fbpx

83 thoughts on “Magic TV Top 8 of the Week: Best Blue Cards”

  2. Brady

    Jeez, what a boring topic. Before I watch, let me try to guess which 8.

    Ancestral, Time walk, Tinker, Force of Will, Brainstorm, Mana Drain, Gifts Ungiven, Jace.

    Not a very hard list. If they go for a more “in their metagame” style, we can get Cryptic Command, Counterspell, Mystical Teachings etc.

  3. Brady

    LOL I got all 8.

    Yeah, I’d prefer topics that make us think a little bit more than this, it’s too easy. Might as well do a top 8 original dual lands next time.

  6. james

    no mention of cryptic command or tog, and even SDT is basically blue, since for the longest time it was counterbalances conjoined twin

  10. jamesxc8

    I wanted Cryptic on the list, but it actually doesn’t quite compare with the other stuff. The commentary was far more interesting than the actual list, but it was fun anyway.

  12. jobi

    I missed Jace and gift. My guess for them were time twister and counterspell.
    I am surprised that time twister does not event get an honorable mention though 😉

  13. jobi

    @ brady : nice try but your posts have a 10 min gap and the video is 15 min. So it seriously cast the doubt on when you did your list 😀 (yeah we know, you probably watched the video fast forward etc… ^^)

  14. Jee

    @brady : Not watching the video and getting them all right! What kind of wizardry is this?!

    Jokes aside, the topic was pretty interesting, even if a little predictable. Great top 8, guys !

  18. Kevin

    9-16 is a better topic now. Cards worth considering:
    Fact or Fiction
    Counterbalance
    Counterspell
    Cryptic Command
    Mystical Tutor
    Timetwister
    Treachery
    Mind’s Desire
    Gush
    Ponder
    Thirst for Knowledge
    Control Magic
    Mana Leak
    Vendilion Clique

    to name a few.

  20. Eric Smith

    @LSV

    since it seems as good a time as any to ask, what do you think about vintage being a format at worlds, just for a round or two every year? I feel like WotC should honor it’s past and allow people to do the most broken things possible on the pro tour stage once a year, as one of the reasons Magic is infinitely better than any other TCG is because they printed the broken stuff first and the chaff later. You clearly love vintage (it’s obvious from the way you talk about it), and as someone who knows the format well, I’d like your opinion.

  23. Wolven

    I Miss playing Drain. Favour play used to be casting spells during my opponents’ combat step so if they drained, they’d burn during their 2nd main.

  25. milna

    @Josh… Ancestral recall? and time walk? 2 of the power made top 8. unless you mean that twister is a power and it didnt make the cut. in which case i agree.

  26. milna

    @eric. vintage?!?!?!?! at worlds? so 6-7 people get to play each other and the rest just drop because they can’t afford $5000 for a deck.

  29. jack

    Sorry Brady, but it’s painfully obvious you watched the video first. You managed to squeeze a 15 minute video into only 11 minutes? Good job!

    As for the list its self, it’s probably accurate. If you were doing a top 100 magic cards, the top 50 at least would be blue, black and artifact, with PTE or STP possibly making an appearance.

  32. Geoff

    I can’t believe no one even in the comments mentioned time spiral.

    Sure it costs 6 but in terms of raw power it is probably the strongest card ever printed.

    The thing about it is it is dependent on the format and what enablers there are. But it has been broken in at least 3 different environments (academy, original high tide, current high tide). It does things (i.e cast thus cards wiith no board presense and no cards in hand – win the game) that no other card can do.

    It clearly is more powerful than counterbalance, or at least deserves a mention.

    Oh and probably the number one target for tinker was memory jar. That deck got banned after three weeks – lets just say if it had stayed legal it would have been tinkered for 1000000 times more than tangle wire.

  35. BT

    Decent list, although it is pretty clear you just wanted to talk about gifts, since it is obviously not as good as a bunch of banned blue cards such as Mind’s Desire. Even with the change to exile rules that card is better than gifts.

    Also, how could Mystical Tutor, yet another legacy banned card, not have made the list? Gifts is a sweet card, but at 4 mana it never felt like one of blues strongest cards, and only sees play in vintage due to all the sweet other blue cards you can’t use.

