One little upside to Nivmagus Elemental not discussed is that it can also take advantage of "failed" spells. Let's say, for instance, that you cast a spell to kill an opponent's creature and your opponent counters it or gives the creature hexproof, or something like that. Nivmagus Elemental can then exile the spell that was going to do nothing anyway, so that you get a little bit of value out of it.

@thomasfplm

Жыл бұрын

I was thinking the same thing.

@deathseraph3

Жыл бұрын

Was about to say the same thing. It's a fun little thing you can do if you don't have recursion or just want a stronger boi and the spell isn't going to work anyway.

@thomasfplm

Жыл бұрын

I just thought of an event bette case: imagine if someone redirected one of your spells back at you.

@williamdrum9899

Жыл бұрын

It can be used on a spell that's about to be countered too

@brodibeal7189

Жыл бұрын

I'm surprised he dismissed Nivmagus when it was a top tier deck in Modern about a decade back...

I love the way that Illusionary Card's original text is written, specifically "it serves to hide the true cost of the creature." I don't think I've ever seen a card in any game that tries to explain _why_ the mechanic works like that

One thing to note about deathless behemoth, it doesn’t need eldrazi scion tokens at all. Since the thing it looks for is an eldrazi scion creature it can be any creature that has those two creature types, this basically only adds changelings to the mix but it does make the card weird in another way

@ThatOnePersonsName1

Жыл бұрын

I like how the creature can sack itself to pull itself from the graveyard

If I remember right, Illusionary Mask actually did see some play in combination with Phyrexian Dreadnought, a 12/12 artifact creature for 1 mana that requires you to sacrifice it as it enters, unless you sacrifice any amount of creatures whose power added up to at least 12. With the mask, you could cheat it out for 1 mana, then turn it face up for massive damage. Also, only partially related, apparently since the errata that added the Phyrexian creature type, Phyrexian Dreadnought's creature type is Phyrexian Dreadnought.

@chrayez

Жыл бұрын

Along the same lines as the Dreadnought’s type-line, the card Urza’s Saga is an Enchantment Land with subtypes “Urza’s Saga”

@bluedestiny2710

Жыл бұрын

Oh... so it wasnt just me... part of me thought this was just a playground rule and not an actual result of using the Mask

@JD-gk7eh

Жыл бұрын

"Some play" understates that this combo defined Vintage for a number of years, from about 1999 to 2003 or so, when Mirrodin came out. There were just better artifacts then and Workshop decks changed tone. But up to that point, Masknaught was the premiere Workshop deck in the format.

@williamdrum9899

Жыл бұрын

And here I thought I was clever for playing it on a board full of Eldrazi Mimics and turning them into 12/12s for a turn

@AlexanderQ689

Жыл бұрын

@@chrayez The quotes are a little misleading for me; it has subtypes "Urza's" and "Saga" The tron lands have the same thing of both being subtypes "Urza's" & another unique to them* *I can't find a citation for this, it's possible there are errata for them to have one sub-type now but I think not

That Illusionary Mask might just be the weirdest card I've seen on this channel, yet. Definitely another, "could not exist in Yugioh" sort of card. "I'm going to target that face down card with this effect." "No you can't." "Why not?" "Reasons."

@Nayef1406

Жыл бұрын

Reminds me of Yugi vs. Panik

@williamdrum9899

Жыл бұрын

It can't even exist in Magic really. If it becomes good enough to see play it would likely be banned.

@dudono1744

Жыл бұрын

And that's why in yugioh face down monsters don't have effects until face up

@simonteesdale9752

Жыл бұрын

Illusiory mask actually inspired the Morph mechanic, as the rules team realized that they had to define what a face down card was. So now, the card is a colourless 2/2 with no creature types or abilities until flipped face-up.

@blazingelse9104

Жыл бұрын

@@williamdrum9899 It hast seen some play in legacy 10-20 years ago. It was used to cheat out Phyrexian Dreadnought witout the downside.

i think a failed cards/mechanics about aggro planeswalkers could be interesting! since planeswalkers inherently lean towards control with how theyre expensive and generate value over time, a lot of planeswalkers seemingly printed to work as aggro just dont actually seem to fit or work in those decks

@nickybeingnicky

Жыл бұрын

It's almost like WotC shoved out a bunch of trash walkers. Oh wait.

@dismasthepenitent569

Жыл бұрын

Only walkers I can think of that actually work really well in aggro decks are the domri from war of the spark and Chandra, dressed to kill

@notabene9804

Жыл бұрын

@@dismasthepenitent569 and that Chandra only works as well in standard; I doubt a three mana walker which can give you a red or an impulse draw (for only red cards, btw, not mountains so those are dead). Wrenn and Six might be the only one, cause a two mana walker is just wild, very little already on the board.

