Divine Intervention was created back in the era where playing for Ante was still a thing. If your ante was a really good card and your opponent's was junk, this gave you a way to end the game and still keep your card.
I think, most players never played with Ante, as most players never had to deal with Manaburn. Ah, the olden times, when getting cards was basically impossible in a small town in Germany.
@@WayfarersBauble Even better, Lord Magnus also shut down plainswalk. So there were two cards that stopped it and only one with it. Someone clearly thought white was overpowered.
They were readying for War of the Spark. So many Plainswalkers, it's insane. Yeah, its stupid. But i will use this joke everytime someone mocks plainswalk.
@@vaevictis_ Best time to kick someone is when their down, their that much closer to your foot!* *Thank you George Wallace! I hope I remembered your name correctly.
Funny trivia: The card Break Open was mistranslated in Brazilian Portuguese and they didn't include the "an opponent controls" part. That lead to a lot of people making decks around playing huge morphed monsters and using the spell to bypass their big morph costs. And, as you can imagine, internet that big at the time, so few knew about it
Challenge accepted. Wood Elemental: Sacing lands is harder than some other permanents, maybe you want to trigger Gitrog or Titania a bunch of times? Make a big Terravore or Akki Raider? Splendid Reclamation for a ton of landfall value? Goblin Firebug: Oh, so you're telling me I can blink this little guy every turn in my landfall deck to guarantee a land drop every turn? Omnath likes. Great Wall: See old hate cards are hard, but... Play Aysen Highway and Painter's Servant naming white. Now every creature has plainswalk, but you're the white player. Your opponents are confused and attack you with everything, forgetting your Vedalken Orrery. Bam! You flash in Great Wall and can block! Gottem! Cyclopean Snare: Ok, but infinite mana is pretty easy to get. This just taps down all your opponents for a final attack. Or bounces them with Cowardice. Or destroys them with Dismiss Into Dream. Or steals them with Willbreaker. If Dramatic Scepter combo is your infinite mana source you can also infinitely tap and untap your own creatures. Infinite draw with Fallowsage? Infinite drain with Night Market Lookout? What about the cast and ETB triggers on the snare? Mirrodin Besieged or Sai make infinite tokens. Vedalken Archmage draws infinite cards Grinding Station infinitely untaps and you can use the tokens we just made to mill out our opponents. Oh and Sludge Strider may cost 1 to trigger, but it triggers on the snare's ETB and LTB. Razor Boomerang: Ok, this is a hard one, I admit. So many better equipment with similar effects and it's kind of like Cyclopean Snare with extra steps. Oh wait... Master of Cruelties attacks and the Boomerang is attached to one of your other creatures, which can't attack anyway. That's busted if you ask me. Sorrows Path: What, you don't want to swap the blockers so your deathtoucher kills their commander? What about the Enrage ability? Why isn't this a staple in Gishath? Break Open: Ok, this is a classic and I had to get outside help. First one I found wanted to redirect the effect with Willbender back to your own morphs, but that's not a legal action. What a head scratcher... Oh, how about we donate Unstable Hulk with an Isochron Scepter imprinting Break Open and a copy of the Scepter imprinting Backslide to skip a player's turn every round? What about the other two players? Well for one of them we could donate Master of the Unseen and kill them with Tainted Remedy? 2/3 is good enough right? Juju Bubble: Come on, you can't think of a way to use infinite lifegain triggers for a mere 2 generic mana? Infinite mana infinite Pridemate! Alabaster Leech: Play this with Painter's Servant in Zedruu and give it to a non white player. If they can't make white mana they can't cast spells. Divine Intervention: Ah yes, the best effect in white that isn't banned or stolen by better cards in better colors. I guess if you donate it to a player who is about to win they may have to scramble to get rid of it or miss out on the W. Or you could buyback Clockspinning every upkeep to keep it on 1 counter until you decide to draw the game at instant speed for {U}. Still kind of prefer combos that don't make me lose though.
There's this one garbage card that everyone in my playgroup keeps insisting on using it's like a mana rock that literally deals damage to you every time you lose a flip. I had like 5 but I gave all mine away because it's so bad
If that's the card I think it is, then you're either a troll, or just made a terrible mistake. And how on earth would you have 5 of them. It's a 100 dollar card, and one of the best cards there is, especially for commander. At this point, i'm basically 80% sure you're just a troll
@@louisgreen3071 It would be... Ok at that point? Issue then is that you're playing a card that will only affect about a fifth of decks (assuming equal play of all colors, ignoring colorless commanders), and that effect is only a minor tax.
If you can give it to an opponent then yes, it could work. Otherwise you're taxing yourself alone. But playing two cards to tax just a player it's an extremely inefficient play.
This was actually a pretty good list. It really focused on cards that actively hurt your chances of winning or are useless instead of cards that are just really bad at doing what they do. Some other cards to consider would be Pale Moon, Mudhole, One With Nothing, and North Star. And then there are cards like Power Surge that don't do anything relevant anymore due to the rules changes surrounding mana burn.
Forcing a draw in chess is actually a huge part of the strategy of high level play. Whoever goes first (White, usually) has a massive advantage, so much so that many chess GM's feel that when they play second (Black, usually) they are safer forcing a draw than playing and inevitably losing a game and giving their opponent the win points. Then when they are on White they will play for the wins. In MTG though, yeah I can't fathom it either. Especially in commander where there's no "time on the round" buzzer.