    Time Walk being 3rd really says a lot, and I don’t disagree. Of those cards, Force of Will and Brainstorm, and possibly Jace (ha ha) are the best designed, they are extremely powerful without being broken. Without Force of will, so many cards would have to be banned, and yet it is itself a completely reasonable and fair card, probably the best blue card ever designed.

  36. ArK

    I’m with Geoff, Time Spiral deserved a mention. It unleashed all kinds of hell upon standard in it’s day, and now it’s doing the same in legacy

  37. Fadingthought

    Force of Will is the most powerful blue card, imo. While drawing 3 cards for one mana is powerful and will lead to wins, Force of Will defines every format it is in. Legacy and vintage are two completely different formats without Force of WIll. Vintage wouldn’t skip a beat without Recall. In a vacuum, Recall is more powerful, in an actual tournament, Force is.

  38. GRF

    Pretty easy to agree with most of this list overall (anyone who can’t guess at least half of the cards probably isn’t that familiar with old/powerful Magic cards), but I’m not sure I agree with Jace, and I definitely don’t see him beating out Mana Drain in sheer power level. Sure, he’s completely bonkers in Standard and quite powerful in other formats as well, but you know what would be even more busted in Standard and most other formats, were it legal? Mana Drain.

    I’m pretty certain that if Mana Drain were legal, the top eights of every Standard tournament would consist of at least seven decks with blue, and maybe one hyper-aggressive Boros list. Sure, Mana Drain isn’t quite as impressive in older formats where the threats are all pretty cheap, making the free mana part less valuable, but that’s a quirk of the format, not a reflection on the power level of the card.

  39. Z

    Top 8 Green cards, lets go!

    Survival of the Fittest
    Oath of Druids
    Aluren
    Tarmagoyf
    …

    Ok that’s all I got.

  40. David88

    black cards that could make it on this sort of list
    necropotence (and five cards like it) bob, bargain, ad nauseum
    demonic tutor (and five cards exactly like it)
    yawgmoths will
    bridge from below
    dark ritual

    I don’t know if I could think of 8 red spells better than chain lighning

  42. Brady

    @jack

    I fast-forwarded cause I don’t need LSV to explain to me why Tinker is good. I already kinda knew that! 😉

  43. Josh

    I wonder where brainstorm would rank if the fetchlands didn’t exist, my guess is probably outside of the top15, maybe top20

    also I think time walk should be #2, can you imagine what legacy/vintage would look like with 4 timewalks?

  44. Someguy

    @Brady: That’s a poor excuse, you should know why all of these are good, especially if you “guessed” them being in the top 8.

  47. John

    Pretty sure that Goyf is just better than some of those cards… It’s at least the best blue creature ever printed

  48. Moobah

    @Z

    Other possible top 8 green cards:

    Fauna Shaman
    Natural Order
    Green Sun’s Zenith
    Glimpse of Nature
    Fastbond
    Channel
    Summoner’s Pact

    Also, as I haven’t seen anyone mention top 8 white cards yet, possible inclusions:

    Swords to Plowshares
    Path to Exile
    Balance
    Replenish
    Armageddon
    Land Tax
    Mother of Runes
    Moat
    Elspeth, Knight Errant
    Wrath of God
    Enlightened Tutor
    Stoneforge Mystic

  49. Carlos El Salvador

    I think we need to do top 8 Artifacts (With all of the original Moxen counting as just one). But I also like the top 8 worse cards ever.

  50. Brady

    @Someguy

    You must’ve misread! I already know why all 8 of these are good. (Do we really need it explained it to us why Ancestral Recall is powerful? Or Time Walk or Tinker? Maybe Force, Gifts, and Brainstorm require a little explanation)

  53. GRF

    Top 8 worst cards of all time could be interesting. Carnival of Souls is pretty much a lock for number 1 (no Magic card kills its controller faster for less upside), even now that mana burn is gone. The card basically used to say “Whenever a creature comes into play, lose 2 life.” Hard to top that one.