@ThePhoenixWylde

Жыл бұрын

Even Kaladesh Chandra, Torch of Defiance is probably too slow.

@vixenofthedead

Жыл бұрын

What about Tibalt

I find it fascinanting how you simply comeup with topics that I would never thought myself and it's the most interessting topic for a top 10 list and I simply watch all of them through the end. And you also does it for other cardgames. Truly one of the best channel around. Thank you for sharing your ideas with us!

It's important to note that Arc-Slogger was actually a player in its day. A 4/5 for 3RR that "drew" you 3-4 Shocks was pretty good for Standard.

@blazingelse9104

Жыл бұрын

In the same set as Seething Song. Play it turn three after a few burn spells in the first two turns and go to town! I loved that.

@brainlessdude8294

11 ай бұрын

​.

One thing about Illusionary Mask is that, at the time, mana burn was still a thing. If it only allowed you to cast spells face-down, there would be little element of surprise as any mana you overpay would be reverted back to you as damage from mana burn. But because of the way Illusionary Mask is templated, you can "use" the excess mana to pay for the ability without worrying about the burn. It's kind of brilliant in a brain-dead way.

It's worth noting that the sacrifices for Deathless Behemoth were *intended* to be the tokens, but all It's checking is if the sacrifices have the Eldrazi and Scion creature types. You can sacrifice a card with Changeling to activate the ability, as it will have those two creature types (and all the rest as well).

Arc-Slogger, Niv-magus Elemental and Illusionary Mask were all key components to meta decks in at lest oneconstructed format. Sinister Cncctiand Mechtitan Core were good in their limited metas. They may have weird activations, but half the cards on this list saw serious play.

Video idea: weirdest cards pre-errata. On that note, still waiting for floral spuzzem to choose what it's destroying

@bluedestiny2710

Жыл бұрын

I see... so it IS true that there are some games out there that are on pause while players are waiting for the Spezzum to make up its mind... hope you guys are properly hydrated I do remember some cards that was supposed to work as "one or the other" but it was worded in a way that it sounded like youre getting both. Those cards would probably make this list

Do a failed mechanics on... uh... the high Storm Scale mechanics, like Soulshift, Bushido, etc. We also need top 10 old cards with VERY weird effects.

@chrayez

Жыл бұрын

Gotta love Horsemanship, the Portal sets’ version of flying.

@themanalogs7876

Жыл бұрын

Any other examples? I'll add em to my list

@williamdrum9899

Жыл бұрын

Rampage, flanking, cohort, channel, reinforce

@kennydarmawan13

Жыл бұрын

@@themanalogs7876 Let's see, the mechanics that are high on the storm scale because it's not very good or just plain clunky: Banding Chroma Fear (and Intimidate) Flip Regenerate Symmetric Slivers The Tribal type Arcane Cipher Cumulative Upkeep Formidable (probably) Horsemanship Ingest Inspired Landwalk Phasing (not Phased Out, that's deciduous) Provoke Radiance Rampage Shroud Soulbond Suspend The Lorwyn-Shadowmoor experiments: Clash, Kniship, Conspire, and the Untap Symbol Cohort Fading (now replaced by Vanishing) Fateful hour Graft Party Strive Sweep Tribute Keep in mind, most of these mechanics are 10 to 8 in the Storm Scale, meaning they're highly unlikely to return in a standard-legal set, let alone a supplementary set like Modern Horizons.

@connorhamilton5707

Жыл бұрын

@@kennydarmawan13 You are right to point out that the Storm scale means a mechanic is highly unlikely to return to Standard, but that's all it means. Something high on the storm scale could easily return in a supplemental product, and in some cases is more likely to because it doesn't need to be constrained to the Standard power level. Storm is a 10 for example, but got four new cards in Modern Horizons 2 (including the first Storm permanent card), and a single new card in both the original Modern Horizons and Commander 2021. The Storm Scale is also not set in stone, and has changed over time, since it is only a reflection of whether MaRo, as the Head Designer, is willing to use a given mechanic.

