Can't it be used just to peek at opponent's hand? Like, yeah, maybe he has no trap in his deck, but you have an idea of what he can do, and that's the point.
@@fionathegayesttiefling9867 I remember something about Inquisition of Kozilek being considered good because it allowed you to peek, and also some combos are interested in knowing if their opponent has crucial counterspell/removal in his hand. So peek can be useful.
@@quint3ssent1a Kozilek's Inquisition is good because it's cheap hand disruption that will always find a target t1 or t2. Looking at the hand is only a useful side effect of that. Like it's better than if it somehow didn't, but not enough so to be an effect worth spending mana on
It should be noted that Fountain of Renewal costs 1 mana, is colorless, gives 1 life every turn regardless of your current life total, and when you don't need the life anymore, you can sacrifice it to draw a card. It's an upgrade to Convalescence is every conceivable way.
No joke, I was also going to write a comment comparing those same two cards before seeing yours. And to think that Convalescence is a rare, no less lol.
It is a lot worse than Blood Moon. It does nothing against Tron lands, Cloudpost, or Dark Depths, all of which are fairly big factors in running Blood Moon.
Ahh two mana, also known as the top of the curve for most Vintage decks. Although no cards like these would ever be able to go into one of those decks, let alone "Top 10 Vintage Cards (Minus Power 9)"!
Pale Moon also has hidden timing restrictions to be useful. If you tried casting it on your opponent's main phase, they can simply tap their nonbasics for mana as usual while the spell is still on the stack. You could at least lock them out of using it for creatures and other things at sorcery speed by casting it on their upkeep?
Tower of Coireall reminds me of something that Resleevebles pointed out recently, which is that there were a pretty absurd number of walls in ABU. I think they genuinely did believe that most decks would be like 50% creatures that could attack and 50% walls on defense or something
If you think about it, in ABU, there's only a few ways to kill creatures: Swords to Plowshares, Terror, and Lightning Bolt. Bolt can't kill Walls because they're too big. Getting your creatures through big walls was a lot harder in the early days and the game was so much slower that you could afford to have cards just dedicated to defense--again, removal is not great and not abundant, so having walls is a reasonable way to deal with creatures. Oh, and almost no creatures do anything but attack as ETBs were not a thing until Visions in 1997 and creatures with static abilities were also pretty rare. So all they did was attack. And walls blocked them. As creatures started to do more and more, then Walls really started to suck.
"You don't get something absurdly powerful for that type of investment." Arcbound Ravager, Tarmogoyf, Wrenn & Six, Thassa's Oracle, Stoneforge Mystic and Snapcaster Mage would like to have a word with you.
Nizzahon would play Foundry Inspector, Jhoira's Familiar, Urza's Incubator (Naming Dragon), Ugin the Ineffable, and Herald's Horn (Naming Dragon) to reduce the cost of casting Colorless Artifact Dragons by 7, to be able to put Teeka's Dragon on this list.
I've mentioned before that I have a cube built with bad and weird cards. It's fun to draft with the worst cards in the game, but I actually want my friends to play the cards they pick. To make my cube fun enough to want to play again, I had to draw a line in the sand. That said, none of thse cards in your video are in my cube. They are that unplayable. I am legitimately impressed with these findings and I cannot wait for your next video. Keep the Top 10s coming Nizz!
A more interesting design for Mogg Squad would've been if it said it got -1/-1 only for each creature your *opponent* controlled. That would still make it trash by today's standards, but back then it could've had some interesting utility as an efficient aggressive creature against control decks that often don't run many low to the ground creatures. Ultimately probably still wouldn't have been amazing, but that design would've at least been far more interesting.
Or -1/-1 only for you creatures. Then it could have been an efficient two-drop to run as your only actual creatures in some sort of counter-burn deck. It would be of its time in power level, but fine.
@@ShaqPlaque that design would make more sense if it were blue or something for a more controlling color. The fact it's red I think my more aggressive design makes more sense imo.
