, like having huge monsters early in the game through reanimation. The Mongrel will put his fellow expensive beatdown friends in the graveyard with no cost at all. Even the White end of the beatdown spectrum thought it had everything figured out when the first turn Mama of the Runes was summoned. The Mongrel just shrugs, changes color and sends mama to retirement. Beatdown, aggro-control, combo, you name it, they all at some point made place in their arsenal for the mighty Mongrel. It is funny how the evolution of the grizzlies was something so much smaller but so much more deadly.
The Beatdown God looked once more at his prodigal child and smiled…
Wild Mongrel was not the only dominating card to define Odyssey block, the other two were both mana fixes – Mirari’s Wake and Cabal Coffers. Which might surprise some of you how unsuccessful the next card was in its debut Constructed performance, especially given the heady heights it has since reached. Whilst we were all trying to work out what was to be #1, this card very nearly clinched it. It is one of the most streamlined, no nonsense cards ever printed (except its casting cost) in that it does what it does very very effectively – killing your opponent. Anton Jonsson may be the world’s best Limited player but today he’s talking about Constructed and exactly what you should be expecting when you cast something for 1UB (No, not a Mundungu!).
3rd – Psychatog
A three-mana Moat that slowly turns into The Abyss for your opponent? An Abyss that once he can’t pay the upkeep any more wins you the game? Seems about as stupid as it can get when talking about creatures. Seriously though, Psychatog in itself isn’t really broken, but the way it lets a deck filled with card drawing instantly turn those cards into board advantage is what makes him insane. Card drawing spells are supposed to be balanced by the fact that a deck running too many of them will get run over, but Psychatog single-handedly changes all that.
There ya go,
Anton
Wow, so where exactly does that leave us? With one frigging card left I tell ya, and it’s a goodie. Most of you who haven’t already scrolled down have probably worked it out by now but for those who still haven’t let me tell you why this card earned its title because as far as power is concerned most of the cards in the top four have are stronger cards. This card was the beginning. Okay, some may argue that Serra Angel, Birds of Paradise and Kird Ape were the beginning, but this guy was what really kick started it. Before this guy was printed the only way we knew was that of Brian Weissman’s and his sexy angels. 3WW for an Air Elemental with vigilance – not a very exciting path to follow. Ernham Djinn tried and I was too young to have played with Juzam’s in the real heyday.
Then came Urza’s Saga. Wizards tried a lot of new things in Saga and off the top of my head it has probably been the most game defining set to ever be released. Many of its cards were banned for being to broken and now only reside in Vintage, but others changed the game in subtle ways by producing ripples that can be seen throughout the Magic pond ever since. What Weissman really wanted when he played his Serra’s was a creature that could end the game quickly without having to bother with other guys. If he had had a choice he would have wanted the most reliable creature he could get his hands on. With the coming of Kai Budde, Saga gave us was Superman, and I leave to the most acclaimed player in the history of the game to introduce its most acclaimed creature…
1st – Morphling
I still remember when the Urza’s Saga Prerelease took place during a PT. Some players ran back from the tourney into the main event area, waving around cards like Time Spiral, Tolarian Academy, Stroke of Genius and – of course – Morphling. I can’t remember ever seeing another creature with that many incredible abilities. A couple of weeks later Pro Tour: LA took place, still on the Queen Mary. I got lucky enough to play with a Morphling in the first and fourth draft and only missed Top 16 due to being an idiot and registering a 38-card deck, forgetting two cycling lands.
Morphling was clearly a power card back then. It could attack for five and then block and survive against almost every creature. It was on double duty every turn, provided you had enough mana. And then Wizards introduced a small new rule and from now on, damage was put “on the stack”.
Somewhere a little shapeshifter was seen running a victory lap.
Morphling received an official promotion right then and there from just great to best-ever. After that, I quickly traded for three different Asian shapeshifters. And they brought me good luck. I’ve played with Morphling in countless tournaments, including a GP win in Lisbon and PT win in New Orleans. In New Orleans, I actually had all three Morphlings in play in a feature match against Brian Kibler. They were facing down a few Ophidians and emerged victorious in that battle. A couple of matches and four games later, I was tied at 2-2 with Tomi Walamies and in the fifth and deciding game of the finals, I was down to four life, facing down two elephant tokens. My last draw? Morphling. Good game!
Kai
There you go, a brief history into creatures that the Pros have loved. It still saddens me that there were cards left on the sidelines, but this article is already quite hefty and already well past the date when I thought I would complete it! The complete top twelve in a quickly approximated order, more in tribute to their effect on the game rather than to their power levels: Morphling, Psychatog, Wild Mongrel, Birds of Paradise, Masticore, Goblin Welder, Jackal Pup, Eternal Witness, Meddling Mage, Hypnotic Specter, Ophidian, Arcbound Ravager.
Right now we’re all in Constructed mode, and sadly we will be for a while to come yet with Standard and Nationals, Block and the PTQs, Extended and LA, then two formats at Worlds and then Standard again for PT: Honolulu (HELL YEAH!). I hope this trip down memory lane leaves in a cloud of happy thoughts. When you attack with Meloku next time, remember ol Pemmin and his Aura. The next time you cast a Loam Dweller, just try and remember what discarding a card for a color change and a pump was like…
Peace,
* Still my favorite foreign card ever. In French this card reads “Savage Batard”.