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Hey Magic players! Recently I started a series looking at Magic’s most powerful uncommons. I started with the 1990s, which wasn’t a full decade for Magic, but since they were the least regulated design years, still produced some bonkers uncommons.
The post concluded with a Top 10 most powerful, of which Sol Ring, the #1 card in Commander, is only #8. Can you guess the #1?
An OP uncommon is basically a design mistake. Design was shaky at the start, but that’s to be expected. Things settled for a while in the late 90s, but then Urza’s Block happened, and along came a lot more mistakes. Did they persist into the 2000s, or did Wizards right the ship?
Let’s pick up at the beginning of the 2000s, where players have just got their teeth into Mercadian Masques, a deliberately powered-down set. Yummy?
The Early 2000s
It’s 2000. ‘Oops, I Did it Again’ by Brittney Spears and ‘Beautiful Day’ by U2 are all over the radio. The sports world is tired of the dominance of the New York Yankees. ‘Gladiator’ won Best Picture at the Oscars, but more people went to see ‘Mission Impossible 2’. Yes those are all real things.
It’s important to note that Mythic rarity appeared this decade, in 2008, when Magic turned 15, but wasn’t in any of the sets listed here.
Magic’s last set of the 1990’s, the aforementioned Mercadian Masques, was not so well received. As with many points in Magic’s history, there is much clamor that the game is dying.
Nemesis – 2000
If you go by the competitive history of Nemesis’s uncommons, you might think the game is dying indeed. This is a sad bunch. Even the name recognition of Rackling and Viseling, as creature versions of longtime classic cards The Rack and Black Vise, couldn’t give these uncommons a lift.
We have 2 standouts, barely. Both of Submerge and Massacre have seen some decent amount of play in decks over the years. Since they require specific types of lands in play for both players, they’re sideboard cards at best.
We’ve also got Terrain Generator which is actually a pretty decent Commander land for mono-coloured decks looking for a little extra ramp.
I will say that the uncommons in this set are all interesting. Many are terrible, but there were some new and cool designs being tried, like with the Spellshapers, Flowstone Surge, Rupture, Mind Slash and Nesting Wurm.
Prophecy – 2000
Prophecy is known for the word Rhystic, and having a certain free blue counterspell at uncommon…
That’s right, it’s Foil, which I’m sure was cool to open in foil. Rhystic Study a card that was barely playable until it found a home as an OP broken card-draw engine in 4-player Commander, is a common in this set, not an uncommon.
Other than Foil and fellow conditionally free spells Abolish and Flameshot, there’s little competitive history here. And considering the historic dominance of Rebel decks in these years, I’m surprised I didn’t know Brutal Suppression existed.
The big issue with Prophecy is how it considers resources. Many of the set’s uncommons, like the free spells or Lesser Gargadon, require a land to be sacrificed or discarded to do their thing. On the flip side, all of the Rhystic cards, including the uncommon Rhystic Cave can have their effects negated by the opponent paying mana. That’s kinda backwards.
There’s also weird symmetry cards, like Excavation, where any player can pay 1 and sacrifice a land to draw a card. It would be only slightly more playable if it was only the caster. And a bunch of overcosted auras, which are often a liability.
One weird standout decent card is Citadel of Pain, which is a holdover from the times of ‘mana burn,’ where unspent mana in your pool deals damage to you at end of turn. While mana burn is long gone, this is a great card in Commander for punishing players who want to cast things at instant speed during other players’ turns.
Invasion – 2000
Invasion finally brings us a legit competitive powerhouse card at uncommon, though it’s probably the most innocuous little card in the whole set.
That card is Chromatic Sphere, which has had a long history of high-level play in multiple decks across multiple formats. It’s definitely not overpowered, or a design mistake, just a very good enabler.
To a lesser extent, both of Fact or Fiction and Fires of Yavimaya have had their day in competitive magic.
There is a single card that’s only really relevant in Commander, but which is easily the most OP uncommon in the set, and that’s Aura Shards. While it requires 2 colours, both fit well with putting creatures into play and synergizing with powerful enchantments like this one. A repeatable way to keep artifacts and enchantments off the board in Commander is premium stuff.
The set has a few other notables. The card Lobotomy is the namesake for similar effects that search hand/library/graveyard for a card and remove it. The card Dredge has nothing to do with the broken ability, but is a fun precursor. Lightning Dart has seen some sideboard play. Reckless Spite is solid in Commander.