I have a friend that uses Divine Intervention. The commander is Child of Alara and the entire purpose of the deck is to board wipe pretty much every turn until finally ending the game in a draw with Divine Intervention. xD
Not really, most of these have big downsides when you play them (I consider having to pay mana for any of these garbage cards a downside) but once they are on the field, they don't actually make your boardstate any worse (the only exception being the 2/2 goblin and the leech). I mean, once you played your wood elemental, you had to sac some of your lands to make it stick around; if you then give it to your opponent... yeah, they have a mediocre creature, but they can still use it, and even if they don't, it's not doing any considerable damage to them. Considering you had to pay the 4, sac some lands and find a way to donate it, you're not the one at an advantage here I feel like good cards for Zedruu (or Blim) are ones that cost little to play and have a negative impact on the board. Steel Golem is a good example, as are the leeches (yes, it's a cycle, every color has one) or that cleric that makes a demon token on etb then makes you lose 2 life on your upkeep
The only card on the list that really sees play in Zedru is the Leech since you can use something like Trait Doctoring to lock your opponent out of a color if they don't' have white in their deck.
The difference is that these cards weren’t trying to be bad. Though yes, One With Nothing has a purpose. A niche purpose, but still a purpose. These cards don’t.
A friend of mine thought in the early days: Why should I need land that creates either color of mana. I can play basic lands as well. No difference! And gave them away to other players...
Don't forget about good ol' Rakalite classic six mana to switch for an opponent's Sol Ring with confusion in the ranks on the field. Heck, they can even pay two to prevent damage and give it back to you, woot!
@@EncounterParty Paid almost nothing and the whole group has been using them for 2 whole years, you can darn bet it Plus it's always nice having some sets extra when there is some guest
Wood Elemental isn't horrific in the Gitrog Monster. Especially if you can cast Splendid Reclamation. I mean it's not good, but at least it kind of works.
Divine Intervention was useful for drawing the game, when your Ante card was better than your opponent's. If the game was a draw, no one would lose a card.
I want a divine intervention, for my religion "tribal" deck. This would be my only "end the game" condition, as i dont believe anyone wins, when it comes to religion.
Divine Intervention is the perfect card to play against an opponent running Vorinclex so you can just exit the game out 1 turn later and not waste your life playing that match out 😂
Mitch, you made my day. Not because you made a hilarious video (which was very awesome by the way), but because I did not know divine intervention was on the reserve list nor about its price spike either. I just so happened to pull said card from a box of bulk I got from a friend several years back and I rediscovered it last summer and set it aside thinking "man, that's a funny card, I might put this in a dumb deck for fun." And left it in a pile of commander staples and forgot about it until this morning when I watched your video. You are the best mitch!
Amazingly, there could still be homes for some of these, wood elemental could go in Gitrog Monster. Goblin could go in Korvold. Snare isn't good but it can go into artifact decks as a 2 mana artifact. Boomerang can go in Valduk Bubble is an infinite mana outlet, (bad though it may be) Alabaster goes in zedruu decks Chess fan here, pro chess players OFTEN play to draw. Intervention is still bad tho
I was honestly expecting Viashino Skeleton to be on there. I believe it still sits as the lowest rated card on gatherer. Or Fleshmad Steed. I distinctly remember people seeing that card and just going "what the fuck? Why does this exist?"
I used to play inexpensive theme decks based around useless cards like "the shuffler" which was designed to make your opponent shuffle his deck as many times as possible before he beat me. This was before card sleeves were tournament legal so I would enjoy entering type 1 tournaments and playing against decks with the power nine, multi-lands, and other very expensive cards. The other catch was that after every shuffle your opponent got to cut your deck so I would order a greasy burger or burrito before the tourny and hold it with the same hand I used to cut my opponents deck after every shuffle. I could totally see myself playing divine intervention if it were not for the very high mana cost and 2 turn delay because it would be the ultimate troll card to complete a deck like "the shuffler".
I wanted to find a way to use Sorrow's Path so I made an Enrage tribal EDH deck with Golos at the helm so he can tutor up Sorrow's Path along with either Urborg or The World Tree so I can now tap Sorrow's Path for mana, ping all my creatures for two damage, and trigger all their enrage abilities
Divine Intervention is actually one of the most troll cards ever printed, and there's a deck called Forced Draw that uses cards like Academy Rector and Replenish with Solemnity to instantly force a draw between opponents as soon as Divine Intervention hits the table.
I could see a use for Goblin Firebug in a deck that focuses on sacrificing your own lands and recurring them from your graveyard. In fact, now I'm tempted to go make a mono-red deck that makes use of it.
Wood elemental was part of a wombo combo in the early days, when played with balance, land tax, sol ring, gaea's touch, fast bond etc. The concept was gaining ramp advantage and then resetting your opponent with wood elemental and balance. The sol ring and Gaea's touch allowed you to cast it without tapping forests. After the balance, your opponent was in a pickle about playing lands from the top of their deck, because that meant you were fetching 3 more from your deck with land tax. Then, you were able to drop something like drop of honey, the rack, or erhnam djinn to solidify the win. A standoff between your wood elemental and their best creature was usually to your advantage. In most cases, bad cards don't make sense outside the block they originated or the formats that were being played during that era. Balance was not reprinted after 4th edition and wood elemental was never reprinted in the standard releases, yet both were reprinted in Masters.
I dunno, that Cyclopean snare card is technically infinite taps if you have infinite colorless mana, as going back to the hand untaps itself. There's gotta be an inefficient combo in there somewhere.
One spell haunts me from a bit back, scrambleverse in a free for all between 7 players. Turned the turn into a half hour slog that cut the player count in half.
