Griselbrand v. Connecticut @orb_warded_kor_warlord@wubrg.social

Tajuru Preserver

https://scryfall.com/card/roe/211/tajuru-preserver

This is most overtly a counter to Annihilator, which can be a brutally unfun mechanic - recovering from even one Annihilator attack is pretty hard, but it doesn’t necessarily win games *quickly.*

This ability has only appeared on two other cards - [[Sigarda, Host of Herons]] (itself a potentially brutally-unfun card) and [[Tamiyo, Collector of Tales]] (fitting with her Archivist flavor.)

When I was packing up cards to be sold, I noticed that secondary markets have a lot of cards with sizable price differences between printings that have the same art and frame, probably due to weird wibbly-wobbly supply fluctuations

I guess they haven’t been arbitraged into equality since there’s not much profit margin in it, especially with how buylist prices are a fair bit lower than what they resell it for

Lin Sivvi, Defiant Hero

https://scryfall.com/card/nem/12/lin-sivvi-defiant-hero

Banned in block constructed for being way too good at repetitively tutoring Rebels to the battlefield, in an already very-repetitive deck!

This might not have been a problem, except pretty much every other powerful card from Masques block is all about making things *not* happen - Rhystic Study, Rishadan Port, Tangle Wire, Dust Bowl, Unmask, Submerge, etc.

Disrupting Scepter

https://scryfall.com/card/7ed/293/disrupting-scepter

Another card originating in Alpha, which has seen a number of riffs: the never-printed Un-card, Disrobing Scepter:

https://edhsilver.com/cards/uo/tdl/disrobing-scepter/

But also Scepter of Fugue: https://scryfall.com/card/con/53/scepter-of-fugue

This was part of an Esper mini-cycle of riffing on artifacts from Alpha, along with Scepter of Dominance (Icy Manipulator) and Scepter of Insight (Jayemdae Tome), cheaper but requiring colored mana.

Restating it in a public post: My nickname for Arni Brokenbrow is “Phineas Gage”.

https://scryfall.com/card/khm/120/arni-brokenbrow

Countersquall

https://scryfall.com/card/uma/198/countersquall

Between this and Dovin’s Veto, I’m waiting on the UR and GU twists on Negate.

The flavor comes in either Esper or Bolas varieties (yet by the same artist) and I prefer the Esper one for being more compositionally interesting and having a neat bit of worldbuilding rather than yet another Monologue On Power. (That said, “Nothing else matters, because nothing else exists” is a pretty great line.)

Angelic Exaltation

https://scryfall.com/card/rna/2/angelic-exaltation

This effect is basically “creatures you control have Exalted”, which is a neat throwback to the Alara-block mechanic that plays well (perhaps onnoxiously so) with Azorius Knight-Arbiter.

I didn’t draft RNA, but apparently this is one of the enchantments that can easily take over a game, alongside bombs like Ethereal Absolution.

Manabarbs

https://scryfall.com/card/sum/165/manabarbs

A classic red card, which has inspired a number of riffs through the years, like Overabundance and Burning Earth.

The templating has also changed a few times - it was originally “whenever any land is tapped,” but since Alpha had no utility lands, it was changed to “whenever mana is drawn from a land” to clarify, and only became “tapped for mana” in Fourth Edition.

Emeria Shepherd

https://scryfall.com/card/bfz/22/emeria-shepherd

(First off, I love how a Shepherd is illustrated by an artist named Sheppard)

Even though BFZ’s Landfall cards were generally underwhelming, I like this idea of Landfall abilities that do something extra if the land is a specific type. Maybe in a Modern Horizons-type set, we could see it expanded with “if that land is snow,” “if that land is a Gate,” if that land is an Urza’s,” etc.

Blood Operative

https://scryfall.com/card/grn/63/blood-operative

This is a very aesthetically cool Surveil payoff that I don’t think ever saw much play, although I don’t really get how it’s an assassin instead of a rogue or something. Still, it’s a good resilient finisher that can snipe graveyards.

Nissa, Worldwaker

https://scryfall.com/card/m15/187/nissa-worldwaker

This planeswalker is powerful, but didn’t see as much play as the latest five-mana Nissa. Also, it’s aesthetically frustrating that her abilities refer to “lands,” “forests,” and “basic lands,” rather than having more mechanical cohesion.

Also, Nissa’s face here is heavily based on Yolandi Visser, a member of South African rap group Die Antwoord: https://www.reddit.com/r/magicTCG/comments/2a18xb/someone_on_tg_posted_this_picture_showing_how/

The fact that the Jiang Yanggu / Mu Yanling duel decks were only legal in China gives me a very funny mental image of Chinese nationalists showing up to Standard tournaments in Taiwan (or various naval bases in the South China Sea) with decks of underpowered cards and refusing to leave

Gilded Lotus

https://scryfall.com/card/pdom/215s/gilded-lotus

Originally printed in Mirrodin, providing an answer to “how much would a fair, repeatable Black Lotus cost?” It’s a quality mana rock, and this time it has flavor text that might be referencing the recent fate of Mirrodin.

Forest

https://scryfall.com/card/pz2/70807/forest

This is a really cool-looking bamboo forest from the Jiang Yanggu / Mu Yanling duel decks, which were Standard-legal in China and nowhere else. (However, WotC did not make any public statement on what they think counts as “China.”)

The artist, Xin-Yu Liu, illustrated three other cards for the decks, and I hope they stay on as a regular artist: https://scryfall.com/search?q=a%3A“Xin-Yu+Liu”&unique=art

Disenchant

https://scryfall.com/card/wc98/bh16sb/disenchant

This printing shows off a few interesting trends of its time - like nearly every card in Tempest, it’s part of a storyboard-style sequence detailing the entire plot, and it’s a gold-bordered card from a precon based on a recent tournament-winning decklist.

I get why both of these things are untenable now, but I’m glad they were both in the game at one point.

Approach of the Second Sun

https://scryfall.com/card/akr/4/approach-of-the-second-sun

A control wincon with some excellently ominous flavor, playing on Bolas’s “Sevens” motif from several of his cards.

The Remastered version has new art in light of the original artist being revealed as awful, and I think it’s genuinely better, with the smoky texturing and the flock of birds that looks eerily like locusts.

Soldevi Golem

https://scryfall.com/card/me4/228/soldevi-golem

Here’s a relatively-reasonably-powerful creature from Ice Age, with some absolutely amazing art from Anson Maddocks. This kind of flavor/design has shown up more recently on cards like Chronomaton and Traxos, but I love the ominous, cyborg-y feel of this art in particular.

Compulsive Research

https://scryfall.com/card/rav/40/compulsive-research

An interesting middle ground between Thirst for Knowledge and Divination, good when you use it fairly and great if you’re doing some Graveyard Nonsense.

Funnily enough, although we’ve seen some Strictly Better Divinations in Standard lately, and cards like Thirst for Meaning, Compulsive Research has yet to be reprinted back into Standard ever

Gideon’s Phalanx

https://scryfall.com/card/ori/14/gideons-phalanx

It’s expensive, and pretty obviously telegraphed if you pass the turn with 5WW open, but this is a very fun way to build up an army at once and/or wreck someone’s alpha strike.

I also quite like the flavor and gameplay of Spell Mastery, and I hope it comes back someday.