Some others have potential. Cinder Shade, Backlash, Firebrand Ranger and Pulse of Llanowar could fit into a Commander deck or two.
Planeshift – 2001
Speaking of fitting into a Commander deck or two, Planeshift is full of great uncommons for Commander. While the previous sets on this list have struggled to come up with 5 decent uncommons, Planeshift has two full five-card cycles that are totally playable, and that’s just for starters.
The Lair cycle, highlighted by the Lord Windgrace friendly Darigaaz’s Caldera, are tri-coloured lands that enter the battlefield untapped. Having to bounce another land can be a feature, not a bug (see: landfall), and even sacrificing the land can be a positive for something like The Gitrog Monster. It’s only a matter of time before Lair resurfaces, and becomes a supported land type.
Even more playable, including some competitive play, is the Charm cycle, highlighted by Crosis’s Charm. These cards set the tone for all future charms and modular spells, of which there are plenty.
There are other really playable cards too, like Star Compass, a two-mana mana rock that enters untapped. That’s solid in Commander. There’s Thornscape Battlemage, and the other battlemages. Thornscape is the best and most efficient, and has seen a few tournaments.
Some ideas are really cool, like Lashknife Barrier, Warped Devotion and Mirrorwood Treefolk. Terminal Moraine is an early Evolving Wilds variant. Even some of the silly cards are memorable, like Razing Snidd, Sawtooth Loon and Stratadon.
And then there’s the creature that changed everything. Before Flametongue Kavu, there wasn’t really a go-to 2-for-1 card in Magic. A card that removed something of your opponents’, and added to your board at the same time. We got close, with Man-o’-War and Nekrataal, but they were either impermanent or conditional. While Flametongue Kavu topped out at 4 damage, that was enough to roast most things and make it a real 2-for-1.
While not exactly OP by today’s standards, and maybe not ever, Flametongue Kavu revealed how Underpowered the creatures of the game had been thus far.
It really showed in competitive Magic, where the Kavu dominated. Other creatures had a lot of catching up to do.
7th Edition – 2001
As a reprint set, there’s no real excitement to be had here. There are colour-hate cards like Boil, classic workhorse cards like Pyroclasm and niche combo enablers like Goblin Matron.
Every card I could mention shows up in the previous post of uncommons from the 1990s, and nothing too broken from those cards appears here. Next!
Apocalypse – 2001
Apocalypse provided a couple of interesting uncommon cycles, including the Sanctuary cycle and the Herald cycle. The Sanctuary cycle has barely seen any play, anywhere though cards like Ceta Sanctuary have niche Commander appeal. The Herald cycle, including surprisingly solid Commander card Brass Herald, and competitive veteran Goblin Ringleader, is great for some of Magic’s most popular types.
Nothing too powerful there, though. There are some other fun uncommons for Commander in Coalition Flag, Diversionary Tactics, Dragon Arch, Phyrexian Gargantua, and Whirlpool Drake. This is mostly an ‘interesting’ uncommon set.
The single uncommon from Apocalypse with the most claim on being broken is Fire//Ice. Some of the other split cards in the set have seen occasional play, here and there, but nothing like the consistent play that Fire//Ice has enjoyed. It even saw a reprint as a rare in Modern Horizons, adding it to Modern, where it has already seen play, and as a common in Ultimate Masters, making it legal in Pauper as well.
The card has enough competitive pedigree that it has multiple Collectors’ Edition printings, ie. gold-bordered. These cards commemorate significant winning decks from Magic’s history, usually the World Championship.
The simple utility of the card is hard to top. It’s not only flexible in terms of having two modes, the modes themselves have some flexibility. While no one aspect of Fire//Ice is overpowered, the full package is totally beyond the scope of most of Magic’s uncommons, making it one of the best of the decade.
Odyssey – 2001
Odyssey, surprisingly, has a lot of great uncommons, and even a few that stray into very broken. We’ll start with the good stuff, and move into great.
The good stuff is mostly good in Commander. This includes Beloved Chaplain, Battle Strain, Millikin, Recoup, Spiritualize and Zombie Infestation.