I just played against my buddy’s mono-white pacifism deck, and Divine Intervention was his sole “win condition” (which is just a flavor win to match the deck theme). Sure, he doesn’t technically win the game, but trying to stop him from forcing a draw was insanely difficult with how he built the deck, to the point that it meant to all of us that either his Divine Intervention draw meant his “win” or getting rid of it and killing him meant one of us winning. So from that perspective, the card makes sense to me.
At least goblin firebug can find it's way into a Blim or Zedruu deck . Maybe also gift a morphed unstable hulk and use Break open to flip it so they skip their next turn. It's a lot of hoops.
10:10 Reminds me of a YuGiOh Trap Card: Self-destruct Button. Rough memory says if my opponents have a significant Life total and I'm in serious peril, jump to the second best result. "If I can't win, then nobody else deserves to win either," can be the way to go. I couldn't call this...a "worst" card. But it is a unique gambit. Sometimes a stalemate can prove how equal one can be as a card shark. Give this hexproof and/or indestructible and you can guarantee its play. The first four, I can give you. But this? It's like calling a close sport at the end of regulation play only with no overtime. 😁
With Wood Elemental, there actually is a use for it in The Gitrog Monster. When you sacrifice the forests for it, you draw cards for each Forest you sacrifice. So, with the example you used, it would essentially be a 4 mana 4/4 draw 4.
@@mkill572 Card draw isn't useful? Are there better cards? Sure. But if someone wanted to run it in their Gitrog deck, there are certainly worse cards for the deck. I would rather run something like Scapeshift though.
The deck I play Divine Intervention in is a Triad of Fates deck themed around the concept of fate, and is basically a control version of grouphug. It tries to keep balance on the board by hindering players that are doing well and helping players that are suffering. Within that context, the card makes perfect sense. After all, the perfect way to bring balance to a game is to end it in a draw. And to a player that's in the lead, drawing the game is probably just as bad as losing it (judging from your reaction it might be even worse). I will immediately admit that this is a very specific and subjective use of the card, but for that specific purpose it was an amazing flavour fit for my deck.
Ok so some of these cards are "useful" in some decks but 2 specifically are wood elemental and sorrows path. Wood elemental is a great sac outlet for lands in titania, and sorrows path in Horobi becomes a land that says tap, kill 2 blockers
In all honesty, with the way that Razor Boomerang functions, it should at least be possible to concoct some kind of infinite combo with these specific interactions. If you can circumvent the costs for casting and equipping, as well as untap your creature somehow, you could do infinite damage. It's probably not possible with a reasonable number of combo pieces, but the potential is there. Also, a card with such an amazing artwork can't possibly be bad. Out of sheer principle.
Before errata, the orginal worst card was White Ward. It immediately destroyed itself when it came into play, and could basically only be used to destroy any other white enchantments that were already on the same creature it was cast on, and I don't think there were any negative White Auras in those days, only Blessing, Holy Strength, Animate Wall, and the other Wards.
I could see Cyclopean Snare being good, imagine a zirda and ugin on the battlefield, u can play it for 0, tap for 1, bounce and recast for 0 etc. Then you can use that to proc Reckless Fireweaver, energy with Gonti's Aether Heart, or infinite something with Battered Golem
Everybody talks about Morph with Break Open, but it does have some utility with Manifest creatures because if a non-permanent gets turned up, it gets turned back down. It's an inefficient information-gatherer in its best situation and a bad gamble in its worst, but it is... something 🤷
I don't get sorrows path Wouldn't you first exchange the creatures and then they get dealt 2 damage, meaning the ones that take the damage are your opponents creatures?
Divine intervention sees me as quite the ok sideboard card against bad matchups, like when you have a tournament and you cant lose that round. The chess analogy is actually supporting it: players are aiming for a draw in competitive chess all the time. (Especially when playing black, but also just for tournament or matchups reasons).
Draws in tournaments give each player a point, instead of just losing and your opponent getting the point. It is like the self destruct button in yu-gi-oh, but that card was banned because of how many people were using it to get free points.
Chess is most often played in a series of games where the opportunity to be white is swapped back and forth, since going first is an advantage. Because of this, it is not uncommon for grandmasters in matches against each other to simple try to stalemate all the matches where their opponents were playing white. It is a viable strategy that is a purposeful draw.
With Wood Elemental I could vaguely see some sort of combo with something that plays land from a graveyard and Dryad of the Ilysian Grove, plus some landfall? It has some kind of potential for something. Maybe.
The goal of the player sometimes is to troll their friend so forcing a draw like this is a personal win, even if you don't technically win the game. It's not always about beating the deck, it's usually about beating the player. My favorite wins are when my friends are frustrated and annoyed at how hard they had to work for that win. Divine Intervention rocks
Maybe use for combos, fine control on when it goes into the graveyard, not sure how that would help. Juju Curse - 1 Enchantment When ~ enters play draw two cards, then discard three cards, then discard juju curse, you gain 5 life. _The graves are full, and there is new life._
Today I learned Mitch and I are approximately the same age as we both recognized as youth how horrendously horrible the Leeches from the Invasion block were; like....seriously, WOTC.......WHY? WHY WOULD YOU MAKE THE LEECHES? I've got a copy of Andradite Leech from my first foray into MTG and I've not once become desperate enough to play it in EDH.
I can think of ways to use some of these. The goblin for instance is fantastic for a Zedruu deck, or any other donation themed EDH deck. The leech can theoretically be used the same way, but since it only hoses white decks, that is a lot less valuable. In general cards that have powerful effects can be used, even if they are terrible, because you can usually find some way to weaponize them. Just stupidly overcosted cards, like Razor Boomerang not so much. I can't think any way of weaponizing Wood Elementals downside though. Usually you can build around cards, but not really that one. And of course that white Enchantment... it is certainly a powerful effect, but it really can only do the one thing it says it does. Sure, you could trigger the effect earlier, but it just draws games, so it is pretty much a pure troll move.
