A spell with retrace cast from the graveyard doesn’t get exiled after resolving. You can cast it over and over again as long as you pitch a land card every time.
I'm honestly shocked they don't see a bit more play just as 1-ofs to lean on for longer games/lame draws. I've found a single Raven's Crime useful in almost every deck I've thrown one in just for funsies, even decks that had nothing to do with hand destruction. It's just never a bad option to trade a spare land for something good your opponent has been holding onto.
@@Psychonautical89 I guess Jump-Start is the safe version it (and maybe how people got confused). Risk Factor is a suspiciously playable card IMHO in Burn, where the opponent's life is an especially valuable resource already, and 3 cards for 3 is incredibly good for Burn, so the opponent gets to choose from two bad outcomes, and if you're in Legacy you can run Fireblasts to draw into if the opponent tries to stick you with cards when you're out of mana (Red doesn't get many free Burn spells, but you can run a bunch of bolts already). By the time the opponent has no choice but to feed you cards they should be low enough that Fireblast is a real issue. I think as long as you're threatening a turn 3 or 4 win with Burn you're probably fine.
What's even crazier is how many of these cards were legal AT THE SAME TIME. Without any bans we could have had a standard where Oko, Omnath, Teferi, Uro, and Winona were all legal together. This list could have been retitled "Why 2019-2021 Standard was the worst thing of all time."
And all the companions too, as well as enter the wild, growth spiral, fires of invention, wilderness reclamation, field of the dead and many others. Also, wrenn and hogaak were released around the same time and expressive iteration only little bit later
there is a non zero chance that having them all would have balanced it out and nothing would need to have been banned xD honestly look at timeless its pretty good because all the broken cards balance each other perfectly xD
Alongside your comment of Banned as commander, I still think Lutri should be similar where legal in the 99, banned as companion. Because its just a really restrictive 2 colored Dualcaster Mage if you remove the companion text altogether. Plus he's absolutely the most adorable of the cycle
Ahhhh overpowered cards. The fact that the #1 cards exist is proof that Wizards *really* fucks it up sometimes. I mean, the #1 might even make it onto "Top 10 Vintage Cards (Minus Power 9)", maybe?
I may have underpowered Retrace, but that ultimate has very little to do with why Wrenn and Six is good in 60-card formats. That's why I was able to get Retrace wrong, because one hardly ever sees the emblem.
It sure is wild that only one card on this list is more than 5 years old 😅 I wonder which other "top 10 most overpowered cards" lists would be like this, since I usually think of the most broken cards coming from either alpha or urza's block.
Not only that, but I remember many multicolor cards back then weren't that great with a few exceptions. I thought they were cool af and I collected quite a few, and I don't recall many of them being good, looking back lol
It's always fun to read over old articles wherein Maro expressly goes out of his way to say "we toyed around with the idea of cards that you can always have start in your opening hand, and everyone pointed out how broken that idea was," and then to look at him haphazardly try to say that he wasn't in the wrong for pushing one of the most idiotic and disastrous mechanics in the game's history because he happened to see that Hearthstone had implemented its own utterly disastrous "deckbuilding restriction" cards. Honestly, the whole of the Alchemy format seems to be motivated by some bizarre envy of a card game that has, in recent years, been nigh on life support owing to a neverending spate of unbalanced, clearly untested cards being released with random effects driving off most of its competitive scene and even dissuading its casual crowd.
Oh god t3feri. I remember at least one streamer had a countdown timer to his rotation. Honestly all they really needed to do was swap his static and his +1 and maybe make it 1 more.
Companion as a mechanic should just be banned in EDH. The idea behind Companion was to give other formats access to commanders. EDH doesn't need extra commanders, that's what Partner is for.