Threshold, one of the main mechanics of the set, turned out to be pretty good. Getting 7 cards into your graveyard isn’t too hard, and can be a side-effect of regular gameplay, making threshold bonuses free and easy. The cycle of threshold lands, like Barbarian Ring and Cephalid Coliseum have not only seen a lot of play in several formats, the Coliseum was a mainstay of dredge decks for years, offering 3 dredge triggers plus 3 discard from an almost uncounterable source.
Next we have some very good uncommons. The reprinted Buried Alive from Weatherlight has seen lots of play, including now in Dark Phoenix decks in Legacy. Diabolic Tutor is not the most efficient tutor, but usually sees Standard play when it pops up as a frequent reprint.
Individually, the Egg cards, like Skycloud Egg, are not very good, but as a basketful, the Eggs helped create the ‘Eggs’ deck, which was sort of successful in tournaments. It was also slow, painful to play against, and messed with tournaments so much that it was banned out of existence.
Cards like Predict and Squirrel Nest have been contributors to strong decks, though both revolve around stronger cards. Predict played well with Counterbalance for a while, after Sensei’s Diving Top was banned in Legacy. Squirrel Nest formed an infinite combo with Earthcraft, which is still banned in Legacy today.
Two Odyssey uncommons are legit great, and have Legacy decks built around them. Neither are as popular as they once were, but neither is completely out of the format either. Those cards are Nimble Mongoose and Standstill. The Mongoose is a big part of Canadian Threshold/RUG Delver decks, which fill the graveyard quickly to make the ‘goose a game-ending tempo threat. Standstill decks revolve around playing the namesake card, then playing non-cast stuff like powerful lands and Timeless Dragon from the graveyard, forcing the opponent to either do nothing or let them draw 3.
Two Odyssey uncommons are very broken. Though only one has ever seen the light of day. We’ll talk about the unknown one first. It’s Dwarven Recruiter. It’s not Goblin Recruiter, one of the most broken cards of all time, but it’s the same effect. Now, it costs 1 more mana, and only targets dwarves, but that’s a type on the rise. 3 mana is still pretty reasonable for ‘stack your deck’ if there are the right dwarves to make this work. I expect Magda, Brazen Outlaw to be involved, but who knows. I could be wrong, but this is still a bananas effect on an uncommon.
The other uncommon is Psychatog. If you know Magic history, you know Psychatog. For a while, it was the best creature in the game, because it was the centrepiece of the most dominant decks in the game. The decks simply loaded the graveyard, drew cards, and waited for the right moment to force a single lethal Psychatog attack through.
These decks were often control shells, packing lots of answers and removal, because the only creature really required was the Psychatog. Turning all your removal and cantrip spells into 2-for-1s because they fueled the game-winning Psychatog attack was unparalleled value. Or else simply dumping a full hand of 7 cards can give your Psychatog +10/+10 if you include the exile from graveyard.
These days, the Psychatog isn’t really played anywhere, but it was definitely broken in its day.
Torment – 2002
Torment is full of playable uncommons for such a small set. If we’re just talking Commander, cards like Cleansing Meditation, Gloomdrifter (errataed to be a zombie), Grotesque Hybrid, Sickening Dreams, and the tainted land cycle, like Tainted Isle, are all pretty good.
A personal favourite is Zombie Trailblazer which is terrifying with Zombie Master and does fun tricks like turn problematic Maze of Iths and other lands into Swamps.
A few uncommons, like Violent Eruption and Arrogant Wurm, have seen competitive play, both in madness decks. Breakthrough has also seen some play in dredge decks.
One uncommon from the set is a Legacy, and sometimes Vintage, all-star. That card is Cephalid Illusionist, forming the core of the ‘Cephalid Breakfast’ deck. The concept is to repeatedly target the Illusionist with Shuko to mill oneself out, then put 3 Narcomoeba in play while milling, then flash back Dread Return by sacrificing the Narcomoeba, to then put Thassa’s Oracle into play and win.
The Illusionist isn’t really OP, just part of another weird way to access the very, very, very OP Thassa’s Oracle. It also depends a lot on being able to find Shuko easily with Urza’s Saga, another broken card.
And then finally there’s Cabal Coffers. Yes, this is a Torment uncommon. Coffers decks sometimes pop up in Legacy or Vintage, but they’re biggest in Commander. There, the card can be found with a Commander like Golos, Tireless Pilgrim, then combined with Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth to make absurd amounts of mana.