If I'm mistaken, Illusionary Mask had one vital effect that made it usable at one point: costs that come with the summoning is NOT required to be paid when used with the Mask. I remember there was a time Phyrexian Dreadnaughts were being cheated into play using the mask. The Dreadnaught was a 1 mana 12/12 artifact creature with trample that asks you to sacrifice X number of creatures with total power 12 or more upon summon or sacrifice this card. The Mask somehow blanks that cost, allowing for a turn 1 Dreadnaught with Dark Ritual. Now, I have to make a caveat. I was a really smol kid then so I dont know for sure if this was occurring during sanctioned tournaments... or just some playground setting where someone was just BS-ing everyone What I would consider to be another unusual cost is the "Untap" mechanic in Shadowmoor set. Up until then, untapping is an effect or a typical action done in a turn, but it was never a cost to activate abilities. As a veteran player, it DID confuse me what that untap symbol meant. In some cases, that untap cost becomes a minor benefit (i.e there is this one Merrow creature where you can pay U2 and untap it to give it flying until end of turn, essentially making it harder to block and gives it pseudo-vigilance, but you cant use it during your turn), but in some it becomes a problem (i.e low toughness, non-evasion creatures that WILL probably die if you attack with them) I call it unusual because at that point, untap is generally associated with something beneficial... except for some corner cases (i.e the Provoke ability or Maze of Ith), now it actually becomes a drawback in some situations (i.e ambushing an enemy with Order of the White Clay's effect requires you to either attack and put it at risk, or have another effect to tap a card...)

@thomasfplm

Жыл бұрын

The untap cost could become part of some combos by allowing a creature to tap and untap multiple times. There is an equipment that gives the creature the ability to play 3 mana and untap to gain +2/+2, so if you equip a creature that can tap for 3 mana, you have an infinitely big creature, and if it taps for more than 3 mana, you also have infinite mana.

@JD-gk7eh

Жыл бұрын

The history of Mask and Dreadnaught is quite complicated. I'm doing this from memory because I think the logs are all lost so pardon my mistakes if someone else knows it all better. Dreadnaught has an ETB effect under the current rules. That mirrors how it was printed. However, when it was printed, you couldn't use a card before you resolved any enters costs because of how batches and series worked (no Stack then). This is why Lotus Vale, Scorched Ruins, and Mox Diamond all have this replacement "If this would enter the battlefield..." wording in the current Oracle text. When printed, you couldn't tap them until you did their sacrifices but when 6th Edition changed all the rules and removed this stipulation under the rules (instead just treating all ETB effects as simple triggers that go on the newly introduced Stack). Dreadnaught got similar errata in 6th Edition and it too said "If this would enter the battlefield, instead sacrifice 12 power worth of creatures..." which made it totally worthless. Now enter Mask. That card has changed wordings so many times but after the change in Dreadnaught's wording (and perhaps Mask's own wording too), it no longer worked with it. I believe during this time that the effects of creatures summoned by Mask still applied even if the creature was face down. I remember someone summoning Ali from Cairo and taking what would have been lethal damage and saying "I don't die. Something is preventing me from doing it." and that actually being a thing in Magic. How dumb that all was... Mask was the only way to have Face down creatures until...Morph was introduced in Onslaught. The rules regarding face down creatures got a MAJOR overhaul. Mask's wording may have changed AGAIN at this point as well; I think it made 2/2s like Morph at this point but the major change was that facedown creatures no longer had text and anything on their front face didn't apply. The wording and rules changes allowed the famous Masknaught combo to work! Finally! It became a major player in Vintage at the time, being the best thing you could do with Mishra's Workshop until Mirrodin came and really shook up the format. The combo was still considered scary enough a few years later that Illusionary Mask was on the first Legacy banned list when the format became its own thing in 2005.

@williamdrum9899

Жыл бұрын

@@thomasfplm Put it on Selvala and mill everybody out!

I now really want to use halo fountain as an alternate wincon in combo elves

@freddytheshadowninja

Жыл бұрын

My sister used it in her Selesnya Elf deck and pulled it off with a casual group of friends. It was pretty funny to see.

Another use for Nivmagus is at least getting some use out of spells that are about to get countered.

I'm sad you didn't include the Mirage's Urborg Panther. Even if this list was limited to 10 cards, it seems that your only metric was "strangest costs". As such, Urborg Panther's ability to search and put on the Battlefield a Spirit of the Night after sacrificing specifically the Panther, Breathstealer, and Feral Shadow definitely counts.

@cheeese1

Жыл бұрын

Was searching the comments if someone was gonna mention it.

Pretty sure Arc Slogger actually did see Standard competitive play in 60 card decks. 8 points of “reach” is certainly strong enough already.

@bluedestiny2710

Жыл бұрын

I know aggro players, myself included, ran 1 as a finisher. Youre right... 6 - 8 points of damage out of nowhere usually ends games. Although Siege Gang Commander still did a much better job.

@JD-gk7eh

Жыл бұрын

That segment really shows that very little research is done for these videos and he just goes with what he *thinks* a card could be good for or thinks how it could be used. The part about "just play 200 cards" is really iffy. Arc Slogger was a major player in its standard day as a finisher for the Big Red deck, which was Tier 1 in block and Standard. A small amount of lookup would have revealed this pretty clearly.