I spent a long time really wanting to make Break Open work, and the best I could do was: Play Akroma, harmless offering her, break her open and then use brand to get her back. This costs the same amount of mana as just playing her and morphing her but it costs 3 cards. good times.
The one thing I will say about Break Open is that a decent chunk of morph cards have specific times when flipping them over is good. Like if I recall correctly there is one that is a spell pierce kind of effect when it is turned over. Letting you flip your opponents morphs yes does in most cases make them bigger and does mean that you are spending mana for them, but there are real situations where flipping a morph on your terms basically fizzles the "when this is turned face up" ability. And beyond that another good chunk of morph cards' usefulness is the "do I block and get blown out when they flip it or do I not block and get blown out when they flip it" factor. Flipping it outside of combat so you can see what is attacking/available to block is useful information. Is it a good card? No. Absolutely not. But I'm not necessarily sold on it being the worst.
TBF, in the early days, there were a LOT of walls in Magic. Look at Revised... walls in every colour...then Legends had a lot of 'cares about walls' spells..
Pale Moon is also terrible because it targets mana abilities, which can't be altered on demand. So you have to predict that your opponent will need that specific color this turn and play it during a previous phase. If it was retroactive to the beginning of the turn it might be nice. (Like when they tap a dual for U, you say sorry, that's colorless. Or better yet, they announce a spell and you say, sorry you don't have enough blue mana, put it back in your hand). But I don't think Magic rules have ever allowed for that capacity.
Back in the day, I actually played Convalescence. It brought you back from the brink when you stabilized against aggro/burn, no more mana investment - just gives you life each turn once in play - and opponents rarely bothered to remove it.
Ahh yes, pulling you back from the brink against aggro. With exactly one life point at a time, up to ten life. Aggro and burn have never been able to kill anyone from ten life before!
Kaya, Orzhov Usurper really shows how bad Steamclaw is. Kaya costs 1 more mana to come into play, but she removes two cards for 3 mana while this removes one card for 5. She also gains you life, answers one drops, and can be a win condition all on her own.
It's funny though that Throne of Geth is exactly the card you described to improve Parallax Inhibitor. Not to mention, it can sac other things besides itself.
Hey, a top 10 where I already have most the cards. Now we just need a Top 10 Craw Wurms. Back in the day I tried to get the most out of my single copy of Deep Water. Mostly by using it with Urza's lands to try and cast Island Fish Jasconius, and other mediocre things. But it doesn't quite work like that.
If memory serves, Pale Moon came out when Extended decks running a ton of OG duals was a thing, so it could serve as a sideboard card against, say, Slivers by hosing a key turn by casting it during their upkeep. Obviously those days are long gone.
I remeber Steamclaw showing up in sideboards of either Standard or Block Constructed. Sure the cost is horrible by today's standard, but at the time there was no colorless replacement for dealing with something like Flashback Roar of the Wurm and Wonder.
I could see Root Cage being sort of useful if you also had a way to perpetually make your opponents have mercenaries by giving them all creature types. But there are way better ways to achieve that so its only 'sort' of useful.
I wonder if thge fact that Break Open exists has affected the design of newer mechanics that might have otherwise involved face down creatures, separate from morph. Or if there is anyone in Magic R&D who is pushing for such a mechanic so that Break Open actually has a use and could get a reprint.
It's a pity Deep Waters wasn't just "1: Add U" because then it would have a purpose. There's not very many ways to change the color of your mana. One of my favorites is Skyshroud Elf from Tempest. It's a 1/1 for 1G that taps for G but also has "1: Add R or W" which basically lets you spend any mana as though it were red or white and that's actually very useful.
Mogg squad looks like it could be fun in an aristocrats style deck. Play it, it kills itself, reanimate it/put back into hand, repeat. Not quite the most efficient way to ping people, but not needing a dedicated sac outlet could come in handy at times.