This is a severely broken card. While you could argue it needs a lot of help, playing a bunch of Swamps is about as low a bar for synergy as you can clear. Making a lot of mana is a proven strategy everywhere in the game, and this makes it both easy to achieve and tough to stop.
Judgment – 2002
Judgement has plenty of solid, playable uncommons but not many big standouts. For Commander, there are fun cards like Filth, Krosan Verge, Planar Chaos, Soulcatchers’ Aerie, Stitch Together, Unquestioned Authority, Valor, and Web of Inertia.
In addition to Commander play, Anger, Battle Screech, Brawn, Browbeat, Riftstone Portal and Wonder have all seen some competitive play.
The most accomplished uncommon of the set has got to be Cabal Therapy which has been a mainstay of Dredge and ‘Nic-Fit’ decks in Legacy and Vintage over the years. While not played as much now, the card could do a lot of damage if you could cast it twice in the first couple turns while getting value out of your sacrificed creature, like powerful uncommons Veteran Explorer or Stitcher’s Supplier. Even better if you can use a Gitaxian Probe first to see their hand.
Onslaught – 2002
Onslaught added more interesting uncommons to game’s rapidly growing card pool. Some of these would see almost no play until Commander rose in popularity, but since then, cards like Aether Charge, Aphetto Grifter, Bloodline Shaman, Boneknitter, Meddle, Nova Cleric, Overwhelming Instinct, Righteous Cause, Seaside Haven, and Starlit Sanctum have found homes in a few strategies.
One uncommon that really made a big mark in Commander was Explosive Vegetation, a simple card that is still playable today. The rate of getting 2 lands from your library for 4 mana is a good one, and the basic concept has been re-used frequently.
Many of the recent versions have significant added upside, like Circuitous Route, and it’s expected that Explosive Vegetation will ultimately fade into obscurity.
The best and still enduring Onslaught uncommon for Commander is Wirewood Lodge, which makes it easy to untap an elf for any old reason: value, mana, blocking, etc. Many green decks have elves around, and many of those tap to do things. It’s especially strong with a Commander like Marwyn, the Nurturer.
In terms of competitive pedigree, Astral Slide is the top of the uncommon class, with entire decks built around it, including a 2004 World Championship deck. Not many others have been as relevant. Avarax and Slice and Dice both have seen play, but that’s about it.
In recent years, the Magecraft ability, which cares about spells that players have cast or copied, has made a surprise star out of Chain of Smog. Combined with Professor Onyx or Witherbloom Apprentice, Chain of Smog can be cast and copied any number of times – always targeting the caster, but killing the opponent with lifeloss from Magecraft triggers.
Legions – 2003
Legions marked the return of Slivers and Morph cards to Standard. I wasn’t playing during this period, but it doesn’t seem like this set is well-remembered. It’s a smaller set, and while it offered plenty of support to a number of existing deck archetypes, including Slivers and Morph, it simply didn’t do enough.
The uncommons are not a powerful lot. There aren’t that many of them anyway, with only 45 total to consider. There are two standouts.
In Commander, Noxious Ghoul is a very real card for Zombie decks. It almost feels too good sometimes when you’re regularly making tokens and keeping your opponents’ boards creature-free.
Also a Commander card, but less widely played is Willbender. This is one of the better Morph cards overall and has seen a bit of 60 card constructed play also.
One of the weird hallmarks of Legions was how some effects were symmetrical. Take Goblin Lookout for example. You can sacrifice a goblin to give all goblins in play +2/+0. That includes your opponents’ Goblins. Noxious Ghoul works that way too, counting anyone’s Zombie to trigger its ability.
In a lot of ways, these effects will hold a card back, but might also be the reason the card is uniquely good down the road.
Scourge – 2003
Since this is ultimately a post about design mistakes, I should mention up front that Scourge is the set where we got the Storm mechanic. Storm is widely regarded as the most broken Magic mechanic of all, though it has competition in Dredge, Evoke, and a few others.
Before we get to the Storm cards, I should also mention that there are only 4 of them, and the set only has 44 uncommons total. Unlike Legions, however, this is a pretty impactful bunch. There are still a bunch of crummy Morph cards, and 2 mana basic-landcycling abilities that have since been outclassed, however.