@bluedestiny2710

Жыл бұрын

@@JD-gk7eh to give the guy some credit, he didnt really say the card was unusable, and it IS correct that the card had a weird cost (when i cracked open one in my pack, i had to re-read the card twice to make sure i wasnt being punked: R + 10 cards banished for 2 damage???) ... but i DO agree his scenario for using the card is... uninformed. I never saw Battle of Wits deck use this card ... O.O and my 60 card red aggro was more than happy running 1 slogger after my small red creatures + hunted dragon went to town with my opponent

@JD-gk7eh

Жыл бұрын

@@bluedestiny2710 You're right, he didn't say it's terrible. But he definitely didn't get it. And to be a little bit fair, getting that card takes a pretty high level of Magic sophistication because you read it and go "Exile 10 cards? That's so many! And I can't use this too many times or I lose!" Seeing it as the endgame/top end isn't super obvious, but again, that's what research is for!

They were, as I expected, all cards I had never heard of. And then you got to Nivmagus Elemental. I made a standard (at the time) deck using Nivmagus Elemental and Cipher. It wasn't really good, it was actually pretty terrible, but occasionally the stars aligned: Turn 1: Land, Nivmagus Elemental. Turn 2: Land, Hidden Strings to untap lands, Hidden Strings and untap lands, Trait Doctoring, Trait Doctoring, cipher all of the spells onto Nivmagus. If I got that miracle hand, and my opponent didn't play a creature (or I just tapped it with the second hidden strings) then end of turn 2 on my luckier games I've had a 9/10 and an instant to give hexproof or some kind of evade for another hit. I never ended up putting my favorite card, Possibility Storm, into that deck. But it should effectively allow me to exchange knowing what spell I'm casting for two free +1/+1 counters, while preventing my opponent from ever knowing what they're going to cast ahead of time. This to me is true Izzet brilliance, no counter spell bullshit.

Along the same lines as Illusionary Mask I think Top 10 biggest Erratas would be interesting but need a lot to research. Illusionary Mask would be up there but Time Vault has a bunch of errata that changed how it works. Fireball has mostly worked the same but has a ton of prints with slightly different wording to reflect rules updates at the time. Companions and Cascade are both mechanics that have been modified since they were originally printed due to new cards breaking them. Abeyance when originally printed stopped lands from tapping for mana. Animate Dead didn't get any functional errata but was changed to fit within modern rules. Floral Spuzzem would be a good 10th place as by the wording you don't decide, Floral Spuzzem decides if it wants to destroy an artifact.

@JD-gk7eh

Жыл бұрын

Mask has changed a TON, you are so right. For many years, the effects of face down creatures applied! Few creatures had static effects so it wasn't as bad as it would be now but it's still dumb. This was changed when Morph came out in Onslaught and codified good rules involving Facedown creatures (up to then, Mask was the only way to do this, and Mask was the inspiration for Morph!). Then Mask made 2/2s after Morph but you'd flip it if it took damage or attacked or tapped still. At another point, it made 0/1s. Also prior to Morph, ETB Effects applied too (very few creatures had these). It's only now that the rules really support the card pretty well and it makes sense. Time Vault too. For a long time, it used Time Counters to take extra turns and you could only untap the thing between your turns. I think it was like a "If this would untap, you can skip your next turn and put a time counter on it..." Then they changed that to let you activate it anytime and it comboed with Flame Fusillade for infinite damage. That was a win condition in Vintage for a while; you couldn't get turns from that still. Then a few years later, during a big push to eliminate Functional Errata, it lost the time counters and became a combo with Voltaic Key, which has been a mainstay in Vintage ever since.

I've actually won a game with Halo Fountain's wincon! It was admittedly a very slow and grindy game where I was largely being threatened by a bunch of tiny fliers and stalled out a bit with a deck that essentially /only/ really could make 'a lot of 1/1s', so getting 15 creatures wasn't a ginormous ask

@Hanmacx

Жыл бұрын

I have a Naya Deck for this where I can poop out cat token with Haste and when they attack, give me more token with Haste (until I got 15 creatures)

Arc-Slogger was a tournament staple back in Mirrodin era Standard in any deck that both had red and wasn't Ravager-Affinity. Which was pretty much all of them.

Use Illusionary Mask to cast Etched Monstrosity - you get around the -5/-5 counters as it doesn't receive it's ETB effect

Honorable mention goes to the Un cards that have fractions and irrational numbers in their costs. They even made a special ruling that in games with silver border cards you can pay dual mana costs by paying half of each mana type.

@williamdrum9899

Жыл бұрын

That's hilarious

@logiciananimal

Жыл бұрын

Speaking of Un cards, I've always found the cost for Chaos Confetti to be fun.