    Sorrow’s Path possibly belongs on that list as well, although given that you don’t ever need to activate it, maybe not (worst case scenario, it just sits there, unless you get Mindslavered or something). Then again, being effectively strictly worse than an off-color basic land is pretty bad.

    What else? Lich, maybe? Four mana to immediately lose if your opponent has a Disenchant or bounce effect is pretty bad, and “Sac a permanent” is significantly worse than Nefarious Lich’s “Remove a card in your graveyard” when you’re dealt damage.

    One With Nothing probably has a place here as well. I know, I know, some people sided it in against Owling Mine. The card is still terrible.

    Interesting that the first four cards that came to my mind were rares. Maybe that’s because the bitter rage that accompanies opening one of these cards doesn’t soon fade. Or maybe only rares can stretch the envelope enough to be truly awful. It’d be interesting to see if anyone can think of similarly terrible commons and uncommons.

    I vote for “Top 8 worst cards”.

  55. Someguy

    @GRF: Carnival of Souls is far, far from the worst card ever. It’s bad, but it doesn’t kill you that fast at all unless you’re playing against some kind of token deck or somesuch, and the upside can actually be useful.

  58. David A

    Top 8 Worst Rares/Mythics seems like it would be fun.

    Or Top 8 cards you can buy for less the ten dollars

  64. GRF

    @Someguy: Well, I can’t think of anything worse than Carnival of Souls, at least not off the top of my head. I consider it worse than the other three cards I named, since they at least have niche purposes (very niche, to be sure, but purposes nonetheless). Carnival of Souls just…I don’t know. You can’t combo off with it due to the life loss, and very often you don’t have a use for the extra mana. I mean, you tap out to play a creature, then burn for one. Then your opponent plays a creature precombat and one postcombat, and you’ve taken 4 more. Even if you do have a mana sink, you’ve taken 3 rather than 6. Congratulations?

    Okay, it’s not nearly as bad now that mana burn isn’t part of the game anymore, but considering that burn has been part of the game for something like over 90% of the card’s lifetime, I’m judging it by the old rules, and finding it very lacking. Sure, there are cards that potentially kill you faster (Leveler comes to mind), but at least they can be built around. Combine Leveler with Stifle or anything that gives creatures haste, and suddenly it doesn’t seem all that bad. Carnival of Souls is just worse.

  70. Johnny B

    Best 4 mana thing you can do in vintage is resolve a chalice of the void on two against noble fish…….duh

  72. MB

    Gifts seems questionable.

    I know it was dominating Vintage for some time and all but Mind´s desire, Flash, time spiral all seems better to me and in most decks I would probably play Inuition over Gifts anyway since you can accually choose what card you get.

    Most interesting part if they do all colours – how many creatures will get on those lists?
    Goyf in green for sure but it might be the only guy. Dark Confidant possibly in Black even though black has alot more good cards then green. White and Red? Hardly. would be if some more Green dude manage to sneak in but even in such a weak colour I doubt there´s place for more then one.

  76. Pingback: MTGBattlefield

  77. Babbs

    @Jules Robins So for five mana, and presumably an active sac function, you get to try to tempo them back? That still sounds awful, considering other things you could do… I dunno, between my friend Koolzo (not his name) and I we’ve eaten at least ten Chimney Imps…

  78. adam

    Carnival of Souls was played in the (admittedly suspect) Skullclamp/Kobold storm combo deck, so that’s something?

  79. C.Elrod

    Chimney Imp >>> Wood Elemental
    I would take a 5 mana 1/2 flier over what is effectively a 5 mana 1/1 that makes me sac a land (with the option of X more mana and lands for +x/+x).

    Entirely friggin’ useless.
    Also a rare, and from legends. You could either open a moat or that.

    Gifts isn’t used in legacy-I think it is at least currently relatively lacking.

    I don’t like force of will, and have only been unimpressed by it when playing with it, and on average happy to have it cast (for its alternate cost) against me. Hymn is a good card.

  81. SR

    I think Stasis belongs on the list. Back in the day Stasis decks were a major major pain and also great fun to play yourself.

  83. Pingback: Why Fact or Fiction Should Be Unrestricted: An Open Letter to the DCI | Eternal Central

Comments are closed.

Scroll to Top