The playable Commander cards include Bladewing’s Thrall, Dragonspeaker Shaman, Pyrostatic Pillar, Temple of the False God, Undead Warchief, and Unspeakable Symbol. The Temple is very widely played, despite being outright loathed by some players as a do-nothing card.
Like Legions Zombie Noxious Ghoul, Undead Warchief is a pretty big deal for the type, offering a discount on casting your undead, and a huge buff to their stats.
Cards like Edgewalker, Daru Warchief, Krosan Warchief and possibly even Pemmin’s Aura might get there eventually too.
In more competitive circles, Wirewood Symbiote, Brain Freeze, and Goblin Warchief are all going strong, even today. All three have regular homes in Legacy decks, and might even make a little noise in Vintage every now and again.
The biggest star of the Scourge uncommons should be no surprise, as it’s the biggest Storm card of them all, Tendrils of Agony. Tendrils has been the finisher for Storm decks since it was printed, and only gives ground to Empty the Warrens and Mind’s Desire. Neither of those see the play that Tendrils does, though.
Even though Storm is a broken mechanic itself, what it’s really showing off is the power of cheap or free mana acceleration. Ritual cards like Dark Ritual, and free artifact mana like the Moxes and Lotus Petal go a long way toward making Storm the issue that it is.
The power of Storm isn’t universal, as neither of Hunting Pack or Wing Shards ever really got there, but both of Tendrils of Agony and Brain Freeze (alongside Underworld Breach) are being used as kill shots in 2023-2024.
8th Edition – 2003
8th Edition is renowned for being Magic’s 10th anniversary set, and made a bunch of subtle changes to the game to improve quality of life, as well as a major change to the look of the cards. You can read about all those changes here. They’re actually pretty interesting. This is the set where the Modern format begins.
The set reprinted something from each of Magic previous expansions, all 34 of them! Including Portal: 3 Kingdoms!
The uncommon slot was not full of inspiring choices, however. Boil, Choke, and Flashfires made appearances. Peach Garden Oath from 3 Kingdoms was included, but is considerably more flavourful (peach!) than good.
The best uncommons in the set are the Urza lands, as well as black card-draw option Ambition’s Cost and blue instant tutor Merchant Scroll.
Mirrodin – 2003
As much as 8th Edition started what we now know as Modern, Mirrodin is the set that really shouted ‘Modern!!!’ This is in large part due to the plane being metal and mechanical and science fictiony, but also because it added new stuff to the game, like equipment.
The uncommons in Mirrodin are pretty strong. Crystal Shard, Fabricate, Farsight Mask, Grab the Reins, and Power Conduit are all totally Commander playable.
One of the best and most underrated contributions Mirrodin made to Magic’s uncommon and mana rock pools are the Talisman cycle. Talisman of Dominance and friends have since been supplanted as the premium 2 mana rocks that make coloured mana, mainly by Arcane Signet, but they still see all kinds of play. As you can see from the image above, they did well in competitive spheres as well. Mirrodin only had the ally coloured Talismans, like black/blue, but the cycle was completed in Modern Horizons, and those now see plenty of play too.
A handful of uncommons, notably Shrapnel Blast, Sylvan Scrying, and Thirst for Knowledge, have also seen some competitive play, and equipment like Fireshrieker, Loxodon Warhammer, and Mask of Memory show up regularly in Commander.
Speaking of showing up in Commander, Lightning Greaves is one of the most important cards in the whole format, enabling all sorts of creatures and Commanders with haste and protection at no mana cost for the equip. There are a few instances where it clashes directly with your strategy, like when you want to target your own creatures with stuff, but it’s often worth playing as long as you want to put your Commander in play. Which is pretty often.
The greaves have also seen some competitive play in Cephalid Breakfast decks, because their 0 equip cost can be used for combo purposes, but lost out to the more fetchable Shuko.
Another 2 mana artifact, Isochron Scepter, is probably pretty clearly the set’s most broken uncommon. It needs help, of course. The imprinted card makes all the difference. But pick the right card, like Dramatic Reversal, and you’ve got the makings of a combo.
The interaction with Dramatic Reversal is well-known, and makes Isochron Scepter a Shatter-on-sight card in Commander, but the thing that makes this card broken is actually its potential. It has potential to break things with any instant with 2 mana cost or less. Most instants will be fine, but we’re in an era of unprecedented power creep.