@bradleyhoward9638

Жыл бұрын

There is a card in an un set that deals pi damage. If you manage to get 7 of the effect on the stack you'd have 21.99 damage. The debate is whether that is close enough to 22 or if you need another copy to get the extra damage.

@bluedestiny2710

Жыл бұрын

@@logiciananimal my favorite in the Un-sets is hands down Stone-Cold Basilisk... mainly because its 1st ability makes you one of the biggest assholes in the match XD

With Nivmagus Elemental, i do see it having one specific niche case: countering your own counterspells that are countered by counterspells that have upsides. 1) Nivmagus is on the board 2) You play a creature 3) I counterspell 4) you play some “counter target spell, then draw a card” spell 5) I activate Nivmagus elemental to eat my own counterspell (since it was going away anyway by your counterspell) to stop you from drawing that card and waste your counterspell.

2 things.. I ABSOLUTELY LOVE your channel for mtg and pokemon. You single handedly got me really into pokemon while I've been playing magic for about 10 years. Secondly, I'm surprised you didn't include obliete and raging river weren't put on here. Doing a "most confusing mtg cards" would be funny

@breawycker

Жыл бұрын

Oubliette just uses phasing now (which isn't a cost), raging river doesn't have a weird cost just a weird effect

Nivmagus Elemental's ability can also be used in response to your opponent countering your spells. When your opponent casts counter magic, you can activate the elemental to exile the spell they countered off the stack before their counterspell resolves to boost your elemental.

Counter point to Mechtitan Core, the ability can be used to temporarily protect your stuff from harsher removal as the token having it be on a Leaves the Battlefield and not die means that you can activate the core at instant speed and get the token, use the token to bully people until they remove it, then you have your stuff back. Granted this is more of an EDH strat, and a pretty janky one at that, but I have used it to hilarious effect quite a few times in a four color value vehicles deck that I usually play when I'm not being too serious.

@sldoma

Жыл бұрын

That’s actually an awesome little tech there for that. A very interesting blink haha Use stuff like Ichor springs to get extra draws!

Funny story with Mechtitan Core. My brother made a Commander deck he called Shinji (artifact creatures with Genesis Engine for the commander), and I hadn't played Magic for a while, so he let me play it. Him and 2 of his friends had strong decks I can barely remember (One was a Demon/Dragon/Angel deck, the other was some strong Black/Green deck, and my brother ran a Pirate deck), and I cast Cataclysmic Gearhulk when I had the Core out. Gearhulk made everyone sacrifice all but one of each of creature, artifact, enchantment, and planeswalker. 6 turns later, I use Gearhulk to make Mechtitan. 4 turns after that, everyone but me made a huge comeback (at least 6 creatures each), and someone killed Mechtitan, with everyone forgetting Gearhulk was used to make it. Gearhulk comes back, and does it's ability again. I ended up winning that 2 and 1/2 hour game, it's the funniest memory of Magic I think I'll ever have.

I wonder if The Log Channels will ever do Digimon Card game, but excellent video as always!

I'm surprised that as a mainly Yu-Gi-Oh KZreadr, you didn't point out that Illusionary Mask basically turned creature cards into trap cards before Yu-Gi-Oh was even a thing

As others have said, Arc Slogger was a major component as a finisher in the big red deck in Standard during its day; that the Tier 1 red deck once Onslaught left the format and took Goblins with it. If you untapped with it, you almost always won. You definitely didn't have to do anything to your deck to make it good.

I had a deck that used the combo with Nivmagus Elemental and Ink-Treader Nephilim. Hit up the nephilim with a giant growth or something, buff all my creatures and have the elemental eat all the copies that would target my opponents' creatures. It also happens I control all the copies Ink-Treader makes, no matter the source of the original spell, so even if an opponent was going to try to turn a kill spell into a board wipe I could still save most of my board.

Mechtitan Core put the true meaning of Voltron in Voltron decks! Now we just need five adolescent Planeswalkers with Attitude!

The mask combined with some sort of shuffling the board would be the most awkard thing ever

Im dissapointed... no Urborg Panther? That was the first Voltron like creature in MTG and a very specific set of cards just to put Spirit of the Night.

I had a great deck in Standart with Mechtitan Core. There was some other artifact synergies in New Kamigawa and I ran a deck which created a lot of treasure tokens. It was inconsistent but also very fun adnd I enjoyed every win I took with my Mechitan

@CERTAIND00M

Жыл бұрын

Yeah, it's a cool card if you can easily pump out artifact creature tokens. Sure, you don't get them back when the Mechtitan is destroyed but it makes it super easy to cast on like turn 5 when your opponent likely has no way to properly block it yet.

