Every time one of these threads come up I have to mention Divine Intervention. It's eight mana to ensure you won't lose. You're investing a large portion of your resources to make sure the game ends in a draw. Yeesh. Even if you throw in Opalescence you can't win by attacking with just Divine Intervention if you're opponent is at 20 life. DI is a card that actively works against your ability to win the game.
Great Wall, at least, doesn't stop you from winning if you cast it (unless you are depending on Boggart Arsonists for the win).
I have a deck that uses a donated Sorrow's Path as the win con, with lots of tapping and untapping effects to abuse the land for multiple activations each turn. Its alot of fun and quite brutal as well.
However I do agree that its a terrible card. After all, any card thats good only when your opponent controls it has to be pretty bad.
Pale moon is a silence against some decks, that can pitch to FoW.
My vote is for wood elemental. The downside is so much worse than the upside, you would never want to play it over something else. (I also opened it in a pack of legends a year ago.)
With cards like Great Wall, if their effect is what you need, it's exactly and most powerfully what you need! Even if it's an effect you could never imagine wanting, it doesn't stop the card from being good at what it does.
Every time one of these threads come up I have to mention Divine Intervention. It's eight mana to ensure you won't lose. You're investing a large portion of your resources to make sure the game ends in a draw. Yeesh. Even if you throw in Opalescence you can't win by attacking with just Divine Intervention if you're opponent is at 20 life. DI is a card that actively works against your ability to win the game.
It's useful when your opponent has a Platinum Angel as well as too much protection for you to destroy it.
1) Pale Moon is only legal in Legacy and Vintage and casual.
2) In Legacy and Vintage, there is Wasteland and people are usually playing a lot of fetchlands and at least one basic land to dodge Wasteland. Yes, there are exceptions, but I will later comment on why these exceptions aren't a good reason to play Pale Moon. In casual, people have hardly any nonbasic lands at all.
3) Pale Moon doesn't prevent colorless spells being cast, it doesn't prevent free spells being cast, it doesn't prevent abilities being activated, it doesn't prevent cards being drawn during the draw step and it doesn't prevent creatures attacking.
4) In the late game, nobody would be casting spells anyway. In the early game, spending two mana and one card means basically giving your opponent a free Time Walk (and if the opponent happens to be playing one of those exceptional decks, then he is disabled from casting most of his spells, but he still gets to do all of the stuff mentioned above that Pale Moon doesn't prevent).
5) The decks with no basic lands tend to have a lot of free spells and very aggressive plays, such as swinging with a 3/2 flyer or casting a Tendrils of Agony with 10 storm or casting a 5/3 golem that makes all your spells cost more, all of these easily happening on turn two. And obviously you can't do anything about them without FoW or Daze, because you just spent all your mana to cast a Pale Moon.
6) Not only it would be very disadvantageous to cast Pale Moon even though it was one-sided, it also does the same thing to you!
The only thing you can do with a Pale Moon that doesn't hurt yourself is pitching it to FoW (well, even then it hurts you, but at least in that case the profit from countering a spell is usually greater than the disadvantage from losing 1 life). The best scenario after casting Pale Moon is that you're skipping a turn because you spent all your mana, and your opponent is also skipping a turn because he can't cast spells and he has nothing to attack with; you just lost a card in order to achieve this and your opponent didn't.
The existence of Pale Moon can't even be justified with "there has to be a card that does this or fills this role" (unlike the existence of most other bad cards), because there already was the much better, but not by any means overpowered Back to Basics by the time Pale Moon was printed.
Did someone change the title of this thread to 'best card ever' when you looked at it? I am so confused . . .
No, why would you think that? I just pointed out why Pale Moon, the worst card ever, is the worst card ever.
No, you pointed out why it's not competitive or very useful. It's hardly the worst card ever.
Also, I'm currently helping with a custom set the focuses on "colorless mana matters," a format that would love an effect like this, whereas Back to Basics doesn't help at all.
Divine Intervention is one of those cards that you hold in your hand and play when you see that in a couple of turns it's game over and you have no chance based on the board state and what you know is in your deck.