I knew it was going to be Break Open the second I saw this list. And just because of its devotion boost and art, I'm running Deep Water in a Callaphe, Beloved of the Sea PEDH deck. Plus the art is on theme.
The other thing about Pale Moon is that, if they have spells they want to play that have colors and only have non basics, they can just float the mana in response
You can still cast it on, say, their draw step, and unless they're playing an instant, the floated mana will empty by the time they can actually play it.
Break Open is absolutely the worst card in the game. Not only is morph uncommon to begin with, not only are there only 79 cards with a "when this is turned face up" effect, but the only one that truly screws its controller over is Unstable Hulk, which makes them skip their next turn. One card out of 24,591 ever printed in non-acorn. This card only really counters exactly _one_ card that no one ever plays. What a wonderful piece of cardboard.
I’ve seen people play ‘Convalescence’. I can’t remember what they were doing, but Sligh/mono-red aggro/burn were quite popular around the time of the Exodus set.
I actually drafted a Steam Claw at an Odyssey prerelease. It would have been better if it had been an artifact creature, but it wasn't a dead card either. Root Cage, on the other hand, wasn't even good in Prophecy draft, since Prophecy had the fewest mercenaries of the bunch, and it can't be used with Shields of Velis Vel or Unnatural Selection because those effects can't be played until after the creatures are already untapped. The only practical way to make Root Cage work is to also have an Artificial Evolution to change the creature type if affects. And even then, there are better options.
The idea of Break Open was probably that you could flip the card face up to cause the flip effect happen at a less than ideal time for your opponent. Bit since the card is face down, you have no idea before you cast it what effect, if any, the face-down creature gives when it is flipped face up, so you can't know if it will matter.
What you think will happen: Haha! I'll flip this card to activate their effect before they're ready, like a Willbender! What will actually happen: Oh, okay, I guess I'll just kill your creature now instead of at your end step. And also for free. And also discard a card from your hand because you had to use Break Open.
Some Limited format context would be nice. Steamclaw was in a same set as threshold and flashback thus the graveyard hate. Still a bad card though, even in limited.
I use mog Squad in my revenge death deck which deals damage to my opponent anytime a creature enters my graveyard. Dealing damage equal to the creatures base power. It's a niche use, and a gamble, but it's fun none the less. It's a black red deck that primarily recycles monsters over and over again so I really just need to pay the base cost of the card once. I initially thought to spam regerate it. But unfortunately that's not how the effect works sadly lol. I do still spam tf out of deathtouch+ first strike, combined with lopsided creatures (like a 5/1 black crypt keeper weird) to ensure a kill and flat damage to either my opponent, their planes walker, or one of their creatures.
Mogg Squad has a narrow use in 2 decks. Piru the Volatile and Zurgo Helmsmasher boardwipe tribal decks. Drop Mogg Squad on an empty board, let your opponents play 3 creatures to kill it, then drop another boardwipe on those creatures.
Pale Moon isn't Modern Legal, but I can see running it in Merfolk. Cast it during the opponent's upkeep, flash or vial in your fish and they're screwed on mana and could get run over the next turn. Can be a like a really bad Mana Short effect. Bad card, but I see SOME potential with it.
Break Open at least has some niche uses though. If you're about to lose anyway, use it on your opponent's facedown and you might get a game win if they lied about it being a morph creature (joking, ofc)
Here is how bad Break Open is... when I was a kid I won a decent number of (casual) games due to Parallax Inhibitor, I only remember losing almost immediately if I used or drew Break Open. The card did not stay in my deck very long though so the sample size is quite small.
You know if they made walls stronger in the early days, cards like Tower of Coireall & Battering Ram would 've been relevant, the design flaw was with the wall design not those cards. Imagine for exemple if walls could have blocked more than one creature depending of it's stats, people would have definitely play them.
A way to fix one with notting: Black Lotus Ashes. Sorcery. B. As aditional cost to lay Black Lotus Petal discard your hand. Add tree mana of any one color..