Arc Slogger found a fair amount of standard play, sharing a time and space with Arcbound Ravager decks. It was the big finisher in an aggressive mono red LD deck that could clear the board to allow in some early game aggro creatures like Slith Firewalker. It was also frequently cast on T3 with a seething song. All around a great card for it's time.

if you got a creature with a -1/-1 token and add a +1/+1 token do both just disappear or are they both still on it?

Most tokens generated at once (no X in cost, no creature stat dependency etc... only printed numbers)

@williamdrum9899

Жыл бұрын

Army of the Damned?

I love Mechtitan Core. It's not super great but it's really cool and it gives the combining robot fantasy well. Though if it were up to me I'd make it require actual vehicles and make it stronger or have a combined p/t of the exiled cards or something, so you don't just exile a bunch of thopters with it or something and so my mech deck is a little better. Also surprised that "top deck of your graveyard" cards haven't just been erratad to any valid target in the graveyard.

@connorhamilton5707

Жыл бұрын

WotC are very reluctant to do functional errata, especially if it will make a card significantly stronger, and in this case there are four or five cards that actually use graveyard order in an important way that give a good reason for why they shouldn't. Shallow Grave and Corpse Dance use it as a restrictive measure, to ensure you can't easily reanimate whatever you want to. Nether Shadow and Ashen Ghoul would be super easy to repeatedly bring back, and provide a ton of pressure at little to no cost, just by dumping extra creatures into your graveyard (which isn't that hard in the formats they would be legal) Volrath's Shapeshifter uses it to determine what it is at any given moment, and is likely the biggest reason for keeping the rules as is, since there isn't really an errata that can be made that keeps similar functionality while not caring about graveyard order.

Ooh, seeing Sinister Concoction makes me want to build some sort of deck based around it.

@williamdrum9899

Жыл бұрын

It seems good in any graveyard deck really. The only thing that makes it kind of bad is the discard but even that's not a huge drawback. Since it's an enchantment you can drop it any time and just wait for the right moment.

Door to nothingness ETB tapped. Tap it, pay 2 of every color and sac it... Target player loses. Unique in the sense of its activation cost. I'd say #5

hahahaha regarding graveyard order in Commander. I purposely run Guiding Spirit in my Angel Tribal deck to mess with people's heads with graveyard order shenanigans. Also because it often comes in pretty useful for me.

I think a better use for nivmagus elemental is reactively against a counter spell. "Oh your going to counter my thing? Nah. My dude gets bigger!"

Arc Slogger was played in standard at that time. Activating it 3 times was often enough to win you the game.

Illusory mask: faced down monsters before it was cool

I actually have a commander deck that runs Nivmagus Elemental. It's an Ink Treader Nephilim deck that uses is to control how symmetric the Ink Treader's ability is.

Wasnt Arc Slogger like a 2-3 of in the standard burn deck back in Mirrodin to finish the enemy off? :D

The Nivmagus also has another use not mentioned, you can exile a spell that is about to be countered by your opponent causing the counterspell to fizzle, allowing you to get something from it when you otherwise wouldn't. This is obviously niche but it's worth mentioning.

@williamdrum9899

Жыл бұрын

And technically if they were casting something like "Counter target spell. Its controller can't cast any more spells this turn" doing so would prevent both of those things!

Mechtitan Core has another huge flaw.. being printed in the same set as a stifle effect in Mirrorshell Crab. You exile all your things, expecting a token in return.. then your opponent channels their crab to counter the ability and you cry

I remember arc slogger when it was standard. A lot of people where I played used it, but it was more of a cleanup card. A way to push out that little extra damage for the game. It was also a beast which onslaught block has support for.

@JD-gk7eh

Жыл бұрын

It was a savage game-ender, one of the best in that Standard format. You untapped with Slogger, you could dome your opponent for 8 damage and that was almost always enough to end the game.

Videos I would love to see… Strongest creatures without effects. Strongest sideboard cards. Strongest cards made by a given artist.

🤩🤩🤩🤩🤩amazing! I love how mask is su h a messed up card!!!!

I think "Top 10 cards that let you play your opponents cards" would be an interesting list even though my favorite Praetor's Grasp probably doesn't make the cut XD

@williamdrum9899

Жыл бұрын

Shared Fate: Players effectively "draw" from each others' decks Gonti: On etb look at the top 4 of an opponent's library and choose one. Thieves' Auction: Exile all permanents. Starting with you and going in turn order, choose one of them and put it into play tapped. Repeat until none are left.

you could use Elspeth, Resplendent's final planeswalker baility to create 5 3/3 combined with Mondrak, Glory Dominus' ability which doubles the number of tokens created to get 10 creatures in a single turn to potentially use Halo Fountain's final ability as you have a minimum of 11 creatures on the board at that point. In an aggro deck or new toxic deck it should be pretty easy to already have 4 more out before this combo. Unnecessary still in most situations but it's doable.