WOTC tried real hard to not have to ban Hogaak but still had to after banning at least one card around him in that deck, that is telling on how busted he is. Also Yorion is basically unplayable as a companion in commander as it is not possible to ful fil it's condition.
have you ever thought of doing most banned or restricted cards across all recognized formats it would be interesting to see how formats like Pauper would affect the list giving broken cards like Gitaxian Probe more formats to be banned in
2:52 I don't know if you are sarcastic here, but surely make Omnath non-mana-neutral (assuming the player plays and cracks a fetch land in the same turn he cast it) but a net-negative is seriously worthing of planning ahead while playing and pondering what to do
Well yes, but actualy no. I play Magistrate in a casual CMDR deck, so that when I encounter a smartass with “casual” deck, there is something to postpone them.
uhhh right... so Deathrite Shaman was also bananas in standard. Turns out Grizzly Salvage and Tracker's Instincts and friends still made it crazy good. Junk reanimator is easily the standard deck I have won the most with and it's not close. Good lord was that deck dumb and good lord was Deathrite the lynchpin of that deck.
T3feri so good at time travelling he time traveled me all the way until he rotated out of Standard! Blue/White control was so stupid back then I just stopped playing for literally years.
The honorable mentions is filled with underwhelming cards that just happened to be particularly good in a given standard metagame, but in a vacuum, would you leave wondering why they had ever needed to be banned.
It really is something when you see cards legal in Modern, but banned in Legacy. I get Wrenn and Six because of Wasteland, but I don't quite get Expressive Iteration (Storm/combo decks?)
it is basically draw 2 for 2 mana, because you can hit your lands drops with it, also it was just another super good cantrip in blue decks that pushed them over the edge. EI was just the straw that broke the camel's back for value.
@@christopherprementine5287 Oh to be sure, it's an amazing card. I'm just surprised it's still around in Modern. I would think in Legacy, it would have been a popular Daze/FoW target.
@@hitmangfx7162 Well, that's the problem. The only deck that was running it was Izzet Delver. There have been multiple cards that have been banned for FOW and Daze's sins, including Ragavan and Dreadhorde Arcanist. The deck is just oppressive when allowed to run the full suite of cards it wants.
legacy just has more efficient cards, which means the chance of getting to fully take advatage of both the one added to hand and the one exiled at the same time, and izzet control/combo decks in legacy where already just a bit more potent than modern, what with cards like force of will and daze etc that it doesn't take much to push into problem territory, whereas in modern its still an amazing card (and murktide/izzet delver is a top tier deck dont get me wrong) but its not quite pushing the envelope as much
Delver is the time tested "best Legacy deck". The deck essentially seeks to slow itself down (losing land drops off of daze/wasteland, or draw steps from force of will) to slow *you* down even more. This leads to the ideal Delver board state, where the Delver player has cheap threats to kill you with, and they're stopping you from developing more. This is an incredibly powerful strategy, and it only has one real weakness: it fizzles out HARD. Delver will very rarely win games that go into topdeck wars, because so many of their cards are terrible topdecks. Daze and Wasteland are usually not good enough if the opponent is able to get a few lands out, FoW requires a second card to be played, and all of its threats are one drops that die to everything. This glaring weakness in the Delver deck is also the best way to beat it. Just stall until they run out of cards! If you look into the Legacy banlist, many of the cards on there were banned because they gave Delver card advantage. As a brief list, Dig Through Time, Dreadhorde Arcanist (it casts cantrips from the yard), Expressive Iteration, Ragavan, Treasure Cruise, and Wrenn and Six were all banned mostly because of Delver decks. The deck just is not allowed to have card advantage thats too fast, or too efficient. Expressive Iteration falls into that camp. It doesn't seem like a simple 2 for 1 is that big of a deal, but trust me, it is. The card wasn't good enough to see play in any other Legacy decks, but it gave Delver the best possible 2 for 1 they could ask for, and games where they resolved more than 1 copy of it felt unwinnable.
I truly think companion shouldn't work in commander. It is the only mechanic that does not 1 but 2 things commander is not about. It lets you play 101 cards in a 100 card format, which not even the partner mechanic allows, and in a format with no sideboard it lets you use a card from outside the game, which every wish effect is unable to do. There wouldn't even have to be a special case just for companion. It's right there on the card in both mechanical iterations that you bring the card in from outside the game.
