MTG Salvation

While at the Pre-Release this last weekend, someone made the off-hand comment that "...Is Solemn Simulacrum even any good in Commander anymore? I mean, it's the best EDH card in Mirrodin, but it's no longer an auto-include like it once was..." to which I responded "Well, is it even the best card in Mirrodin?" The resulting conversation got me thinking about how looking for cards for "Timeline" was really interesting as certain sets had tons of good EDH cards while some sets had almost none. It occurred to me that this could spawn some interesting dialogue about how cards are evaluated for EDH by comparing them to other cards from the same set.

So I figured I run a set of poll threads, each one covering 6 sets, where Commander forum-goers can vote for which card they consider to be the "MVP" from each of those sets. The term "MVP" can mean what you want it to be; either the most-used card in your experience, your favorite card from that set, what you consider the most powerful card for Commander, or perhaps the most "influential" Commander card.

I tried to narrow it down to what I thought were the top 10-15 of each set, combining several cards into one selection for certain cycles of cards where it made sense (like the ABU Dual Lands). If someone wants to vote for something not on the poll, choose the "Other" vote option and put your selection in a post. Feel free to comment and debate you selections in the thread, but please remain respectful of the opinions of others and realize that each person is gong to bring a slightly different definition of "MVP" to the table.

Also note that I am specifically excluding banned cards from the polls.

Happy voting!

Cool idea!

The answer is yes, Sad Robot is still excellent value. Also, it's damn hard to actually pick an MVP from Fallen Empires.

I took a deep dive into Mirrodin to see what I play (and see played) most. I typically don't pay attention to what set cards are from, and I was surprised to see how many Mirrodin cards I play on a regular basis.

Ubiquity
Me: Duplicant
What I see: Lightning Greaves

While I like Solemn, he is a pretty easy cut in most decks for something thematic given how blandly generic he is.

This is a fun idea so I went through and voted on each one. Here were my choices:

Timetwister - I think it is very hard to say Sol Ring isn't the most powerful of those cards. But, for me, I prefer Timetwister. Late game it rebuilds my hand; early game, it wrecks other people's hands. Personally, I play this in every deck I can (so, every blue deck) whereas Sol Ring only makes the cut in non-green decks.

Diamond Valley - I initially voted for Bazaar (mostly because I didn't read through the whole list) because it is very good in the decks I play it in. However, since I decided to go back and re-read the list, Diamond Valley gets my vote. Every person I regularly play with knows Diamond Valley is my go to land and they actively try to blow it up. It has kept me in countless games that would otherwise have lost. I run it in 6 decks and it will be 7 once our league is done for Lord Windgrace as we stick to a weekly budget and Diamond Valley is just outside being able to save up each week for it No other card makes it in more percentage of my decks.

Strip Mine - This one was a toss-up between Strip Mine and Candelabra. I think Candelabra is better in the right deck, but it is harder to really make work. I have had it in two decks and only one stuck around long enough for me to play it. The deck that stuck around was Thassa and it was great, but Strip Mine just offers way more utility to the game. I am starting to try to run it in more decks than I currently do, but of the choices, I think this is the right one.

Mana Drain - Legends is riddled with powerful (and overpowered) cards. There are a lot of good choices here, but I went with Mana Drain due to its utility and power. The power of countering a spell and ramping for UU cannot be understated.

Maze of Ith - Sorrow's Path is tough to pass up I went with Maze of Ith since, of the cards listed, it is the one I actually use in EDH. There are other cares that are good in certain builds or in certain circumstances, but Maze works in so many decks and strategies.

High Tide - This one was based entirely on power level. Fallen Empires has very little options and I have a soft spot Breeding Pit since it was one of the first cards I ever used in a deck. But, High Tide is the card that enables combos or other strategies. Hymn is good but not as much in EDH as it is in Legacy.

Quote from toctheyounger77 »

Cool idea!

The answer is yes, Sad Robot is still excellent value. Also, it's damn hard to actually pick an MVP from Fallen Empires.

Thanks. And yes, there are going to be some sets where you will say to yourself "I literally have never seen or considered any of these cards for an EDH deck" and Fallen Empires is going to be one of those sets for a lot of people. Where the real fun happens is when you have a set like the original Ravnica that have multiple really good options for MVP.

Quote from TheDrB »

I took a deep dive into Mirrodin to see what I play (and see played) most. I typically don't pay attention to what set cards are from, and I was surprised to see how many Mirrodin cards I play on a regular basis.