Break Open could be considered slightly less awful since Manifest cards were printed. Now you can theoretically use it to turn a manifested instant or sorcery face up and remove an opponents' 2/2. Not that I think anyone has ever bothered to try that.
Sorrow's Path has combo potential (see Vigor) Break Open can force morph triggers at inopportune times (Granted Shock is almost always better outside of anthems or like Willbender specifically, but). Divine Intervention: If I can get the card, get it into play and successfully proc it with one to three players trying to stop me, is that not basically a victory?
Divine Intervention was used in the old days as an "F-U" to overly competitive people in white/blue control decks. If you were up against someone serious and very aggro, you just pop this into a side board and wait. Eventually when you break this down on them it puts them over the top because you've frustrated their quick win and delayed to the point where you basically deny them any chance to further develop a strategy - it's top-deck on 2 turns and /or then they're done. It was mostly as a lark for control players that I knew, nothing so much as a deck strategy build or focus ever that my small group ever knew of in the mid-late 90's/Early aughts.
Wow. Just wow. I've heard of some pretty bad cards, but those take the cake for sure. Were the designers on something when making those? Otherwise, certainly they have to be a joke or a dare. Mind blown 🤯
The early Magic expansions are wild. They were so terrified of repeating the Black Lotus/Mox/Time Walk mistake of making cards too powerful that they made most of them terrible. I started playing just before the Dark and for at least 2 years the Unlimited set was BY FAR the best (even not counting the power9). They truly didn't understand that power creep was inevitable and a good thing. So almost every new card was worse than the base set cards. A few were at least interesting. It is amazing Magic Survived Dark/Fallen Empires/Ice Age.
Divine Intervention was created back in the era where playing for Ante was still a thing. If your ante was a really good card and your opponent's was junk, this gave you a way to end the game and still keep your card.
I think, most players never played with Ante, as most players never had to deal with Manaburn.
Ah, the olden times, when getting cards was basically impossible in a small town in Germany.
THIS!
I love playing Divine Intervention in my Estrid deck, it's mostly just a fun casual way to 'win'
@@caligo7918 bring back Manaburn!
@@zachariahpoltergeist4516 No! Why? Manaburn was terrible! Absolutely no need for this!
The most powerful card in all of Magic: The Credit Card!
That card needs to be banned.
Its powerful unless they respond with decline 😂
@@mattguillien1994 Me: -1,000$ oh that’s why…
@@mattguillien1994 "Your card was declined." ua-cam.com/video/hpQQohcHk9Q/v-deo.html
The power 3-digits on the back
What's even crazier about Great Wall is that when it was released there were precisely zero creatures with plainswalk.
That's technically not true. Righteous Avengers was also released in Legends.
@@WayfarersBauble Even better, Lord Magnus also shut down plainswalk. So there were two cards that stopped it and only one with it.
Someone clearly thought white was overpowered.
They were readying for War of the Spark. So many Plainswalkers, it's insane.
Yeah, its stupid. But i will use this joke everytime someone mocks plainswalk.
@@Welverin even better, white was easily the worst color in old school magic
@@vaevictis_ Best time to kick someone is when their down, their that much closer to your foot!*
*Thank you George Wallace! I hope I remembered your name correctly.
I feel divine intervention was created specifically to end games that were already taking several hours to complete.
Yeah that’s a good point. Probably to answer cards like Shahrazad 😂
but sacrifiing an actual slot in your deck for this? I don't know...
Maybe I am wrong though
The one time no one ever wants to hear "First up, Wayfarers' Bauble".
Funny trivia:
The card Break Open was mistranslated in Brazilian Portuguese and they didn't include the "an opponent controls" part. That lead to a lot of people making decks around playing huge morphed monsters and using the spell to bypass their big morph costs.
And, as you can imagine, internet that big at the time, so few knew about it
last time I was this early, we didn't know Mitch liked D&D
Lol
Ya know, Mitch joined us for a one shot set in Ravnica, if you're looking for some Mitch/D&D content! ua-cam.com/video/A1BMkJqi4AE/v-deo.html
Nice I saw it!
Last time I was this early, nicol bolas still hadnt locked down the city.
Challenge accepted.
Wood Elemental: Sacing lands is harder than some other permanents, maybe you want to trigger Gitrog or Titania a bunch of times? Make a big Terravore or Akki Raider? Splendid Reclamation for a ton of landfall value?
Goblin Firebug: Oh, so you're telling me I can blink this little guy every turn in my landfall deck to guarantee a land drop every turn? Omnath likes.
Great Wall: See old hate cards are hard, but... Play Aysen Highway and Painter's Servant naming white. Now every creature has plainswalk, but you're the white player. Your opponents are confused and attack you with everything, forgetting your Vedalken Orrery. Bam! You flash in Great Wall and can block! Gottem!
Cyclopean Snare: Ok, but infinite mana is pretty easy to get. This just taps down all your opponents for a final attack. Or bounces them with Cowardice. Or destroys them with Dismiss Into Dream. Or steals them with Willbreaker. If Dramatic Scepter combo is your infinite mana source you can also infinitely tap and untap your own creatures. Infinite draw with Fallowsage? Infinite drain with Night Market Lookout? What about the cast and ETB triggers on the snare? Mirrodin Besieged or Sai make infinite tokens. Vedalken Archmage draws infinite cards Grinding Station infinitely untaps and you can use the tokens we just made to mill out our opponents. Oh and Sludge Strider may cost 1 to trigger, but it triggers on the snare's ETB and LTB.