Wait, edit to add this question. How does Hope of Ghirapur keep sacrificing itself? Doesn’t it require a target to use the ability? Can it be used even if it has no targets? Cuz doesn’t the target opponent have to be dealt damage by that HoG while it was on the battlefield since the game treats it as a new permanent every time it enters the battlefield? It doesn’t say “… that was dealt combat damage by a creature named Hope of Ghirapur this turn…” I don’t understand Have they not yet made a rebalanced version for Historic? The reason the Restricted list was is useless for Lurrus is cuz she basically alrdy Restricted herself with her limitation, u can’t have permanents that cost more than 2 mana n she costs 3 so the only other place u could play the other 3 copies of her in ur 75 was alongside the first copy in ur sideboard but the other 3 wouldn’t have access to her companion ability so I would need wish effects to get more of her.
Minsc & Boo and Comet definitely deserves to be on here. If they wasn’t printed to be legal only in legacy and vintage than they would’ve been banned out of standard, pioneer, and modern.
Lutri was banned just because of a ubiquity concern, which is incredibly silly considering it would be relegated to Izzet decks anyway and are we really going to sit here and act like thats a good reason? Sol Ring and Command Tower are in virtually every single deck in Commander, so Lutri being another card on the list is honestly whatever. Lurrus though, Lurrus is a nightmare of card design. Especially when most of the absolute best cards in the game are all 3 mana or less and have disgusting synergy with one another.
Tibalt is a weird case because it's monocolored on the front, so I'm not sure whether it would technically count under Nizzahon's rules. I would count it, personally. But also, it's only really broken when combined with cascade. Outside of cascade it's a powerful but fair card.
@@wehpudicabok6598 the fact that the rules change had to happen for an extremely old rule at this point to me makes it potentially the most broken card.
@@satansamael666nah I think MDFC as a whole just proved they needed to finally update Cascade, much like when they had to change Split cards to have combined CMC outside of the stack.
A spell with retrace cast from the graveyard doesn’t get exiled after resolving. You can cast it over and over again as long as you pitch a land card every time.
I'm honestly shocked they don't see a bit more play just as 1-ofs to lean on for longer games/lame draws. I've found a single Raven's Crime useful in almost every deck I've thrown one in just for funsies, even decks that had nothing to do with hand destruction. It's just never a bad option to trade a spare land for something good your opponent has been holding onto.
@@Psychonautical89 I guess Jump-Start is the safe version it (and maybe how people got confused). Risk Factor is a suspiciously playable card IMHO in Burn, where the opponent's life is an especially valuable resource already, and 3 cards for 3 is incredibly good for Burn, so the opponent gets to choose from two bad outcomes, and if you're in Legacy you can run Fireblasts to draw into if the opponent tries to stick you with cards when you're out of mana (Red doesn't get many free Burn spells, but you can run a bunch of bolts already). By the time the opponent has no choice but to feed you cards they should be low enough that Fireblast is a real issue. I think as long as you're threatening a turn 3 or 4 win with Burn you're probably fine.
(05:50 for reference)
What's even crazier is how many of these cards were legal AT THE SAME TIME. Without any bans we could have had a standard where Oko, Omnath, Teferi, Uro, and Winona were all legal together. This list could have been retitled "Why 2019-2021 Standard was the worst thing of all time."
And all the companions too, as well as enter the wild, growth spiral, fires of invention, wilderness reclamation, field of the dead and many others. Also, wrenn and hogaak were released around the same time and expressive iteration only little bit later
Imagine coming back into Magic with Arena at this time. Like I haven't really played a ton since 2021
there is a non zero chance that having them all would have balanced it out and nothing would need to have been banned xD
honestly look at timeless its pretty good because all the broken cards balance each other perfectly xD
@@DaxRaider heh, yeah I guess Oko is a pretty good answer to Omnath and Uro
Alongside your comment of Banned as commander, I still think Lutri should be similar where legal in the 99, banned as companion.
