The Ten Most Desirable Magic: the Gathering Cards, According to Gatherer, Part One

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15 Responses

  1. AlexC says:

    Heehee. Did you just write a sideways invitation to enthuse about Isochron Scepter? You sortof did…
    I had a deck built around Isochron Scepter and, of all things, Artificial Evolution. I don’t remember much of the rest of it except Wirewood Savage was awesome. That deck was extremely silly and great fun. I wonder how it’d stand up by modern standards… I should see if I’ve still got it, or whether I ever took it apart.

    …JMG? Did you really just say “that both players could care less about”? I’d expected better from you. “CouldN’T”.

  2. Doh! ‘Couldn’t care’ vs. ‘Could care’ is actually a British English vs. U.S. English phenomenon, though, in this case, I got to side with the Brits, and will edit that way. Still, there’s a good argument for the U.S. version. The British version implies a complete lack of interest. The U.S. version implies disgust… you have so little regard for the item in question, that the tiny amount more that you are forced to dwell on it makes you sick.

    On Isochron Scepter: I’m a big fan of sneaking fair split cards on them. Research//Development, Bound//Determined and Odds//Ends are a bit of overkill, but Fire//Ice, Wax//Wane, Night//Day and Dead//Gone are pretty neat. Trial//Error and Hide//Seek also seem good, but you end up with the type of decks I wouldn’t enjoy running. Illusion//Reality makes me want to build a deck around it that likes to change colors of permanents, but has a back up plan of just destroying artifacts if your deck doesn’t come together. You don’t even have to be playing blue in that deck… the whole point might be to cast your illusions using the scepter.

    That’s one of the nice things about scepter. The ‘good’ players can like it for what it does to their ‘good’ cards. People like me, though, will appreciate it for turning Desperate Ritual into a 5 star card. You can splice off the scepter! How crazy is that?

  3. Marcus says:

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  4. owen says:

    What about nicol bolas planeswalker

    • jmgariepy says:

      What about him? He’s a fine Planeswalker, but this is a top ten list of Legendary Creatures. Nicol Bolas is also makes a fine Legendary Creature, but, alas, he didn’t receive enough votes… I don’t choose what appears on the list. If the Magic community didn’t rate him high enough on Gatherer, then you’ll have to take your issue up with the thousands of voters on Gatherer. Start a campaign. There aren’t that many voters on that server… you can push that dragon over the top.

      I’m not too concerned for the Elder Dragon, though. He didn’t make this list, but he’s a prime contender for some other future list. Had I made a top ten list of major story characters, I’m sure he’d be prowling somewhere among the top 5. You know… that’s not a bad idea for a list…

    • In my opinion, “Nicol-Bolas Planeswalker” is not that good of a plane walker compared to some.

  5. I added up the price of all the cards and here they are:
    (I used the cheapest mint condition card available. Rounded up to the nearest $)

    Black Lotus: $2,000
    Rancor: $2
    Isochron Scepter: $6
    Mana Drain: $200
    Gaea’s Cradle: $150
    Swords to Plowshares: $5
    Mishra’s Workshop: $500

    Now do the math.
    2,000 + 2 + 6 + 200 + 150 + 5 + 500 = 2,863

    If you were to call $1,863 the best magic cards, I wouldn’t say that. A GOOD card to most MTG players, is a cheap, and powerful card. Most people don’t spend $2,000 on a good magic card. I think that “Rancor”, “Isochron Scepter”, and Swords to Plowshares are good cards, but the others, are very expensive, and only people who dedicate their life to MTG would buy.

    -Avery Reinhardt (http://www.arswebsites.com)

    Sources:

    “Card Kingdom.” Card Kingdom. Card Kingdom, 3 Jan. 1999. Web. 31 Dec. 2013.
    .

    Gariepy, John Michael. “The Top Ten Most Desirable Magic: The Gathering Cards,
    According to Gatherer, Part One | John-Michael Gariepy.” JMgariepy.com.
    Weebly, 6 July 2012. Web. 31 Dec. 2013. .

    • jmgariepy says:

      I agree. There’s a reason why I didn’t name this article “The Top Ten Best Magic Cards”. These are far from the best cards in the game. If I was to make a list of ‘best’ cards, I’d probably include gems that cost very little, make all the other players happy to see it, but secretly help you win. Howling Mine comes to mind.

      This, however, is a list of highest rated cards, according to Gatherer. And while the high price ticket on a card like Mana Drain does effect its star rating, it evidently doesn’t do it enough. It was probably the deciding factor for Black Lotus… that seems like reason number one for why that card doesn’t break the top fifty.

      For what it’s worth, I’m going to be doing a 2014 update very shortly. We’ll see which of these ten cards the community bumped.

  6. collin says:

    I have a few ideas like spawnwrithe, Infinite reflection, Vraska, Biovisionary, Azors Elocutors, etc.

  7. collin says:

    and It that betrays, darksteel collossus, Colossus of Akros, Dark depths, World spine wurm

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