The 40 people who put Break Open in their EDH decks probably didn't read the card properly (thinks it works on their own cards). I suppose they could be playing "Worst-Cards-of-All-Time" tribal, but that's such a high a level of masochism that I seriously doubt that many people would would subject themselves to.
Break Open had a interesting missprint in Brazilian Portuguese: It said just "Turn target faced-down creature face up", being a little broken in our local game level. Back in 2002 when we didn't had that much information about other languages and MTG generally, it took a long while to figure out it wasn't intended that way. Flipping a Towering Baloth was fun. Still lost to Doubtless One tho
The way to make failed parasitic mechanics evergreen is to constantly print absolutely busted Commanders that interact exclusively with said failed parasitic mechanics.
Deep Water - For when there are too many blood moon effects in your meta Tower of Coireall could be playable if they ever make a symmetric Maskewood Nexus, although it'd have to be in the command zone to really be worth it...
Pale Moon is surely one of the worst designs (albeit not explicitly grief beyond the waste of mana and a card). That card is literally countered by just tapping your lands before it resolves.
Not gonna lie, the only big turn-off I have towards these videos is that I mainly listen to CZcams videos while I do other things like housework, but I don't know what 99% of the cards he's talking about do, so I have to watch the video to understand what he's taking about. If there was a quick blurb about what the card does in audio, like "At number 10 is Mogg Squad, a 3/3 goblin that costs 1 and 1 red and gets - 1/-1 for each other creature in play" then continue with why it's terrible, I'd listen to these videos more.
If they wanted to power up walls and make them playable they should have either given them powerful effects like etb/pay tap draw or even life gain OR increase their toughness/power (say 0/10) and make them able to always block multiple creatures.
It is worse than Blood Moon in almost every way. If a land already produced a ton of mana it still does (they do nothing against Tron lands), and it holds on to all of its other activated abilities
@@NizzahonMagic you do realize that in CEDH, over 80% of decks are 3 to 4 colours and usually run very few basic lands. The most basics i usually see is about 7 and those are decks not running thoracle because they would need to run only 1 of each basic and maybe one of each snow basic for tainted pact. I have used this many times in a mono blue as a silence effect and it has worked in major CEDH tournaments.
"Even as an enchantment [Pale Moon] wouldn't be an impressive card." I don't know how you can say that. It would be comparable to Blood Moon and even stronger in some ways.
I missed the Sacrifice part on Parallax Inhibitor and wondered why it would be bad enough to be at #2 on the list. Yeesh, that line added makes the card just flat awful.
The tower makes it so that walls can't block the target creature, not that walls can't be blocked. And Doran just makes every creature deal damage based on their toughness. The card you're thinking of is Arcades, the Strategist
If One With Nothing can be the worst sorcery then it can also be the worst 2-mana card.
One With Nothing on this channel has become the Baron Mardu that Marvel Snap has in their game.
Just add sphere of resistance
I thought One with Nothing was the worst of all the one drops...
One with nothing costs one mana and is an instant.
@drakemcculloch4082 congrats. You found the joke.
See, the problem with Trapfinder's Trick is that it's a Yugioh card that accidentally got printed into Magic.
Can't it be used just to peek at opponent's hand? Like, yeah, maybe he has no trap in his deck, but you have an idea of what he can do, and that's the point.
@@quint3ssent1aain’t worth a full card
@@quint3ssent1a Even all star Gitaxian Probe only became worth it when it was free. Nobody's playing peek.
@@fionathegayesttiefling9867 I remember something about Inquisition of Kozilek being considered good because it allowed you to peek, and also some combos are interested in knowing if their opponent has crucial counterspell/removal in his hand. So peek can be useful.
@@quint3ssent1a Kozilek's Inquisition is good because it's cheap hand disruption that will always find a target t1 or t2. Looking at the hand is only a useful side effect of that. Like it's better than if it somehow didn't, but not enough so to be an effect worth spending mana on
The worst thing about Break Open is that we'll never get to use that card name nor that awesome flavor text again.