At present, there are only five 0-mana instants in the game. All pacts, like Pact of Negation. They don’t work with the Scepter, because you’ll probably lose the game to your own spells, but do you really thing they won’t print more 0 mana spells going forward? 0 mana instants? Maybe something with suspend?
Even 1-mana instants have to tread carefully around Isochron Scepter unless they offer too much value as a repeatable thing. When a single card affects design as much as this does, it might be broken.
Darksteel – 2004
Darksteel’s uncommons are a tale of two cards. No, they are not Geth’s Grimoire and Infested Roothold, which are both reasonable, niche Commander cards.
We can forget the rest of the bunch too. There’s nothing remarkable, and jeez, this is the set with both Aether Vial and Skullclamp as uncommons.
There’s plenty to say about both. Aether Vial has been a Modern and Legacy staple, providing a powerful way to get creatures into play while holding up mana for reactionary stuff or just more creatures. It’s maybe best known right now for ‘Esper Vial’ decks in Legacy, which use some of the best value creatures in black, blue and white, and for Modern decks like Humans and Merfolk, though Humans isn’t tier 1 any more, and recent competitive builds of Merfolk don’t use it.
But it’s always a short jump away from enabling a top-tier creature strategy, and it’s no surprise that Aether Vial is now printed as a rare in Masters sets.
And how about Skullclamp? This is not only a design mistake, but an admitted one. Apparently, the card was changed to giving +1/-1 at the last moment, after the testing phase. This seemed reasonable at face, because +1/-1 was a drawback, right?
Right?
No. It wasn’t. What it did, and by now most Commander players have probably seen this in practice, was turn Skullclamp and any assortment of small creatures into a powerful pay-one-mana-to-draw-2-cards engine. A lot of token decks in Commander play it, with very good reason. Making X/1 token creatures is super easy.
Drawing cards probably shouldn’t be this easy. Skullclamp is banned in both Modern and Legacy, and is one of a handful of cards that comes up in casual Commander banning conversations regularly. It has been been broken from the moment it was printed, and gets a tiny fraction better with every creature or token producer that results in an X/1.
A serious contender for most broken uncommon of all time.
Fifth Dawn – 2004
Fifth Dawn is a serious contender for best uncommon set of all time. Want proof? Let’s start with some cards that see regular Commander play in Clock of Omens, Grafted Wargear, Guardian Idol and Paradise Mantle.
This was an artifact heavy set, so lets add Blasting Station and Grinding Station, which have also seen 60-card constructed play.
Easily convinced of things by rodents? It worked for Disney. You can almost literally never have enough Relentless Rats, the first Magic card to break the rules regarding max number of each named card other than basic lands in your deck.
How about Commander staple Eternal Witness? One of the best value creatures ever printed?
Still need proof? What about Auriok Salvagers, the lynchpin of the Legacy ‘Bomberman’ decks that combine the Salvagers, Lion’s Eye Diamond and Walking Ballista for infinite damage to the face?
Or Night’s Whisper, a cheery little black card draw spell that sees play in Legacy, Vintage and cEDH?
More? What about Lantern of Insight, which had Modern decks built around it? Or Skullcage, which had Standard decks built around it?
Maybe Steelshaper’s Gift, which fetches Colossus Hammer in Hammertime decks in Modern and Legacy?
If none of that is enough is enough to convince you, look up some of the footage of Matt Nass playing Krark-Clan Ironworks, which is now banned in Modern as a result. The deck quickly loops cards like Workshop Assistant and Scrap Trawler to make absurd amounts of mana to find and loop Pyrite Spellbomb to kill the opponent. The list is full of other uncommons too.
This deck was a problem for several reasons. First, being mostly colourless made the mana really consistent. Second, the various loops could be performed at instant speed, and in response to most actions geared to try and stop them. Third, it was really confusing for a lot of players as it involved stack and timing mastery, and some would lose to their own ignorance of how the deck worked. Even Judges struggled with it.
As of yet, Krark-Clan Ironworks hasn’t proved to be an issue in other formats, and plays second fiddle in Commander to Ashnod’s Altar and Phyrexian Altar anyways, but in the right hands, who knows?
What a swathe of uncommons in Fifth Dawn! This group clobbers the rares from Legions in terms of power and relevance. What could possibly follow this?