@7:40 Sphinx of the Chimes - Cast Squadron Hawk (1W) to tutor for three more Squadron Hawks in your deck. You can then discard two to pay for drawing four cards, and continue bouncing Squadron Hawks from play or graveyard back to your hand to draw four more.

I'd think Emblazoned Golem would have a shot. A 1/2 artifact creature for two generic, with an optional kicker of X, where you could only spend one of each colour mana, acquiring X +1/+1 tokens

The play around Arc-Slogger isn't "play lots of cards", it's "use this as a finisher". Bare minimum in mono red you were working with 10 damage to the dome because of the 5 CMC, sincethere's no state-based action that requires there to be cards -in- your deck for you to remove things off the top. I'm surely not the first person to point this out, but it's definitely much, much easier to use in normal 1v1 formats than meets the eye (obviously in Commander or any other multiplayer format you have to work much harder to make this work).

Saying that WotC has never returned to a design like Illusionary Mask is not so. The ENTIRE concept of Morph was inspired by Illusionary Mask. WotC made that clear a few times. And in fact, the introduction of Morph changed all the rules about facedown creatures and made it work, which made Mask far less confusing and easier to understand.

I'd like to nominate Braid of Fire for this list, as it has the only cumulative upkeep 'cost' that's simply a benefit.

I remember seeing Illusionary mask quite a bit. One guy put a white, 4 mana, 5/6 flying creature with defender beneath it. Can’t remember the 2 or 3 other unusual cards he put beneath it. The other guy had a pretty wicked deck. He put a 3 mana cost, I believe 2/1 black creature beneath it. Its ability was ‘tap this, sacrifice a creature, destroy target creature’. He would steal your creature and then sacrifice it, forcing you to then lose another creature. Wait, what was the small blue Merfolk- like creature that would allow your steal a creature with lessor power as long as your merfolk remained tap?. I think that may have been one of the other surprises in the first guy’s deck.

Honorable Mention: Teferi’s Protection and Platinum Emperion. “Your life total can’t change.” Creating the strang devising line between ‘Paying life, and losing life’

@fernandobanda5734

Жыл бұрын

"Your life total can't change" isn't a cost, though.

@megapussi

Жыл бұрын

@@fernandobanda5734 hence why its an honorable mention and not actually in the list

Halo fountain, tokens and Rabble Rousing. It's very easy to get tapped creatures, you simply attack with them.

Urborg Panther should be there, and definitely was the inspiration for the ritual summon spell cards from Yu-Gi-Oh Forbidden Memories for the PS1.

I actually have a deck that is nothing but Persistant Petitioners and Islands, with four copies of Sphinx of the Chimes, four Hedron Alignment, two Thassa's Oracle, a Labratory Maniac, Triskaidekaphile and a bunch of bounce and counters.

I remember using sinister concoction in my then standard Golgari Delirium deck.

Quick Question about Chronatog: Does the "Skip your next turn"-Thing counts as Cost, or is it part of the effect? (Is it: 0: Chronatog gets +3/+3 until end of turn. You skip your next turn. Activate only once each turn. or is it: Skip your Next turn: Chronatog gets +3/+3 until enc of turn, use this ability only once each turn) On The card printed is the second Variant, but in Gatherer and Scryfall it is the first Variant, exept for the german Scryfall page, whre it is the second one again. So I am a little bit confused about that. Given, that Scryfall uses the updated versions of cards when it comes to erratas, rule Changes or creature type changes, it should be the first one, but that seems to be a weird thing to errata. The German page is probably just off on this one. But that would be good to know

@seandun7083

Жыл бұрын

The Oracle text seems to have it as part of the ability rather than the cost. Chronosavant is the same way, though the original also has it in the effect, so I assume it's some sort of standardization change for that type of effect. Weird.

@kingsinnlos2934

Жыл бұрын

@@seandun7083 Thank you, that opens ways to exiting new combos to copy Chronatogs Ability infinite times and skip all my turns

@seandun7083

Жыл бұрын

@@kingsinnlos2934 lethal vapors also works, but it lets any player do so.

10:41 - "... and you're deck will suffer a lot."

For Voltron, I use artifacts with EtB effects so they trigger again should I lose my token.

ooooh the mask is soooo powerfull... don't you see? on top of the "negate the enters the battlefield effect" wich help as told in much comments, there is another helpfull thing : it turn up face down cards as soon as they receive damage but, it doesn't care if they entered the battlefield with his effect, so we can do a big cheesy deck with very cost morph and megamorph, but we would only need to pay the 3, also i think it may work with some double faced cards (making for example cursed cathar very hard to kill)

Surprised to not see Chronatog on this list.