Ubiquity
Me: Duplicant
What I see: Lightning Greaves

Mirrodin is a good set for Commander, and I'm the same as you on trying to stuff Duplicant in every deck.

Quote from WizardMN »

Maze of Ith - Sorrow's Path is tough to pass up I went with Maze of Ith since, of the cards listed, it is the one I actually use in EDH. There are other cares that are good in certain builds or in certain circumstances, but Maze works in so many decks and strategies.

I was hard pressed to try and find a 10th card for the poll, so I went with the obvious joke... we once considered doing a "Worst Magic Cards in History as your Commander" challenge where you had to build an EDH deck with a really bad card as your commander (from a pre-selected list) and use it as your win-con somehow. One of the suggestions was a Sorrow's Path/Stuffy Doll combo deck. We just couldn't agree on how we would do color identity for something like a Sorrow's Path so we scrapped the idea.

Thanks to everyone who voted so far. I'll post a new thread for Ice Age through Visions in a couple of days.

This is a fun idea, lets see:

ABUR: It's gotta be Sol Ring. It's the second best ramp spell (behind Mana Crypt) in a format that is oriented towards mana and goes in almost every deck (there are some niche ones with low curves and heavy colour requirements). And it is the iconic commander card as we're basically the only format people will get to play it in. Duals are nice but pretty easily replaceable by cards that aren't significantly worse. Timetwister is insane in certain decks, but not more than good in a typical EDH deck, Swords to Plowshares is the best kill spell ever, but not by much, so yeah, it's Sol Ring.

Arabian Nights: It's between a solid but unspectacular card that goes everywhere in the form of City of Brass and an insanely broken card that only fits into specific decks in the form of Bazaar of Baghdad. In the end, I went for the latter. In this day and age there's so much fixing around that City doesn't really stand out - it's a good card, but easily replaceable, whereas there's nothing close to Bazaar.

Antiquities: 'Shop is the most powerful card here, but again requires a very specific deck, and unlike City, Strip Mine does still stand out as a very powerful card, and it's only real replacement, Wasteland is a fair bit more costly. Being able to answer any land is a very strong tool in a format like this, and on top of that, there are some decks that can abuse Strip Mine far more than simply killing a threat. Candelabra does get an honourable mention, as it's a very powerful card, but much like Shop it requires building around and I feel it's the weaker of those two.

Legends: An easy Sylvan Library. Not only is it a very powerful card drawing engine on it's won, but we're playing a 40 life format, so it's drawback is pretty much irrelevant. And it's in green, thus giving cheap repeatable card advantage to many decks that otherwise wouldn't have it. There are other good cards here, but nothing that gets close to the overall performance of Library across the format.

The Dark: Blood Moon. Fellwar Stone is a good mana rock, but easily replaceable. Maze of Ith is a good effect that can be very strong against certain decks. But overall, the impact of Blood Moon is just too high. Pretty much every mono red and 2-colour red deck should have it in the 99, and many 3 colour ones should too, especially if they've got green in there too. With the amount of multicolour decks and powerful utility lands in EDH, resolving a Blood Moon will shift the game heavily in your favour.

Fallen Empires: Wow, I always forget how bad this was. Night Soil is a decent card, but nothing that impacts the format. Hymn to Tourach is mediocre in multiplayer formats. So that leaves High Tide. It's pretty niche, but at least it is very strong in the decks that do want it.

As an aside, I consider Solemn Simulacrum to be a decent but heavily overplayed card. If you're expecting to just play it, get a land and probably get a card later, it's not great. If you can easily retrigger those effects (e.g. graveyard recursion or blink) it becomes good, or alternatively if you have artifact, particularly artifact creature synergies, then it's often worth running. But if all you're getting out of a Solemn is what it says on the card, it probably shouldn't be in your deck.

I'm not really sure how people can rate the most cancerous card in the format as "mvp".

Actually, this was pretty easy for me.

ABU: Oh, here was the toughie. Sol Ring, Basalt Monolith, Timetwister, Braingeyser, Swords to Plowshares, Nevinyrral's Disk, Armageddon, Wrath of God...In the end, I picked Winter Orb.

Arabian Nights: I wanted a "generally good" card here. Obviously that excluded Bazaar of Baghdad, but it made City of Brass on point.