Champions of Kamigawa – 2004
Oh right, Kamigawa. Even Wizards staff members have rarely been champions of Kamigawa, and the sets have been heavily criticized for poor design and underpowered cards.
Time, and more importantly Commander, have proved otherwise as cards from this set like the Brothers Yamazaki… I mean other than the Brothers Yamazaki… have slowly filtered into the format.
But for a time, the Kamigawa sets were ‘Legendary matters’ where legendary didn’t actually matter.
It was a Time of Need, which is one of many uncommon cards from the set that eventually became playable thanks to Commander. Other cards that turned out to be good in the bigger format include Honor-Worn Shaku, the Honden Shrines like Honden of Seeing Winds, Nezumi Graverobber, Squelch, Student of Elements, and Tenza, Godo’s Maul.
One uncommon, actually a colour-shifted reprint, has become a legit Commander staple. It’s Ghostly Prison, the white version of Propaganda, and it continues to effectively hold off go-wide strategies to this day. These cards are excellent arguments for more enchantment removal in black and red.
One uncommon, actually a mythic rare, somehow got through testing and was printed and everything, even after Skullclamp. Another top contender for most broken uncommon ever is Sensei’s Divining Top.
I have heard a lot first hand how the Top isn’t that broken. I think it’s more bananas than bananas.
I made an argument that it should be banned in Commander and I stand by it. Like Skullclamp, it is banned in both Modern and Legacy. Unlike Skullclamp, and unlike any other artifact at its cost in Magic, Sensei’s Divining Top reads ‘Tap: draw a card.’
Of course I’m oversimplifying. There’s much more to that ability. Which in the hands of the right player, is all upside. And there’s another broken ability attached as well, to manipulate the top of one’s deck. If there was ever an ‘Artificial Heart of the Cards,’ this is it.
The Top has been printed at Rare or Mythic in subsequent printings, and commands somewhere near $50 per copy. It becomes especially oppressive when combined with Counterbalance, Miracle cards, time limits, and new players trying to target it with removal.
Ban this stupid thing in Commander too, please. Spoiler alert, it’s going to be at or near the top of the all-time broken uncommons list.
Betrayers of Kamigawa – 2005
The Betrayers of Kamigawa might have been the set’s designers. There is no Top here, or anything remotely top tier in the uncommons.
I’m being generous when I say that Empty-Shrine Kannushi, Throatslitter and Walker of Secret Ways are playable. They are, but they’re all pretty borderline. The Kannushi is a sideboard answer to white Initiative decks in Legacy. The others are not among the best ninjas in Magic, but the type is still pretty small, so they make it into some Commander decks.
We are rescued by Shuko, which is seeing regular play in Cephalid Breakfast decks, where it is a singleton or two-of, easily fetched with Urza’s Saga if need be. Once it’s in play, it is used to repeatedly target Cephalid Illusionist to mill one’s own deck out, and win with Narcomoebas, Dread Return and Thassa’s Oracle on the spot.
Surely the last Kamigawa set will redeem this one, though. Look at the name!
Saviors of Kamigawa – 2005
Are the Kamigawa uncommons saved? Oof, nope. Matching Betrayers of Kamigawa with a total of 4 relevant uncommons is not a good look for the supposed Saviors of Kamigawa.
And are they even relevant? I personally like both Captive Flame and Dense Canopy as cool uncommons with unique effects that can go in the right Commander deck. But maybe I’m in the extreme minority there.
We do have two cards with competitive history in Ebony Owl Netsuke and Footsteps of the Goryo, but neither made much in the way of waves outside Standard.
I can imagine it being hard to love Magic at this point in history, where things seemed to fluctuate between periods of extreme brokenness, like Mirrodin and Urza’s blocks, to periods of underpowered and unmemorable design like Odyssey, Mercadia, and Kamigawa blocks. Luckily, a set that revitalized Magic was on the horizon.
Ninth Edition – 2005
Was it Ninth Edition? No.
We do have weird rarity shifts, like former common Drudge Skeletons now being uncommon, alongside former rare Dancing Scimitar and former banned card Kird Ape.
We also got Gift of Estates and Soul Warden, which see Commander play, as well as a reprint again of the Urza lands.
Whatever. Next was Ravnica.