Razor Boomerang: Ok, this is a hard one, I admit. So many better equipment with similar effects and it's kind of like Cyclopean Snare with extra steps. Oh wait... Master of Cruelties attacks and the Boomerang is attached to one of your other creatures, which can't attack anyway. That's busted if you ask me.
Sorrows Path: What, you don't want to swap the blockers so your deathtoucher kills their commander? What about the Enrage ability? Why isn't this a staple in Gishath?
Break Open: Ok, this is a classic and I had to get outside help. First one I found wanted to redirect the effect with Willbender back to your own morphs, but that's not a legal action. What a head scratcher... Oh, how about we donate Unstable Hulk with an Isochron Scepter imprinting Break Open and a copy of the Scepter imprinting Backslide to skip a player's turn every round? What about the other two players? Well for one of them we could donate Master of the Unseen and kill them with Tainted Remedy? 2/3 is good enough right?
Juju Bubble: Come on, you can't think of a way to use infinite lifegain triggers for a mere 2 generic mana? Infinite mana infinite Pridemate!
Alabaster Leech: Play this with Painter's Servant in Zedruu and give it to a non white player. If they can't make white mana they can't cast spells.
Divine Intervention: Ah yes, the best effect in white that isn't banned or stolen by better cards in better colors. I guess if you donate it to a player who is about to win they may have to scramble to get rid of it or miss out on the W. Or you could buyback Clockspinning every upkeep to keep it on 1 counter until you decide to draw the game at instant speed for {U}. Still kind of prefer combos that don't make me lose though.
To everyone asking about One With Nothing, I recommend watching Rhystic Studies' video on the "best worst card"
Agree. His video is the best!
It's also part of Mitch's turn one kill combo deck.
@@dom_rocks7923 The best worst video
There's this one garbage card that everyone in my playgroup keeps insisting on using it's like a mana rock that literally deals damage to you every time you lose a flip. I had like 5 but I gave all mine away because it's so bad
If that's the card I think it is, then you're either a troll, or just made a terrible mistake. And how on earth would you have 5 of them. It's a 100 dollar card, and one of the best cards there is, especially for commander. At this point, i'm basically 80% sure you're just a troll
MANA CRYPT?!
@@esra3784 they might not be a troll and just not see how good it is
@@puppetwhisper2472 1000% trolling
@@esra3784 ;)
Alabaster leech would be amazing in a Zedruu deck, especially against someone without white
Sadly not, it specifies that only white cards you cast cost [W] more.
@@extreemkb it'd be good against someone with white tho
@@louisgreen3071 It would be... Ok at that point? Issue then is that you're playing a card that will only affect about a fifth of decks (assuming equal play of all colors, ignoring colorless commanders), and that effect is only a minor tax.
@@extreemkb that's not factoring in multicolour commanders
If you can give it to an opponent then yes, it could work. Otherwise you're taxing yourself alone. But playing two cards to tax just a player it's an extremely inefficient play.
This was actually a pretty good list. It really focused on cards that actively hurt your chances of winning or are useless instead of cards that are just really bad at doing what they do.
Some other cards to consider would be Pale Moon, Mudhole, One With Nothing, and North Star.
And then there are cards like Power Surge that don't do anything relevant anymore due to the rules changes surrounding mana burn.
Reality is... if the game ends a draw because I ended it based on my own will... I won. Because I could and you couldn't stop me.
okay try making that argument at a tournament lol
@@PandaXs1 lol like EDH players care about winning a tournament. It's about sending a message.
Based
Forcing a draw in chess is actually a huge part of the strategy of high level play. Whoever goes first (White, usually) has a massive advantage, so much so that many chess GM's feel that when they play second (Black, usually) they are safer forcing a draw than playing and inevitably losing a game and giving their opponent the win points. Then when they are on White they will play for the wins.
In MTG though, yeah I can't fathom it either. Especially in commander where there's no "time on the round" buzzer.
I have a friend that uses Divine Intervention. The commander is Child of Alara and the entire purpose of the deck is to board wipe pretty much every turn until finally ending the game in a draw with Divine Intervention. xD
You gotta admit though, Cyclopean Snare's flavor text is on point with how inefficient the card is.
They knew what they were doing.
not too bad with paradox engine, if paradox engine weren't banned.
Tap Sorrow's Path, hit our Swans, draw some cards
also Dinos
This episode should be titled “best cards for a zedru deck”
Not really, most of these have big downsides when you play them (I consider having to pay mana for any of these garbage cards a downside) but once they are on the field, they don't actually make your boardstate any worse (the only exception being the 2/2 goblin and the leech). I mean, once you played your wood elemental, you had to sac some of your lands to make it stick around; if you then give it to your opponent... yeah, they have a mediocre creature, but they can still use it, and even if they don't, it's not doing any considerable damage to them. Considering you had to pay the 4, sac some lands and find a way to donate it, you're not the one at an advantage here
I feel like good cards for Zedruu (or Blim) are ones that cost little to play and have a negative impact on the board. Steel Golem is a good example, as are the leeches (yes, it's a cycle, every color has one) or that cleric that makes a demon token on etb then makes you lose 2 life on your upkeep
The only card on the list that really sees play in Zedru is the Leech since you can use something like Trait Doctoring to lock your opponent out of a color if they don't' have white in their deck.
Sorrows Path with a Vigor on the battlefield, essentially reads " tap, pay 2 life, put 2 +1+1 counters on each creature you control"
brilliant, I could kiss you. that's real fuckin spicy
Nice. I was thinking it was a good, repeatable way to trigger enrage, but that's awesome
@@brendaneichler5244 ah, beat me to it. But also, what about combining both?