Antiquities: Candelabra of Tawnos. My other choices were Mishra's Workshop, Ashnod's Altar, and Strip Mine. Candelabra is great with Workshop. And Gaea's Cradle. And Serra's Sanctum. And Cabal Coffers. And Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx. And a bunch of flip lands.

Legends: Again, a hard choice. Mana Drain screamed out to me, as did The Abyss and The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale. I picked Sylvan Library because, hey, every green deck runs it. Tabernacle is typically used in Stax (but not token Stax), where there's a reason I call it "Tabernak!", and while Mana Drain is powerful, I find myself using it mostly as Pimp Counterspell.

The Dark: Blood Moon. Okay, this was a hard pick, and I thought it was between Tormod's Crypt and Maze of Ith, but then I realized, about 70% of players get greedy with nonbasic lands, and remembered Blood Moon was from The Dark.

Fallen Empires: High Tide. I had a few other options, but none came close to High Tide.

I love that Sorrow's Path got nominated. Haha.

High Tide is quite powerful though niche. I actually quite like Nightsoil. It does a fine job of hosing creature based graveyard decks while generating some value. It's solid grave hate in green, that sadly gets outclassed by Scavenging Ooze.

Fun idea, but I don't like the ambiguity of what the poll is about. Pick a thing. Personally I voted by power, though a lot of these I wish didn't exist and avoid playing unless it makes a lot of sense specifically for the deck.

sol ring is the easy pick for abu. Nothing else is even close. duals are great and all, but there are so many great fixing lands that they aren't that big of a deal. I mean, there are people that didn't even want to play the BBD duals. Gives you some idea. Timetwister is niche, most blue decks should have better CA that doesn't refill their opponents. Demonic tutor is probably the second best and arguably better for some combo decks, but nobody beats sol ring in terms of being stupidly underpriced. Voted Sol Ring.

arabian knights in bazaar vs CoB. CoB is a good competitive land and an ok casual one. bazaar is much more unique, but I don't know any decks that actually use it. Pretty hard to do manaless dredge in EDH. Voted CoB.

antiquities is ashnods vs strip mine vs workshop (lol @ people voting factory). Workshop is the most OP by far, but it's also very niche. Strip mine is ubiquitous. Ashnods is more powerful outside of 1v1, but more niche. I voted strip mine but honestly I could see all three sides.

legends is sylvan library vs mana drain. Mana drain is stupid but in terms of interacting badly with the format, library is way too strong. It can literally be a draw 2 every turn for 2 mana. It's pretty hard for a counter to really be OP when the nature of counters means they're kind of a last resort anyway, even if mana drain is probably the best. Voted sylvan library.

dark is fellwar vs bloodmoon vs maze of ith. Maze is great in casual metas but pretty trash competitively imo. Bloodmoon is kind of the reverse. Fellwar stone is just good anywhere, and I'm biased but I've used fellwar stone in like half my decks, and bloodmoon and maze almost never. Voted fellwar stone.

fallen empires is high tide vs nothing. If you didn't vote high tide it's because you were either using different criteria or you have a limited understanding of the format.

Awesome thread!

[b]ABU[/b]: It warms the depths of my heart to see SO MANY EDH all-stars here. With power creep it's sometimes easy for me to forget that the beauty of EDH is seeing truly old school cards dominate and shape the table. Logically, the only vote is Sol Ring but my snap reaction was Wheel of Fortune. Yes, Sol Ring is everywhere and is "the face of the format", a sacred cow that is clearly unbalanced but playable here because it makes games more fun. But Wheel of Fortune is a crucial card for red that is insanely powerful and hasn't been judged "out of color pie" by WotC, giving it a key ability to reload in a format where that's crucial. It also not only defines its effect (we call any "draw or discard" a "Wheel"), but defines an entire archetype - "Wheel and Deal" is a actual deckbuilding theme best exemplifed by Nekusar, the Mindrazer but seen elsewhere. I changed my vote to Sol Ring for logic, but I adore my one copy of Wheel of Fortune and think its place in history and the current meta shouldn't be understated.

[b]Arabian Nights[/b]: To me, City of Brass is the MVP as the eternal "gold standard" in 5-color lands. While it's been power-creeped by Mana Confluence and Command Tower it is still a ubiquitous and important land. Bazaar of Baghdad is clearly more powerful, but also more niche and expensive and thus I've never played with it. I'm sure if I owned one for my Gitrog deck I'd feel differently.