Because its just a really restrictive 2 colored Dualcaster Mage if you remove the companion text altogether. Plus he's absolutely the most adorable of the cycle
Lutri is cute as a button and I love her.
who else watching this at 1am
12am here
I watch it at 7 am, but I am in Germany
It's a little over 10pm where I'm at.
10:22pm here lol
7am, but I'm in Italy
Ahhhh overpowered cards. The fact that the #1 cards exist is proof that Wizards *really* fucks it up sometimes. I mean, the #1 might even make it onto "Top 10 Vintage Cards (Minus Power 9)", maybe?
RETRACE will NOT exile the spell.
Retrace doesn’t exile the card when you cast it from the graveyard. You can keep discarding lands to keep retracing the same spell over and over.
Retrace doesn't exile the spells like flashback does. That's why wrenn and six is so busted.
I may have underpowered Retrace, but that ultimate has very little to do with why Wrenn and Six is good in 60-card formats. That's why I was able to get Retrace wrong, because one hardly ever sees the emblem.
this list might aswell be called "FIRE desgn, the list". Man, was this design approach a mistake...
So all these cards other than DRS were printed in the last 5 years
It sure is wild that only one card on this list is more than 5 years old 😅 I wonder which other "top 10 most overpowered cards" lists would be like this, since I usually think of the most broken cards coming from either alpha or urza's block.
Multicolor cards were introduced in Legends, so no Alpha on this particular list of OP cards.
Not only that, but I remember many multicolor cards back then weren't that great with a few exceptions. I thought they were cool af and I collected quite a few, and I don't recall many of them being good, looking back lol
Insane how the list said most overpowered MULTICOLORED cards and not just most overpowered cards in general.
It's always fun to read over old articles wherein Maro expressly goes out of his way to say "we toyed around with the idea of cards that you can always have start in your opening hand, and everyone pointed out how broken that idea was," and then to look at him haphazardly try to say that he wasn't in the wrong for pushing one of the most idiotic and disastrous mechanics in the game's history because he happened to see that Hearthstone had implemented its own utterly disastrous "deckbuilding restriction" cards.
Honestly, the whole of the Alchemy format seems to be motivated by some bizarre envy of a card game that has, in recent years, been nigh on life support owing to a neverending spate of unbalanced, clearly untested cards being released with random effects driving off most of its competitive scene and even dissuading its casual crowd.
Oh god t3feri. I remember at least one streamer had a countdown timer to his rotation. Honestly all they really needed to do was swap his static and his +1 and maybe make it 1 more.
This list really shows the amount of power creep since throne of eldraine/war of the spark era
Companion as a mechanic should just be banned in EDH. The idea behind Companion was to give other formats access to commanders. EDH doesn't need extra commanders, that's what Partner is for.
You know you are busted when you get banned in Vintage.
I’m a little surprised Squandered Resources and Cadaverous Bloom weren’t at least honorable mentions.
Squandered Resources is actually the only one that got banned.
That said, it should have been in the honorable mentions, and got left out.
WOTC tried real hard to not have to ban Hogaak but still had to after banning at least one card around him in that deck, that is telling on how busted he is. Also Yorion is basically unplayable as a companion in commander as it is not possible to ful fil it's condition.
Like. Love. MOAR MOAR MOAR 😍❤️🥰
Love this idea becuz it really does fill a missing gap of your “method”👍🏻❤️💪🏻
Is there a video on the most powerful multicolored cards of each mana value? There absolutely should be.
Is Nizzahon an older MTG thing? Where is your name from, man?
I’m curious as well.
have you ever thought of doing most banned or restricted cards across all recognized formats it would be interesting to see how formats like Pauper would affect the list giving broken cards like Gitaxian Probe more formats to be banned in
2:52 I don't know if you are sarcastic here, but surely make Omnath non-mana-neutral (assuming the player plays and cracks a fetch land in the same turn he cast it) but a net-negative is seriously worthing of planning ahead while playing and pondering what to do
imo, Drannith Magister should not apply to the command zone. would be a great card to add to edh with that caveat.
Well yes, but actualy no. I play Magistrate in a casual CMDR deck, so that when I encounter a smartass with “casual” deck, there is something to postpone them.