It essentially prevents having to scoop when somebody drops that Wurmcoil on you and you've got nothing in front of you, no artifact removal and you're at 20 life.
Is it a great card? Of course not. But worst card ever printed? Not even close.
And while we're on the subject (these discussions always give me a chuckle when we have them at FNM) there is no such thing as a best or worst card. Any card can have at least some use. Doesn't mean it's good, but it doesn't mean it's the worst either.
Arguments can be made for a ton of cards being just plain awful. But to categorically "claim" that XYZ card is the worst is a little presumptuous at best and foolish at worst.
I mostly agree with Felix, every card has some potential use, but some are harder to exploit than others.
I actually have a deck that wood elemental could be used in, it wouldn't be especially powerful, but it certainly isn't useless. Anybody ever constructed a green land destruction deck? If you have, you'd see the potential use for such a card, but it's only mildly useful.
North star : If you started playing back when legends was released you would understand it's usefulness in an artifact deck (I started playing around the antiquities release) If you have all the urza lands and misc. other colorless mana producers, and you need to cast your guardian beast or Hanna's custody or the abyss or whatever else, north star eliminates the need for using 'mana of any color' cards. That being said it's activation cost is too high, but since I often had the desirable problem of too much mana in my urza land decks, I used it now and then.
Neither are very good, but neither is so useless as great wall, which i have to agree with as being largely useless. Had a substantial number of plainswalk creatures been produced after legends, this would be different.
How do we measure power? I'd define power as having the most cost-effective, highest number of positive interactions.
Great Wall clearly has the fewest interactions. Apart from the 6 creatures it "hoses" (none of which are remotely playable in any format in which Great Wall is legal), i suppose it attacks for 3 with Opalescence on the table.
That said, the interactions it has are positive.
Mudhole is a strictly worse Tormod's crypt. The only situation in which it is better is if:
- you MUST remove the lands in your opponent's GY
AND
- they are holding Annul, Trickbind or some other coubnterspell that hits Crypt and not Mudhole.
A huge corner case. That said, it interacts with hundreds of cards in MTG, has a few interactions that in theory might come up in actual play (KoTR, etc...), and, while overcosted, isn't hideously expensive.
Like Great Wall, there are corner cases where would could use it to kill an opponent by giving it an ability it does not innately have (there's something that triggers when you cast stuff, can't remember what)
Sorrow's Path, while clearly brutally aweful, can be used as a combat trick and has an donate interaction that puts your opponent on a 10 turn clock. It's harder to remove / counter than either of the above cards, and interacts with thousands of cards (all creatures, at least).
Wood Elemental is, I think, the clear winner of worst creature, but as a creature can attack, block, and kill the opponent, it has too many interactions to be the worst card ever.
I think Great Wall is the clear winner here quite frankly.
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I disagree with Stasis being the worst art ever; in fact I think it is the best art ever to grace the game. It's just that most MTG players are also not aesthetically minded. They often fail to grasp abstract concepts.
Worst card depends on how you view it, but design wise, I think Mindless Null was one of the worst simply because it was printed as a strictly worse card than an existing card, and was a misprint in the first place.
Development wise, there are a lot of worst cards, most of them breaking formats in half, like Skullclamp. (Yes, banned cards are bad cards as well!)
Stasis is considered one of the worst art cards (but I dont believe so)
As far as playability and usage in decks... they are not really the worst per se, but what comes to mind are the banding Legend lands such as Adventurer's Guildhouse. They dont even produce mana!
Sorrow's Path is pretty awful. You have to come up with a seriously contrived situation to make it even playable, let alone useful
most of the other "bad" cards at least have some legitimate use (i.e. Great Wall in the sideboard in case they ever print an incredibly popular creature with plainswalk....not likely, but possible). I remember when these lists had things like Tabernacle at the Pendrell Vale and Bazaar of Baghdad before people found uses for them
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Great Wall, at least, doesn't stop you from winning if you cast it (unless you are depending on Boggart Arsonists for the win).