[b]Antiquities[/b]: Again, so many great choices but for me it has to be Ashnod's Altar, an absolute cornerstone in like 60% of the infinite combos and strong synergies in the format. Having played it I'll also say it's always better than you think it will be - just such a rockstar.

[b]Legends[/b]: How appropriate to have so many cards here. I think the raw power of Mana Drain is a valid choice. I ranked Land Tax which, like Sylvan Library grants a very out-of-color pie effect to a color that desperately needs it. I think both are defensible, but as Green has gotten better and better library and hand manipulation over the years I've felt the lack of Libraries in my inventory less acutely than I've felt the lack of Land Tax.

[b]The Dark[/b]: Another great EDH set full of gems. I ranked Fellwar Stone since it's a card I embarrassingly slept on for a long time that is now ubiquitous and crucial in basically all my non-green EDH decks. If I owned a Maze of Ith it'd probably get the nod instead. I'm also quite fond of Ashes to Ashes as a powerful removal spell in black. It's fallen a bit out of favor mostly since I only own one and Reckless Spite is a bit more accessible in addition to the increased competition at the 3-slot in black recently from Heroes Downfall and Vona's Hunger, but it's still a very good removal spell.

[b]Fallen Empires[/card]: The first set to not have EDH staples. I think High Tide is the card and it isn't close, as it is essential in most all Ux Storm/Spellslinger decks, but it's not nearly the staple that cards on the list from those first five sets are.

Quote from illakunsaa »

I'm not really sure how people can rate the most cancerous card in the format as "mvp".

Simple - "most cancerous" is an opinion not shared by all. Second, even those who think it should be banned have to admit it does a ton of work and helps more decks than its competitors. It also helps that it is far more accessible and cheaper than many of its competitors, so people see it far more often.

Quote from illakunsaa »

I'm not really sure how people can rate the most cancerous card in the format as "mvp".

Hey, don't talk about Sorrow's Path like that it's not its fault.

MVP is always a vague term that's definition tends to vary by who's talking about it. But it's fun to talk about so who cares?

Also, I love looking at EDHREC while thinking about the sets, so here we go:

A/B/U
MVP: Sol Ring - Not a lot to say other than "obviously"
MVP if Sol Ring didn't exist: Birds of Paradise - This question is more interesting with a lot of options. Tutor, Disk, Wrath, StP are all valid options, but it's hard to go against one of the best and original mana dorks.
Overused card: Library of Leng - This card is in 5,000 decks! **shakes head in disgust**
Underappreciated Gem: Copy Artifact - Cheap and always has plenty of fun targets

Arabian Nights
MVP: City of Brass - Bazaar of Baghdad is more powerful, but so specific/limited in scope
Card that would see heavy play if price/availability changed - Diamond Valley Yeah, this would be popular if it didn't cost $500
Overused card: Desert Twister - Please don't spend 6 mana for a 1 for 1 trade with no added upside. It's usually a bad deal and there are so many powerful things you could do with that mana.
Underappreciated Gem: Guardian Beast - Slim pickings for this set

Antiquities
MVP:Ashnod's Altar - Strip Mine is more important, and Mishra's Workshop is more powerful, but the Altar is all about the fun combo shenanigans. And who doesn't love shenanigans. SHENANIGANS!
Overused card: Feldon's Cane - There are better ways to do that. Also, you probably don't need to do that.
Underappreciated Gem: Energy Flux - You won't win any popularity contests with this one.
Fun fact: Each Urza's land has a different number of decks played in on EDHREC, meaning some play at least one without all 3. People are weird.

Legends
MVP: Land Tax - Sylvan Library is a fine option as well, basically they are both enchantments that let you Ancestral every turn.
Honorable Mention: The Elder Dragon Legends - Granddaddy's of the format
Overused card: Hell's Caretaker - Too SLOW!
Underappreciated Gem: Arena of the Ancients - Commander hate that surprises people. I remember using this as my answer to Progenitus in legacy.

The Dark
MVP: Maze of Ith - Yes, Blood Moon is more powerful. That said, the social contract against severe mana denial is strong.
Overused card: Eater of the Dead - Why? Do people not realize you can only hate a creature out of the grave if it is tapped?
Underappreciated Gem: Lurker - Not really. It's just the only card in 0 decks. 2 people are playing Electric Eel for Pete's sake. What did Lurker do to get absolutely no love?