Who's up overpowering they card
Though Valki technically wasn’t banned, I feel like needing a rule change to un-break it should earn it a spot on this list.
Valki wasnt broken. Cascade was. Valki was cascades final straw
uhhh right... so Deathrite Shaman was also bananas in standard. Turns out Grizzly Salvage and Tracker's Instincts and friends still made it crazy good. Junk reanimator is easily the standard deck I have won the most with and it's not close. Good lord was that deck dumb and good lord was Deathrite the lynchpin of that deck.
Please explain to me where Oko is $3 because I’ll buy all of them.
😂
Ah yes, Teferi Time Traveller. What a card 😂
In his defense, I also thought that was the card's name for a while.
T3feri so good at time travelling he time traveled me all the way until he rotated out of Standard!
Blue/White control was so stupid back then I just stopped playing for literally years.
The honorable mentions is filled with underwhelming cards that just happened to be particularly good in a given standard metagame, but in a vacuum, would you leave wondering why they had ever needed to be banned.
i wanna know the value of my car
I heard the main yorion was banned in modern was because logistics of players having an 80 card deck in a format with fetch lands.
It really is something when you see cards legal in Modern, but banned in Legacy. I get Wrenn and Six because of Wasteland, but I don't quite get Expressive Iteration (Storm/combo decks?)
it is basically draw 2 for 2 mana, because you can hit your lands drops with it, also it was just another super good cantrip in blue decks that pushed them over the edge. EI was just the straw that broke the camel's back for value.
@@christopherprementine5287 Oh to be sure, it's an amazing card. I'm just surprised it's still around in Modern. I would think in Legacy, it would have been a popular Daze/FoW target.
@@hitmangfx7162 Well, that's the problem. The only deck that was running it was Izzet Delver. There have been multiple cards that have been banned for FOW and Daze's sins, including Ragavan and Dreadhorde Arcanist. The deck is just oppressive when allowed to run the full suite of cards it wants.
legacy just has more efficient cards, which means the chance of getting to fully take advatage of both the one added to hand and the one exiled at the same time, and izzet control/combo decks in legacy where already just a bit more potent than modern, what with cards like force of will and daze etc that it doesn't take much to push into problem territory, whereas in modern its still an amazing card (and murktide/izzet delver is a top tier deck dont get me wrong) but its not quite pushing the envelope as much
Delver is the time tested "best Legacy deck". The deck essentially seeks to slow itself down (losing land drops off of daze/wasteland, or draw steps from force of will) to slow *you* down even more. This leads to the ideal Delver board state, where the Delver player has cheap threats to kill you with, and they're stopping you from developing more. This is an incredibly powerful strategy, and it only has one real weakness: it fizzles out HARD. Delver will very rarely win games that go into topdeck wars, because so many of their cards are terrible topdecks. Daze and Wasteland are usually not good enough if the opponent is able to get a few lands out, FoW requires a second card to be played, and all of its threats are one drops that die to everything. This glaring weakness in the Delver deck is also the best way to beat it. Just stall until they run out of cards! If you look into the Legacy banlist, many of the cards on there were banned because they gave Delver card advantage.
As a brief list, Dig Through Time, Dreadhorde Arcanist (it casts cantrips from the yard), Expressive Iteration, Ragavan, Treasure Cruise, and Wrenn and Six were all banned mostly because of Delver decks. The deck just is not allowed to have card advantage thats too fast, or too efficient. Expressive Iteration falls into that camp. It doesn't seem like a simple 2 for 1 is that big of a deal, but trust me, it is. The card wasn't good enough to see play in any other Legacy decks, but it gave Delver the best possible 2 for 1 they could ask for, and games where they resolved more than 1 copy of it felt unwinnable.