Ravnica, City of Guilds – 2005
Ravnica breathed new life into magic. Some might say it captured the imaginations of players with its rich, endless urban environment.
I’ve also heard it described as the most dull plane out there, where everyone has one of only ten very simplistic personalities. Which is more the way I feel. I think maybe Ravnica’s virtues come from making colour pairs playable intentionally rather than accidentally and not from lore. The shocklands, like Temple Garden helped a lot too, reintroducing basic-typed dual lands to Magic.
There are a lot of solid uncommons, no matter how you feel. Nullmage Shepherd, Perilous Forays, Reroute, Suppression Field, Vitu-Ghazi, the City-Tree, and Voyager Staff all do good things in Commander.
As well, cards like Lightning Helix, Putrefy, and Remand have plenty of success in multiple formats, and even though it’s not much to look at anymore, Watchwolf was once a shocking new standard of creature efficiency.
In terms of broken mechanics, this was the first time we saw Dredge. There are only 3 uncommons with the ability, and only Darkblast and Golgari Thug have ever seen play, but the Thug is a staple of almost every Dredge deck ever, and has all those accolades. Apologies to Moldervine Cloak, which did make one of my Commander decks.
Two boros cards, ie. red/white, have been part of big things too. Flame-Kin Zealot was once a finisher for Dredge decks, making their quickly assembled legion of zombie tokens hasty, but those days are gone, sadly.
That’s not true of Sunhome, Fortress of the Legion, which is very relevant right now as part of Amulet Titan decks in Modern. The deck quickly ramps to Primeval Titan then plays a sequence of lands that allow the player to basically win in a single attack with the Titan. The double strike granted by Sunhome is a very real part of that.
But that’s the highest height achieved by Ravnica uncommons. Lots of utility, but nothing too broken. A good place to be in, and good place to stop. The end of 2005.
The Top Ten Uncommons of 2000-2005
10. Tendrils of Agony – The premiere Storm finisher. On the short list of all-time game enders. Combines with rituals and tutors in their best colour.
9. Dwarven Recruiter – Unplayed, unknown, and overcosted compared to Goblin Recruiter, but still one of the most insane lines of text in Magic. Could be broken by future Dwarves or even Changelings.
8. Lightning Greaves – The reason a fair amount of slower Commander decks can get their strategy going. The reason a fair amount of vulnerable Commanders survive a turn cycle. Sometimes the reason a deck can win against 3 opponents at once.
7. Psychatog – Probably Magic’s best creature up to this point, which is really saying something. The only creature the best decks of its era needed, with its name as the deck’s name.
6. Isochron Scepter – Occasionally makes for combos, but mostly defines how 0, 1 and 2 mana instants are designed, just in case they break the game when imprinted on this card.
5. Cabal Coffers – One of the best big mana generators period. Combos with Swamps, which you’re playing anyway if you’re playing this card. Tough to stop, and completely silly with Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth.
4. Aether Vial – Curving out for free seems good. The backbone of all sorts of creature-based decks. Nothing else out there like it, so comparisons are tough, but it’s a perfect example of a build-around card in a way that maybe nothing else is.
3. Krark-Clan Ironworks – Took a while, but once a couple of players really figured it out, became utterly unbeatable in Modern. Required expert-level stack and timing knowledge, sometimes over and above what Magic Judges could keep up with, but overwhelmed Modern.
2. Skullclamp – An admitted design mistake. Was a known offender from moment one onwards. Has never been less than OP. Only legal in Commander, Oathbreaker and Vintage. Makes for absurd amounts of card-draw. Really good just when equipped on something you want an opponent to think twice about killing. Loves tokens.
1. Sensei’s Divining Top – A complete and utter failure of design. More overpowered than Skullclamp and more obnoxious to play against than Krark-Clan Ironworks. Also abuses the stack, as well as newer players, and the acceptable length of time spent looking at your cards in hand and top of library and hemming and hawing. Also only legal in Commander, Oathbreaker and Vintage. Can be tapped to draw a card, plus what was supposed to be downside but isn’t. Completely inexplicable at uncommon. $50.
Conclusion
Who knew the most broken uncommon from 2000-2005 would be from Kamigawa block! You might disagree of course, and please feel free to do that in the comments!
We’ll continue in future with 2006-2010!
Thanks for reading!
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