I'm gonna guess one with nothing is a part of this video
Edit: it wasnt
Yeah. One with Nothing is great. Really fun to brew with.
ive got it in my kathril deck lol
One with Nothing has a purpose
The difference is that these cards weren’t trying to be bad.
Though yes, One With Nothing has a purpose. A niche purpose, but still a purpose. These cards don’t.
To be fair, with Alabaster leech, there are cards than let you exchange creatures, meaning you can completely shut down some ones deck with it.
A friend of mine thought in the early days: Why should I need land that creates either color of mana. I can play basic lands as well. No difference! And gave them away to other players...
I traded mine for Deserts from Arabian Nights... oh to be 10 and stupid again.
Don't forget about good ol' Rakalite classic six mana to switch for an opponent's Sol Ring with confusion in the ranks on the field. Heck, they can even pay two to prevent damage and give it back to you, woot!
Divine Intervention is the counter for the deck that stacks "can't win/can't lose" effects. Doesn't mean you can't draw!
Cumulative upkeep, a.k.a. "that thing you have to do with Mystic Remora"
Hey, some decks run braid of fire too!
Hey! I run elephant grass and glacial chasm!
0:40 Mitch I use the same purple dices!
That stash of 6 dice sets covers literally everything you need!
They iz good dice.
@@EncounterParty Paid almost nothing and the whole group has been using them for 2 whole years, you can darn bet it
Plus it's always nice having some sets extra when there is some guest
Wood Elemental isn't horrific in the Gitrog Monster. Especially if you can cast Splendid Reclamation. I mean it's not good, but at least it kind of works.
Divine Intervention was useful for drawing the game, when your Ante card was better than your opponent's.
If the game was a draw, no one would lose a card.
Alabaster leech could be fun in a Zedruu deck!
I want a divine intervention, for my religion "tribal" deck. This would be my only "end the game" condition, as i dont believe anyone wins, when it comes to religion.
My friends, my eleven-year-old daughter, and I were going to play in Ravnica last year...until Covid.
Its a rad place to play!
Divine Intervention is the perfect card to play against an opponent running Vorinclex so you can just exit the game out 1 turn later and not waste your life playing that match out 😂
I remember a channel used to do lists like this and the guy hated it.
I miss wedge I hope he's okay.
I tried making a Worst Cards Ever cube once, but now I just own a bunch of crappy cards lol
I will consider this a cautionary tale.
@@jerrywhoomst1116 nah totally worth it because they're never gonna print those cards again amr XX
@@zonko true.
I used to have some dumb friends who didnt want to win. They just wanted to waste everyone’s time. Needless to say, we aren’t friends anymore
Mitch, you made my day. Not because you made a hilarious video (which was very awesome by the way), but because I did not know divine intervention was on the reserve list nor about its price spike either. I just so happened to pull said card from a box of bulk I got from a friend several years back and I rediscovered it last summer and set it aside thinking "man, that's a funny card, I might put this in a dumb deck for fun." And left it in a pile of commander staples and forgot about it until this morning when I watched your video. You are the best mitch!
The root of all trash cards: The white basic land
My pick for another worst card is "Ember Shot"
6R instant that deals 3 and draws you a card.
So just a casual +6 mana for that cantrip on your bolt...
Juju Bubble can convert infinite mana in infinite life triggers in mono white for example. It can be a combo piece.
It’s still a horrible card tho.
I've been thinking about making a Blim deck and now I'm really interested in Goblin Firebug.
Last time I was this early Aladdin's Lamp is a great card!
Divine intervention seems like a really fun card for pissing off people
But break open stops all of the willbenders your opponents have! Haven’t you heard that every morph card is willbender?!
Amazingly, there could still be homes for some of these, wood elemental could go in Gitrog Monster. Goblin could go in Korvold.
Snare isn't good but it can go into artifact decks as a 2 mana artifact. Boomerang can go in Valduk
Bubble is an infinite mana outlet, (bad though it may be)
Alabaster goes in zedruu decks
Chess fan here, pro chess players OFTEN play to draw. Intervention is still bad tho
I was honestly expecting Viashino Skeleton to be on there. I believe it still sits as the lowest rated card on gatherer. Or Fleshmad Steed. I distinctly remember people seeing that card and just going "what the fuck? Why does this exist?"
I used to play inexpensive theme decks based around useless cards like "the shuffler" which was designed to make your opponent shuffle his deck as many times as possible before he beat me. This was before card sleeves were tournament legal so I would enjoy entering type 1 tournaments and playing against decks with the power nine, multi-lands, and other very expensive cards. The other catch was that after every shuffle your opponent got to cut your deck so I would order a greasy burger or burrito before the tourny and hold it with the same hand I used to cut my opponents deck after every shuffle. I could totally see myself playing divine intervention if it were not for the very high mana cost and 2 turn delay because it would be the ultimate troll card to complete a deck like "the shuffler".
I wanted to find a way to use Sorrow's Path so I made an Enrage tribal EDH deck with Golos at the helm so he can tutor up Sorrow's Path along with either Urborg or The World Tree so I can now tap Sorrow's Path for mana, ping all my creatures for two damage, and trigger all their enrage abilities
Divine Intervention is actually one of the most troll cards ever printed, and there's a deck called Forced Draw that uses cards like Academy Rector and Replenish with Solemnity to instantly force a draw between opponents as soon as Divine Intervention hits the table.
I could see a use for Goblin Firebug in a deck that focuses on sacrificing your own lands and recurring them from your graveyard. In fact, now I'm tempted to go make a mono-red deck that makes use of it.