Ayesha Tanaka and Nature's Blessing are the most band multicolored cards.
oko aint banned in timeless :)
also honestly the yorion ban in modern might be place 1 for the most stupid ban ever xD
can it be ur a modern player ? honestly feels like you counted most weight on modern bans xD
Oko's plus one should have been a minus two
Honestly even if it was a minus 1 would be more balanced as Oko in the early game would more likely die to the Elk'd permanent
As a Woodlands elk I approve this comment
I truly think companion shouldn't work in commander. It is the only mechanic that does not 1 but 2 things commander is not about. It lets you play 101 cards in a 100 card format, which not even the partner mechanic allows, and in a format with no sideboard it lets you use a card from outside the game, which every wish effect is unable to do. There wouldn't even have to be a special case just for companion. It's right there on the card in both mechanical iterations that you bring the card in from outside the game.
Agreed, but the RC would never say no to Papa Hasbro.
...............I do love broken mechanics so I do have three EDH decks with companions.
Trade Offer:
-You get: 10/10 rating
-I get: 3/3
Man...knowing I'm old when I thought Shadowmage Infiltrater would make the list 😂
He wasn't even the most OP multicolored card in his own set, that was probably Psychatog
More companions!!! And uban
Wait, edit to add this question. How does Hope of Ghirapur keep sacrificing itself? Doesn’t it require a target to use the ability? Can it be used even if it has no targets? Cuz doesn’t the target opponent have to be dealt damage by that HoG while it was on the battlefield since the game treats it as a new permanent every time it enters the battlefield? It doesn’t say “… that was dealt combat damage by a creature named Hope of Ghirapur this turn…” I don’t understand
Have they not yet made a rebalanced version for Historic?
The reason the Restricted list was is useless for Lurrus is cuz she basically alrdy Restricted herself with her limitation, u can’t have permanents that cost more than 2 mana n she costs 3 so the only other place u could play the other 3 copies of her in ur 75 was alongside the first copy in ur sideboard but the other 3 wouldn’t have access to her companion ability so I would need wish effects to get more of her.
Minsc & Boo and Comet definitely deserves to be on here. If they wasn’t printed to be legal only in legacy and vintage than they would’ve been banned out of standard, pioneer, and modern.
I'm surprised Hydroid Kraysis didn't make the list.
The number should be 689th though
What da hell is more broken than Oko 😅
Leovold, prophet of kruphix? Truly an evil creation
Multicolor pass
Hmmm leovold isn't even red.
The first card that popped in my head was actually atraxa… then i realized that she’s still not banned anywhere… lol
The Red/Blue Companion was my #1 prediction specifically because I remember it receiving an IMMEDIATE ban the day it dropped!
Well, it's not really #1, just Lurrus is.
Lutri was banned just because of a ubiquity concern, which is incredibly silly considering it would be relegated to Izzet decks anyway and are we really going to sit here and act like thats a good reason? Sol Ring and Command Tower are in virtually every single deck in Commander, so Lutri being another card on the list is honestly whatever. Lurrus though, Lurrus is a nightmare of card design. Especially when most of the absolute best cards in the game are all 3 mana or less and have disgusting synergy with one another.
No way oko was 3 bucks lol
I really wish Leovold play in commander 😭
Eldrane has got to be the worst standard legal set printed.
You are Missing Minsc and Boo, Timeless Heroes
Great video!
I love Winota. It was my first deck on Arena to get me to mythic. Stoked to see it at #9!!
I’m surprised Tibalt isn’t in here.
Tibalt is a weird case because it's monocolored on the front, so I'm not sure whether it would technically count under Nizzahon's rules. I would count it, personally. But also, it's only really broken when combined with cascade. Outside of cascade it's a powerful but fair card.
@@wehpudicabok6598 the fact that the rules change had to happen for an extremely old rule at this point to me makes it potentially the most broken card.
@@satansamael666nah I think MDFC as a whole just proved they needed to finally update Cascade, much like when they had to change Split cards to have combined CMC outside of the stack.
If my previous comment doesn't show I'm gonna have to unsubscribe :(
So....Cascade?
Wotc prints all these busted cards then bans them or nerfs them. Why should I buy cards?
wow this isn’t full of Legends from Legends because they all got banned i thought those seem way better than stuff like omnath
They assumed Omnath's gender. Cancel this creator 😂