Break Open (Not the Onslaught One)
It should be noted that Fountain of Renewal costs 1 mana, is colorless, gives 1 life every turn regardless of your current life total, and when you don't need the life anymore, you can sacrifice it to draw a card.
It's an upgrade to Convalescence is every conceivable way.
The only upside is that Convalescence is an enchantment, which matters sometimes. Still, Fountain is almost exclusively better.
No joke, I was also going to write a comment comparing those same two cards before seeing yours. And to think that Convalescence is a rare, no less lol.
And Nyx Fleece Ram costs the same as Convalescence, gains you a life every turn and comes on a 0/5 blocker.
And it's still bad lmao
@@jchadwick4918 In that case, though, it's a creature and therefore a lot easier to remove than an enchantment or artifact.
The fact that break open doesn't just kill a face down creature is so hilarious.
If Pale Moon were an enchantment it would be a 2 mana Blood Moon you can pitch to Force and would be Vintage playable.
Came here to say this.
It’s not great as an instant but I’m surprised it’s in the top 10 worst 2 drops
Not quite, since Blood Moon removes abilities.
@@RasmusVJS Exactly. You could still use your fetchlands, while bounceland and tron lands would still produce more than 1 mana.
It is a lot worse than Blood Moon.
It does nothing against Tron lands, Cloudpost, or Dark Depths, all of which are fairly big factors in running Blood Moon.
Importantly it does nothing against fetchlands; which are a big thing that bloodmoon stops, and help fetch basics to get around it.
Ahh two mana, also known as the top of the curve for most Vintage decks. Although no cards like these would ever be able to go into one of those decks, let alone "Top 10 Vintage Cards (Minus Power 9)"!
Pale Moon also has hidden timing restrictions to be useful. If you tried casting it on your opponent's main phase, they can simply tap their nonbasics for mana as usual while the spell is still on the stack. You could at least lock them out of using it for creatures and other things at sorcery speed by casting it on their upkeep?
Tower of Coireall reminds me of something that Resleevebles pointed out recently, which is that there were a pretty absurd number of walls in ABU. I think they genuinely did believe that most decks would be like 50% creatures that could attack and 50% walls on defense or something
If you think about it, in ABU, there's only a few ways to kill creatures: Swords to Plowshares, Terror, and Lightning Bolt. Bolt can't kill Walls because they're too big. Getting your creatures through big walls was a lot harder in the early days and the game was so much slower that you could afford to have cards just dedicated to defense--again, removal is not great and not abundant, so having walls is a reasonable way to deal with creatures. Oh, and almost no creatures do anything but attack as ETBs were not a thing until Visions in 1997 and creatures with static abilities were also pretty rare. So all they did was attack. And walls blocked them. As creatures started to do more and more, then Walls really started to suck.
"You don't get something absurdly powerful for that type of investment."
Arcbound Ravager, Tarmogoyf, Wrenn & Six, Thassa's Oracle, Stoneforge Mystic and Snapcaster Mage would like to have a word with you.
Root cage could actually see play if changelings see some more play.
Nizzahon would play Foundry Inspector, Jhoira's Familiar, Urza's Incubator (Naming Dragon), Ugin the Ineffable, and Herald's Horn (Naming Dragon) to reduce the cost of casting Colorless Artifact Dragons by 7, to be able to put Teeka's Dragon on this list.
That would imply Teeka's Dragon wasn't absurdly overpowered. I mean it has rampage 4 *AND* counts as a dragon!
@@TheGloriousLobsterEmperor Oh, it is beyond busted. That's why you need five cards to make it somewhat cost effective!
You forgot Dragonspeaker Shaman, who reduces Teeka's Dragon's cost by 2 colorless by itself! And all other dragons too!
hold up hold up I'm getting the brew together now
@@matthewgagnon9426 That would work but then Teeka's Dragon would be free!