Sorrow's Path + Vigor, you're welcome. Green is great for putting extra lands out, so it doesn't just take your once per turn.
I’ve been listening to Encounter Party! It’s so dope, The DM is amazing and hilarious
EYYY! What's up, Party Person!
I could listen to niv'mizzet for days
Well Niv isn’t in every minute of our show... but we’ve got days of episodes for you to check out!
Wait isn't great wall strong aganist planeswalker? Isn't plainswalking what they do?
Plains and planes are different things
@@kylmiii you must be really funny at partyes
@@michelemichienzi934
Parties*
Also im not a party guy
@@kylmiii I met wasps less annoying than this
@@michelemichienzi934
Wasps arent annoying
Wood elemental was part of a wombo combo in the early days, when played with balance, land tax, sol ring, gaea's touch, fast bond etc. The concept was gaining ramp advantage and then resetting your opponent with wood elemental and balance. The sol ring and Gaea's touch allowed you to cast it without tapping forests. After the balance, your opponent was in a pickle about playing lands from the top of their deck, because that meant you were fetching 3 more from your deck with land tax. Then, you were able to drop something like drop of honey, the rack, or erhnam djinn to solidify the win. A standoff between your wood elemental and their best creature was usually to your advantage.
In most cases, bad cards don't make sense outside the block they originated or the formats that were being played during that era. Balance was not reprinted after 4th edition and wood elemental was never reprinted in the standard releases, yet both were reprinted in Masters.
I dunno, that Cyclopean snare card is technically infinite taps if you have infinite colorless mana, as going back to the hand untaps itself. There's gotta be an inefficient combo in there somewhere.
goblin firebug is great for both 'blim , comedic genius' and 'zedruu, the greathearted' (especially when you can blink it in zedruu)
I'm in the credits at 11:40. As of this posting, my lowest TCGPlayer market price is currently $2.64 for my Fifth Dawn printing.
Divine intervention is the card you use when you're not playing blue and some players attempt to use Sharazad or Enter the Dungeon in the game.
Great that you mentioned inefficient cards and not cards like One with Nothing that might be good one day.
One spell haunts me from a bit back, scrambleverse in a free for all between 7 players. Turned the turn into a half hour slog that cut the player count in half.
I just played against my buddy’s mono-white pacifism deck, and Divine Intervention was his sole “win condition” (which is just a flavor win to match the deck theme). Sure, he doesn’t technically win the game, but trying to stop him from forcing a draw was insanely difficult with how he built the deck, to the point that it meant to all of us that either his Divine Intervention draw meant his “win” or getting rid of it and killing him meant one of us winning. So from that perspective, the card makes sense to me.
sorrow's path goes in a jacques le vert deck where you want to be dealing damage to your own creatures, like hornet's nest and broodhatch nantuko.
At least goblin firebug can find it's way into a Blim or Zedruu deck . Maybe also gift a morphed unstable hulk and use Break open to flip it so they skip their next turn. It's a lot of hoops.
10:10 Reminds me of a YuGiOh Trap Card: Self-destruct Button. Rough memory says if my opponents have a significant Life total and I'm in serious peril, jump to the second best result.
"If I can't win, then nobody else deserves to win either," can be the way to go. I couldn't call this...a "worst" card. But it is a unique gambit. Sometimes a stalemate can prove how equal one can be as a card shark.
Give this hexproof and/or indestructible and you can guarantee its play.
The first four, I can give you. But this? It's like calling a close sport at the end of regulation play only with no overtime. 😁
With Wood Elemental, there actually is a use for it in The Gitrog Monster. When you sacrifice the forests for it, you draw cards for each Forest you sacrifice. So, with the example you used, it would essentially be a 4 mana 4/4 draw 4.
Or you could play a card that does useful things in exchange for sacrificing a land. ...
@@mkill572 Card draw isn't useful? Are there better cards? Sure. But if someone wanted to run it in their Gitrog deck, there are certainly worse cards for the deck. I would rather run something like Scapeshift though.
The deck I play Divine Intervention in is a Triad of Fates deck themed around the concept of fate, and is basically a control version of grouphug. It tries to keep balance on the board by hindering players that are doing well and helping players that are suffering. Within that context, the card makes perfect sense. After all, the perfect way to bring balance to a game is to end it in a draw. And to a player that's in the lead, drawing the game is probably just as bad as losing it (judging from your reaction it might be even worse).
I will immediately admit that this is a very specific and subjective use of the card, but for that specific purpose it was an amazing flavour fit for my deck.
Divine Intervention is literally the only reason to build Ghen Arcanum Weaver xD
Ok so some of these cards are "useful" in some decks but 2 specifically are wood elemental and sorrows path. Wood elemental is a great sac outlet for lands in titania, and sorrows path in Horobi becomes a land that says tap, kill 2 blockers
Great Wall is the perfect counter for super friends, now you can block all those planeswalkers
The funny thing is one of these cards I might actually add for the custom commander I made. Thanks for showing me an otherwise unplayable card!
ok but what if you use life and limb with wood elemental and make a token buff deck
Nice highlight of some obscure cards. If you would ever do another list like this may I suggest hedron alignment and sphinx of the chimes?
In all honesty, with the way that Razor Boomerang functions, it should at least be possible to concoct some kind of infinite combo with these specific interactions. If you can circumvent the costs for casting and equipping, as well as untap your creature somehow, you could do infinite damage.
It's probably not possible with a reasonable number of combo pieces, but the potential is there.
Also, a card with such an amazing artwork can't possibly be bad. Out of sheer principle.
Can break open work with the new modal cards?