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However I do agree that its a terrible card. After all, any card thats good only when your opponent controls it has to be pretty bad.
My vote is for wood elemental. The downside is so much worse than the upside, you would never want to play it over something else. (I also opened it in a pack of legends a year ago.)
With cards like Great Wall, if their effect is what you need, it's exactly and most powerfully what you need! Even if it's an effect you could never imagine wanting, it doesn't stop the card from being good at what it does.
It's useful when your opponent has a Platinum Angel as well as too much protection for you to destroy it.
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Did someone change the title of this thread to 'best card ever' when you looked at it? I am so confused . . .
No, you pointed out why it's not competitive or very useful. It's hardly the worst card ever.
Also, I'm currently helping with a custom set the focuses on "colorless mana matters," a format that would love an effect like this, whereas Back to Basics doesn't help at all.
It essentially prevents having to scoop when somebody drops that Wurmcoil on you and you've got nothing in front of you, no artifact removal and you're at 20 life.
Is it a great card? Of course not. But worst card ever printed? Not even close.
And while we're on the subject (these discussions always give me a chuckle when we have them at FNM) there is no such thing as a best or worst card. Any card can have at least some use. Doesn't mean it's good, but it doesn't mean it's the worst either.
Arguments can be made for a ton of cards being just plain awful. But to categorically "claim" that XYZ card is the worst is a little presumptuous at best and foolish at worst.
I used to think Kaervek's Spite was the worst card ever printed until I discovered Barren Glory and Oblivion Ring FTW.
Worst is in the eye of the beholder and nothing more...or less.
I actually have a deck that wood elemental could be used in, it wouldn't be especially powerful, but it certainly isn't useless. Anybody ever constructed a green land destruction deck? If you have, you'd see the potential use for such a card, but it's only mildly useful.
North star : If you started playing back when legends was released you would understand it's usefulness in an artifact deck (I started playing around the antiquities release) If you have all the urza lands and misc. other colorless mana producers, and you need to cast your guardian beast or Hanna's custody or the abyss or whatever else, north star eliminates the need for using 'mana of any color' cards. That being said it's activation cost is too high, but since I often had the desirable problem of too much mana in my urza land decks, I used it now and then.
Neither are very good, but neither is so useless as great wall, which i have to agree with as being largely useless. Had a substantial number of plainswalk creatures been produced after legends, this would be different.
Great Wall clearly has the fewest interactions. Apart from the 6 creatures it "hoses" (none of which are remotely playable in any format in which Great Wall is legal), i suppose it attacks for 3 with Opalescence on the table.
That said, the interactions it has are positive.
Mudhole is a strictly worse Tormod's crypt. The only situation in which it is better is if:
- you MUST remove the lands in your opponent's GY
AND
- they are holding Annul, Trickbind or some other coubnterspell that hits Crypt and not Mudhole.
A huge corner case. That said, it interacts with hundreds of cards in MTG, has a few interactions that in theory might come up in actual play (KoTR, etc...), and, while overcosted, isn't hideously expensive.
Like Great Wall, there are corner cases where would could use it to kill an opponent by giving it an ability it does not innately have (there's something that triggers when you cast stuff, can't remember what)
Sorrow's Path, while clearly brutally aweful, can be used as a combat trick and has an donate interaction that puts your opponent on a 10 turn clock. It's harder to remove / counter than either of the above cards, and interacts with thousands of cards (all creatures, at least).
Wood Elemental is, I think, the clear winner of worst creature, but as a creature can attack, block, and kill the opponent, it has too many interactions to be the worst card ever.
I think Great Wall is the clear winner here quite frankly.
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most of the other "bad" cards at least have some legitimate use (i.e. Great Wall in the sideboard in case they ever print an incredibly popular creature with plainswalk....not likely, but possible). I remember when these lists had things like Tabernacle at the Pendrell Vale and Bazaar of Baghdad before people found uses for them
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lol this. That's one of the more bewildering cards I've ever seen (in a "why does this exist?" kind of way)
let me introduce this charmer. http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=417599
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