I've mentioned before that I have a cube built with bad and weird cards. It's fun to draft with the worst cards in the game, but I actually want my friends to play the cards they pick. To make my cube fun enough to want to play again, I had to draw a line in the sand. That said, none of thse cards in your video are in my cube. They are that unplayable. I am legitimately impressed with these findings and I cannot wait for your next video. Keep the Top 10s coming Nizz!
A more interesting design for Mogg Squad would've been if it said it got -1/-1 only for each creature your *opponent* controlled. That would still make it trash by today's standards, but back then it could've had some interesting utility as an efficient aggressive creature against control decks that often don't run many low to the ground creatures. Ultimately probably still wouldn't have been amazing, but that design would've at least been far more interesting.
Or -1/-1 only for you creatures. Then it could have been an efficient two-drop to run as your only actual creatures in some sort of counter-burn deck. It would be of its time in power level, but fine.
@@ShaqPlaque that design would make more sense if it were blue or something for a more controlling color. The fact it's red I think my more aggressive design makes more sense imo.
I spent a long time really wanting to make Break Open work, and the best I could do was: Play Akroma, harmless offering her, break her open and then use brand to get her back. This costs the same amount of mana as just playing her and morphing her but it costs 3 cards. good times.
The one thing I will say about Break Open is that a decent chunk of morph cards have specific times when flipping them over is good. Like if I recall correctly there is one that is a spell pierce kind of effect when it is turned over. Letting you flip your opponents morphs yes does in most cases make them bigger and does mean that you are spending mana for them, but there are real situations where flipping a morph on your terms basically fizzles the "when this is turned face up" ability. And beyond that another good chunk of morph cards' usefulness is the "do I block and get blown out when they flip it or do I not block and get blown out when they flip it" factor. Flipping it outside of combat so you can see what is attacking/available to block is useful information.
Is it a good card? No. Absolutely not. But I'm not necessarily sold on it being the worst.
I guess Deep Water could be useful in a monoblue deck that wants to run a lot of colourless utility lands? But yeah, not great.
TBF, in the early days, there were a LOT of walls in Magic. Look at Revised... walls in every colour...then Legends had a lot of 'cares about walls' spells..
I feel like some poor kid tried making a blue deck but only had so many island cards, so it was his workaround before being gifted extra island cards.
Looks at Scrabbling Claw. Looks at Steamcrawler. Wow we've come a long way.
Pale Moon is also terrible because it targets mana abilities, which can't be altered on demand. So you have to predict that your opponent will need that specific color this turn and play it during a previous phase. If it was retroactive to the beginning of the turn it might be nice. (Like when they tap a dual for U, you say sorry, that's colorless. Or better yet, they announce a spell and you say, sorry you don't have enough blue mana, put it back in your hand). But I don't think Magic rules have ever allowed for that capacity.
The flavour text on the worst card is funny though; I ought to put together a commander deck of all my favourite flavour texts.
Back in the day, I actually played Convalescence. It brought you back from the brink when you stabilized against aggro/burn, no more mana investment - just gives you life each turn once in play - and opponents rarely bothered to remove it.
Ahh yes, pulling you back from the brink against aggro. With exactly one life point at a time, up to ten life. Aggro and burn have never been able to kill anyone from ten life before!
Even back then, there was a lot better tech to stabilize against aggro, such as Zuran Orb
This 9:01 was also included in at least one of the Nemesis Set Preconstructed Decks.
Making it ubiquitous for anyone looking for the "Rare".
Wouldn't Root Cage be useful (by that I mean less useless) against Changelings, since they're also Mercenaries?
Yes, but how often do you play against a Changeling tribal deck?
Kaya, Orzhov Usurper really shows how bad Steamclaw is. Kaya costs 1 more mana to come into play, but she removes two cards for 3 mana while this removes one card for 5. She also gains you life, answers one drops, and can be a win condition all on her own.