Before errata, the orginal worst card was White Ward. It immediately destroyed itself when it came into play, and could basically only be used to destroy any other white enchantments that were already on the same creature it was cast on, and I don't think there were any negative White Auras in those days, only Blessing, Holy Strength, Animate Wall, and the other Wards.
I could see Cyclopean Snare being good, imagine a zirda and ugin on the battlefield, u can play it for 0, tap for 1, bounce and recast for 0 etc. Then you can use that to proc Reckless Fireweaver, energy with Gonti's Aether Heart, or infinite something with Battered Golem
Not to mention the obvious Grapeshot
Everybody talks about Morph with Break Open, but it does have some utility with Manifest creatures because if a non-permanent gets turned up, it gets turned back down.
It's an inefficient information-gatherer in its best situation and a bad gamble in its worst, but it is... something 🤷
I don't get sorrows path
Wouldn't you first exchange the creatures and then they get dealt 2 damage, meaning the ones that take the damage are your opponents creatures?
Divine intervention sees me as quite the ok sideboard card against bad matchups, like when you have a tournament and you cant lose that round. The chess analogy is actually supporting it: players are aiming for a draw in competitive chess all the time. (Especially when playing black, but also just for tournament or matchups reasons).
Is cyclopean snare an infinite mana outlet?
Draws in tournaments give each player a point, instead of just losing and your opponent getting the point. It is like the self destruct button in yu-gi-oh, but that card was banned because of how many people were using it to get free points.
Chess is most often played in a series of games where the opportunity to be white is swapped back and forth, since going first is an advantage. Because of this, it is not uncommon for grandmasters in matches against each other to simple try to stalemate all the matches where their opponents were playing white. It is a viable strategy that is a purposeful draw.
Expected Walking Dead cards, disappointed that it's not this definition of worst magic cards x)
Mitch is just low-key implying TWD cards aren't Magic cards 😉
@@vichuang1480 I like your way of thinking
With Wood Elemental I could vaguely see some sort of combo with something that plays land from a graveyard and Dryad of the Ilysian Grove, plus some landfall? It has some kind of potential for something. Maybe.
The goal of the player sometimes is to troll their friend so forcing a draw like this is a personal win, even if you don't technically win the game. It's not always about beating the deck, it's usually about beating the player. My favorite wins are when my friends are frustrated and annoyed at how hard they had to work for that win. Divine Intervention rocks
Maybe use for combos, fine control on when it goes into the graveyard, not sure how that would help.
Juju Curse - 1
Enchantment
When ~ enters play draw two cards, then discard three cards, then discard juju curse, you gain 5 life.
_The graves are full, and there is new life._
Today I learned Mitch and I are approximately the same age as we both recognized as youth how horrendously horrible the Leeches from the Invasion block were; like....seriously, WOTC.......WHY? WHY WOULD YOU MAKE THE LEECHES?
I've got a copy of Andradite Leech from my first foray into MTG and I've not once become desperate enough to play it in EDH.
I can think of ways to use some of these. The goblin for instance is fantastic for a Zedruu deck, or any other donation themed EDH deck. The leech can theoretically be used the same way, but since it only hoses white decks, that is a lot less valuable. In general cards that have powerful effects can be used, even if they are terrible, because you can usually find some way to weaponize them. Just stupidly overcosted cards, like Razor Boomerang not so much.
I can't think any way of weaponizing Wood Elementals downside though. Usually you can build around cards, but not really that one. And of course that white Enchantment... it is certainly a powerful effect, but it really can only do the one thing it says it does. Sure, you could trigger the effect earlier, but it just draws games, so it is pretty much a pure troll move.
Break Open could be considered slightly less awful since Manifest cards were printed. Now you can theoretically use it to turn a manifested instant or sorcery face up and remove an opponents' 2/2. Not that I think anyone has ever bothered to try that.
5:40 Hey to be fair the flavor texts says it's meant for beauty not efficiency
Goblin Firebug is actually pretty good in Zedruu.
Sorrow's Path has combo potential (see Vigor)
Break Open can force morph triggers at inopportune times (Granted Shock is almost always better outside of anthems or like Willbender specifically, but).
Divine Intervention: If I can get the card, get it into play and successfully proc it with one to three players trying to stop me, is that not basically a victory?
Divine Intervention was used in the old days as an "F-U" to overly competitive people in white/blue control decks. If you were up against someone serious and very aggro, you just pop this into a side board and wait. Eventually when you break this down on them it puts them over the top because you've frustrated their quick win and delayed to the point where you basically deny them any chance to further develop a strategy - it's top-deck on 2 turns and /or then they're done. It was mostly as a lark for control players that I knew, nothing so much as a deck strategy build or focus ever that my small group ever knew of in the mid-late 90's/Early aughts.
Viridian Longbow: exists
Razor Boomerang: And I took that personally
How does break open interact with modal cards?
Wow. Just wow. I've heard of some pretty bad cards, but those take the cake for sure. Were the designers on something when making those? Otherwise, certainly they have to be a joke or a dare. Mind blown 🤯
So it’s almost been a year since the tour of your personal decks, are you planning to do an update any time soon?
The early Magic expansions are wild. They were so terrified of repeating the Black Lotus/Mox/Time Walk mistake of making cards too powerful that they made most of them terrible. I started playing just before the Dark and for at least 2 years the Unlimited set was BY FAR the best (even not counting the power9). They truly didn't understand that power creep was inevitable and a good thing. So almost every new card was worse than the base set cards. A few were at least interesting. It is amazing Magic Survived Dark/Fallen Empires/Ice Age.
I am very happy to see wood elemental on this list.