Nivmagus elemental also has another thing: if your opponent would counter your spell, you can turn your spell into +1/+1 counters.

Slogger was decent in standard for a time. Sure you could only use its ability four times, but that 8 damage was often enough to win on turn 6

As a person who likes how goofy sinister concoction is. I just KNEW it was gonna be in this list.

Nivmagus really seems like it should have been number 10 on this list, everything else is so much weirder.

Braid of Fire Let's get mana as "cost"

@williamdrum9899

Жыл бұрын

Back then mana burn was still around I believe

13:03 no, it uses different words but the actual effect is identical.

With Arc-Slogger you could also just play the old Ulamog in the maindeck to reshuffle your grave back into the deck. And in the case that Ulamog is stuck in your hand you can always pitch it with something like Faithless Looting or a similar effect. But even then it's a build-around card.

@Idran

Жыл бұрын

Arc-Slogger exiles cards from your library though, it doesn't send them to the graveyard

@angelgorm8230

Жыл бұрын

@@Idran Omg you're right, well that idea got trashed real fast

Does Necratog's effect stack? Could you make it into a 21/22 if you get 10 cards in your GY and use it 10 times in a row?

@salvatoredantonio2413

Жыл бұрын

Why wouldn't you be able to?

@fernandobanda5734

Жыл бұрын

Yes. You can use it as many times as you want.

@bluedestiny2710

Жыл бұрын

Yep, like any other Atog EXCEPT Chronatog which has a hard OPT effect

I am sure you forgot about aetherflux reservoir) Its coast usually is unreachable unless you build a deck around it

Top ten magic cards with the largest areolas.

I love mech titan so much, I’ve only ever attacked with it like 3 times

I see Halo Fountain here and there on Arena in Standard to make tokens in mono white or white-green decks, never to use the last ability though lol

i just want to say is that i appreciate your videos alot, the fact youre so well learned in both magic and yugioh is fantastic, im a player of both, ooh do you have a pokelogs channel? oh you do! thats right well extend my gratefulness towards that

Arc slogger can be put into any deck if you put one of the three original Eldrazi Titans in your deck. When an eldrazi titan hits the Graveyard from anywhere, it reshuffles your ENTIRE Graveyard back into the deck. So long as you don't draw into it, you're immune to any form of mill. Edit: nvm I can't read

@seandun7083

Жыл бұрын

Except it exiles...

@KhionePheonix

Жыл бұрын

@@seandun7083 you're right I'm fucking stipid

You should try to keep your graveyard correctly ordered if you can anyway - It's just a good habit to get in to, because the easiest way to untangle disagreements about the gamestate is to just go back and see where things went wrong. People do this in casual games as much as competitive ones, just that "Wait, I thought you cast that last turn?" stuff that turns into a learning experience.

I love Mechtitan. No one ever sees that transformation coming.

I feel Spirit of the Night, or rather Urborg Panther, could have made this. How many other cards ask you to sacrifice three specific named cards?

Sphinx of the Chimes is pretty easy to pull off with Squadron Hawk.

Surprised to not see Chronatog; the atog who has you skip your next turn to get the buff.

@evilgeek87

Жыл бұрын

I'm sad I had to scroll down so far to find this. One of my favorite / most annoying decks is a chrono-stasis deck. Just get down a kismet, Straus, and chronatog. Now that the opponent is locked out of the game, just skip your turn until they deck themselves. To add consistency, adding bounce spells that can hit anything are great protection that can benefit you especially when you bounce your own stuff to replay it untapped, Lorwyn/Shadowmoor cards with untapped abilities, creatures with vigilance, tutors, and some other random cards like eon hub, and gush-style alternate costed spells fill out the rest of the slots

Lol I actually played Illusionary Mask in casual games back in 1995 or so (pre errata). It was funny but useless. Camouflage was so much better because you could actually hide your creatures while they attacked, and that was still pretty useless. The only thing you could do with Mask was bluff by overpaying for a weak creature and hope that was enough of a deterrent to get your opponent to not attack, but they usually attacked anyways.

Necratog seems like an OTK tool due to there being no once per turn restriction on the effect.

Just wanna say in my arena brawl deck both halo fountain and mechtitan core is in there too and have won with both many times

If lack of protection was that much of a disadvantage then WoTC chould also have given the Mechtitan token Annihilator 5 as well and it wouldn't be overpowered. Thoughts?

Etched monstrosity...that poor etched oracle fell to evil.

Could you make a video about the best cards printed in 2019? Thanks

asmor would be a great include on this list

I’ve a friend who plays a pretty sweet “nivmagus and friends” modern deck. Idk exactly how it works anymore but I’ve lost to it a lot

Would love to see you do a video featuring un-sets, like Unglued!