Fallen Empires
MVP: High Tide - Winner by default
Overused card: Rainbow Vale - But not really. I mean, if you are using it for the 5 color land, stop that. Bad player. But I suspect most people are going for the chaotic pass-around-the-table fun. Hey, you do you.
Underappreciated Gem: Goblin Chirurgeon - Not really underappreciated, but a stellar (albeit narrow) card that deserves mention. Also, taking a thorough look through this set is like doing a 3 meter swan dive into the kiddie pool.

Quote from Sharpened »

Overused card: Eater of the Dead - Why? Do people not realize you can only hate a creature out of the grave if it is tapped?

Phenax, God of Deception. That's why.

Quote from Sharpened »

Card that would see heavy play if price/availability changed - Diamond Valley Yeah, this would be popular if it didn't cost $500

Not to say this isn't at least somewhat true, but I picked all my copies up when they were $80 (still a bit pricey but not $500) and in that time I saw 2 people ever use this card: my cousin (who got me to use it) and his friend whom he convinced to use it. I don't doubt that there would be more people that would want it, but the fact is that it is fairly narrow and wasn't all that popular (at least, in the metas I played) when it was cheaper. I am not sure cost and supply are the factors in it not seeing play.

Note that this is my second favorite card in all of Magic (narrowly beaten out by Birds of Paradise) so I am not suggesting that it *shouldn't* see more play; I just never saw it even when it didn't have the exorbitant price it has now.

Quote from PhroX »

Quote from Sharpened »

Overused card: Eater of the Dead - Why? Do people not realize you can only hate a creature out of the grave if it is tapped?

Phenax, God of Deception. That's why.

It's also not written on the card. If this had been Shadowmoor, it would say

q: Exile target creature card from a graveyard.

It also doesn't really take much to find a way to tap creatures. Cryptolith Rite. That said, if I'm in BG, Scavenging Ooze exists, and even in mono-B, Leyline of the Void, Nihil Spellbomb, and Bojuka Bog; how much gravehate do you need?

I'll admit to having used Desert Twister in the past, but there are so many better options now.

Beast Within: Really? Just one 3/3? Can also be used to beef up one of your own tokens in a pinch.
Spine of Ish Sah: Reusable, gets around protection, if you have some way to sac artifacts. Can be really fun with Hoard-Smelter Dragon.
Scour from Existence: It exiles, and gets around protection.

Another "How many do you need?" card.

Quote from hyalapterouslemur »

Quote from PhroX »

Quote from Sharpened »

Overused card: Eater of the Dead - Why? Do people not realize you can only hate a creature out of the grave if it is tapped?

Phenax, God of Deception. That's why.

It's also not written on the card. If this had been Shadowmoor, it would say

q: Exile target creature card from a graveyard.

It also doesn't really take much to find a way to tap creatures. Cryptolith Rite. That said, if I'm in BG, Scavenging Ooze exists, and even in mono-B, Leyline of the Void, Nihil Spellbomb, and Bojuka Bog; how much gravehate do you need?

I'll admit to having used Desert Twister in the past, but there are so many better options now.

Beast Within: Really? Just one 3/3? Can also be used to beef up one of your own tokens in a pinch.
Spine of Ish Sah: Reusable, gets around protection, if you have some way to sac artifacts. Can be really fun with Hoard-Smelter Dragon.
Scour from Existence: It exiles, and gets around protection.

Another "How many do you need?" card.

Eater of the Dead is strictly for the comboes. Look at it on EDHREC; 1005 decks and like 730 of those are Phenax, God of Deception which can be a two-card combo to win the game against a creature-heavy opponent. Next most popular commander with 160 instances of running Eater is Mairsil, the Pretender where Eater of the Dead provides a delicious and crucial "0: Untap Mairsil" ability to help fuel various other shenanigans and broken nonsense. From there the next several commanders could all run Phenax in the 99, and Sidisi can also do some sort of Cryptolith Rite/Mesmeric Orb love connection for a large amount of mana and zombie tokens, and even then we're talking single-digit usage. It's an absolutely dreadful anti-graveyard card compared to even Withered Wretch, but you aren't running it for that.

Glad to see Desert Twister get singled out - Beast Within and Song of the Dryads are much more efficient with manageable drawbacks, and Scour from Existence, Spine of Ish Sah, and Meteor Golem are a touch more expensive but come with significant upside. I was especially shocked to see it in a few decks that aren't monogreen; even in Wort, the Raidmother I don't think its noticeably better for its cost than Aftershock or Fissure nevermind Decimate, Beast Within, and Chaos Warp.

