In this week’s article, I decided to get scientific and compile a list of the 100 best
cards in Vintage. Actually, it wasn’t so much science — rather,
it was a fun exercise in thinking about the specific pieces, the cards, we use to play
Vintage Magic.
The initial idea of making a list that ranked the top cards in Vintage was initially the
brainchild of my good friend Paul Mastriano, who said that it
would make for a really interesting exercise in thinking about Vintage to try and rank
the best hundred cards — and subsequently, we reached the
conclusion that since people love reading (and disagreeing with) lists on the internet,
the list would likely make for an interesting and readable
article.
Rather than simply ranking the cards as I thought they should be ranked, which would be
extremely biased and extremely subject to scrutiny, I instead
decided that I would conduct a poll and ask multiple people to individually score each
card on a comprehensive list of cards on a scale of between 1
and 10.
Using a scale of ten, it made a lot of sense to me to limit the number of people in my
survey to an aesthetically pleasing ten, since that would allow
all final totals to be out of 100 possible points.
The next step was to select the people I wanted to use in the poll. Here is a list of
the people I decided to poll and use in my list.
1. Me
2. Paul Mastriano (Former Vintage Champion)
3. Steven Menendian (Former Vintage Champion)
4. Mark Biller (Former Vintage Champion)
5. Patrick Chapin (Pro)
6. Matt Sperling (Pro)
7. Rich Shay (Vintage Ringer)
8. Nick Detwiler (Vintage Ringer)
9. Kevin Cron (Vintage Ringer)
10. Shawn Anthony (Vintage Ringer)
The way I administered the test was to simply read each card on the list and ask the
subject to rate the card between 1 and 10 (with ten being the best
and one being the worst, and only whole numbers — no decimals). The criteria I asked
people was to use when evaluating the cards was, “How good is the
card now and how good is it likely be in the future?” I specifically told each person
“So, you don’t need to give Morphling high marks for being
awesome ten years ago.”
There were no set parameters on what constituted a ten or a one on the list — rather,
the subjects were asked to rate cards in relation to one another,
and were largely left to their own devices to figure out how they wanted to score cards.
When I was giving the test, there was a lot of: “What did I give card X? Well if card X
was 6, then I’ll give card Y an 8.”
Once I had 10 sets of scores I added them all together and made my list.
Also, keep in mind that different people used different scales to evaluate cards — some
people had many tens, and some people had very few tens. Other
people gave out very few ones and twos, while others gave out many. So the total number
of points is much less important than where cards rank in
relation to one another — since everybody’s scale tended to be relative to how they
ranked other cards.
In the cases of ties for points, I eliminated the high and the low score and took the
highest average.
I changed one person’s score on one card while making the list — as it was an extreme
statistical outlier: One person gave Mox Pearl a one, for what I
can only assume was the purpose of making a dramatic statement about their feelings
about the card. I changed that person’s score on that card to five
— which was two points less than he scored Mox Emerald and Mox Ruby, and two points less
than anybody else scored Mox Pearl in the poll.
THE TOP 100.
100. 36 points.
99. 36 points.
98. 37 points.
97. 37 points.
96. 38 points.
95. 38 points
94. 38 points.
93. 39 points.
92. 39 points.
91. 40 points.
90. 41 points.
89. 41 points
88. 42 points.
87. 43 points.
86. 43 points.
85. 44 points.
84. 44 points.
83. 45 points.
82. 45 points.
81. 46 points.
80. 46 points.
79. 47 points.
78. 47 points.
77. 48 points.
76. 49 points.
75. 50 points.
74. 50 points.
73. 51 points.
72. 52 points.
71. 52 points.
70. 53 points.
69. 53 points
68. 53 points.
67. 53. points.
66. 54 points.
65. 54 points.
64. 54 points
63. 54 points.
62. 55 points
61. 55 points.
60. 56 points
59. 57 points.
58. 57 points.
57. 57 points.
56. 58 points.
55. 58 points.
54. 58 points.
53. 59 points.
52. 59 points.
51. 60 points.
50. 60 points.
49. 60 points.
48. 61 points.
47. 61 points.
46. 62 points.
45. 63 points.
44. 63 points.
43. 63 points.
42. 64 points.
41. 64 points.
(What an insane coincidence that two cards with “of the void” in their name had the same
points!)
40. 65 points.
39. 65 points.
38. 66 points.
37. 67 points.
36. 68 points.
35. 68 points.
34. 69 points.
33. 70 points.
32. 71 points.
31. 71 points.
30. 72 points.
29. 72 points.
28. 73 points.
27. 73 points.
26. 74 points.
25. 75 points.
24. 75 points.
23. 76 points.
22. 77 points.
21. 77 points.
20. 78 points.
19. 78 points.
18. 79 points.
17. 81 points.
16. 82 points.
15. 83 points.
14. 84 points.
13. 85 points.
12. 86 points.
11. 87 points.
10. 90 points.
9. 91 points.
8. 92 points
7. 93 points.
6. 94 points.
5. 95 points.
4. 96 points.
3. 97 points.
2 & 1. A perfect 100 points.
Hope you enjoyed the list!
Cheers,
Brian DeMars