Quote from Hawk7915 »

Quote from hyalapterouslemur »

Quote from PhroX »

Quote from Sharpened »

Overused card: Eater of the Dead - Why? Do people not realize you can only hate a creature out of the grave if it is tapped?

Phenax, God of Deception. That's why.

It's also not written on the card. If this had been Shadowmoor, it would say

q: Exile target creature card from a graveyard.

It also doesn't really take much to find a way to tap creatures. Cryptolith Rite. That said, if I'm in BG, Scavenging Ooze exists, and even in mono-B, Leyline of the Void, Nihil Spellbomb, and Bojuka Bog; how much gravehate do you need?

I'll admit to having used Desert Twister in the past, but there are so many better options now.

Beast Within: Really? Just one 3/3? Can also be used to beef up one of your own tokens in a pinch.
Spine of Ish Sah: Reusable, gets around protection, if you have some way to sac artifacts. Can be really fun with Hoard-Smelter Dragon.
Scour from Existence: It exiles, and gets around protection.

Another "How many do you need?" card.

Eater of the Dead is strictly for the comboes. Look at it on EDHREC; 1005 decks and like 730 of those are Phenax, God of Deception which can be a two-card combo to win the game against a creature-heavy opponent. Next most popular commander with 160 instances of running Eater is Mairsil, the Pretender where Eater of the Dead provides a delicious and crucial "0: Untap Mairsil" ability to help fuel various other shenanigans and broken nonsense. From there the next several commanders could all run Phenax in the 99, and Sidisi can also do some sort of Cryptolith Rite/Mesmeric Orb love connection for a large amount of mana and zombie tokens, and even then we're talking single-digit usage. It's an absolutely dreadful anti-graveyard card compared to even Withered Wretch, but you aren't running it for that.

Glad to see Desert Twister get singled out - Beast Within and Song of the Dryads are much more efficient with manageable drawbacks, and Scour from Existence, Spine of Ish Sah, and Meteor Golem are a touch more expensive but come with significant upside. I was especially shocked to see it in a few decks that aren't monogreen; even in Wort, the Raidmother I don't think its noticeably better for its cost than Aftershock or Fissure nevermind Decimate, Beast Within, and Chaos Warp.

I'm not sure how many people still run it. A lot of people used it before those other cards existed (the ones that can go in mono green anyway). That's one of edhrecs weaknesses, a card can be outclassed enough to be a bad choice over time, but edhrec will still list thousands of decks from the aughts that ran it because it was the best option back then.

My other vote on legends is for Nether Void, which is a back breaking card when played right (usually after an Armageddon type of effect).

So the results are in, an overall there were a couple of surprises:

ABU
1) Sol Ring - 69.7%
2) Dual Lands - 11.8%

I voted for Sol Ring, although I can't fault anyone for voting for Dual Lands. With cards like Demonic tutor, Wheel of Fortune, and Swords to Plowshares in the mix, there were a lot of good MVP candidates, but Sol Ring makes the most sense to me.

Arabian Nights
1) City of Brass - 74.3%
2) Bazaar of Baghdad - 17.6%

Everyone loves a good source of mana, and the drawback on City of Brass is pretty negligible in a 40 life format.

Antiquities
1) Ashnod's Altar - 50.7%
2) Strip Mine - 37.3%

I voted for Asnod's Altar, but I expected Strip Mine to win. The race was relatively close, but the Altar pulled out the win.

Legends
1) Sylvan Library - 54.1%
2) Mana Drain - 23%
3) Land Tax - 17.6%

I voted for Sylvan Library, but I expected Mana Drain to win here so this was an upset in my book. Also surprising was the relatively high number of votes for Land Tax, a card that I've rarely seen get played in EDH.

The Dark
1) Maze of Ith - 43.7%
2) Blood Moon - 31%
3) Fellwar Stone - 21.1%

I voted for Blood Moon as the presence of that card influences all of my decks on some level, but I am not surprised Maze of Ith won. It's also nice to see he often underappreciated Fellwar Stone get some love.

Fallen Empires
1) High Tide - 73.5%
2) Night Soil - 14.7%

I admit that I am the lone vote for Goblin Warrens as that card has the kind of combo potential I like to see, but obviously High Tide has way more combo upside and is so much better than anything else in the set that it is not surprising that it won by one of the highest margins.

Thanks to everyone for participating. Make sure to vote in the other polls, and Poll 6 (Mirrodin and Kamigawa Blocks) should be up soon.