It's funny though that Throne of Geth is exactly the card you described to improve Parallax Inhibitor. Not to mention, it can sac other things besides itself.
Hey, a top 10 where I already have most the cards. Now we just need a Top 10 Craw Wurms.
Back in the day I tried to get the most out of my single copy of Deep Water. Mostly by using it with Urza's lands to try and cast Island Fish Jasconius, and other mediocre things. But it doesn't quite work like that.
If memory serves, Pale Moon came out when Extended decks running a ton of OG duals was a thing, so it could serve as a sideboard card against, say, Slivers by hosing a key turn by casting it during their upkeep. Obviously those days are long gone.
I remeber Steamclaw showing up in sideboards of either Standard or Block Constructed. Sure the cost is horrible by today's standard, but at the time there was no colorless replacement for dealing with something like Flashback Roar of the Wurm and Wonder.
Steamclae has such amazing art though!
I could see Root Cage being sort of useful if you also had a way to perpetually make your opponents have mercenaries by giving them all creature types. But there are way better ways to achieve that so its only 'sort' of useful.
I wonder if thge fact that Break Open exists has affected the design of newer mechanics that might have otherwise involved face down creatures, separate from morph. Or if there is anyone in Magic R&D who is pushing for such a mechanic so that Break Open actually has a use and could get a reprint.
Worst part of Break Open doesn't flip over manifested instants/sorceries ... just reveal and put back face down :(
I suppose Root Cage might be some effective Changeling hate, too
B- bu- but think of the upside of breaking open an opponent's Scornful Egotist!
It's a pity Deep Waters wasn't just "1: Add U" because then it would have a purpose. There's not very many ways to change the color of your mana. One of my favorites is Skyshroud Elf from Tempest. It's a 1/1 for 1G that taps for G but also has "1: Add R or W" which basically lets you spend any mana as though it were red or white and that's actually very useful.
Powercrept by Noble/Ignoble Hierarch
@@CaesarShadowKnight Noble Hierarch can't let you paint all your mana red or white.
Mogg squad looks like it could be fun in an aristocrats style deck. Play it, it kills itself, reanimate it/put back into hand, repeat. Not quite the most efficient way to ping people, but not needing a dedicated sac outlet could come in handy at times.
I knew it was going to be Break Open the second I saw this list. And just because of its devotion boost and art, I'm running Deep Water in a Callaphe, Beloved of the Sea PEDH deck. Plus the art is on theme.
The other thing about Pale Moon is that, if they have spells they want to play that have colors and only have non basics, they can just float the mana in response
You can still cast it on, say, their draw step, and unless they're playing an instant, the floated mana will empty by the time they can actually play it.
Why they didn't at least tag "draw a card" onto break open is unknowable. Would still be awful even in block.
Break Open is absolutely the worst card in the game. Not only is morph uncommon to begin with, not only are there only 79 cards with a "when this is turned face up" effect, but the only one that truly screws its controller over is Unstable Hulk, which makes them skip their next turn. One card out of 24,591 ever printed in non-acorn. This card only really counters exactly _one_ card that no one ever plays. What a wonderful piece of cardboard.
I’ve seen people play ‘Convalescence’. I can’t remember what they were doing, but Sligh/mono-red aggro/burn were quite popular around the time of the Exodus set.
I actually drafted a Steam Claw at an Odyssey prerelease. It would have been better if it had been an artifact creature, but it wasn't a dead card either. Root Cage, on the other hand, wasn't even good in Prophecy draft, since Prophecy had the fewest mercenaries of the bunch, and it can't be used with Shields of Velis Vel or Unnatural Selection because those effects can't be played until after the creatures are already untapped. The only practical way to make Root Cage work is to also have an Artificial Evolution to change the creature type if affects. And even then, there are better options.
The idea of Break Open was probably that you could flip the card face up to cause the flip effect happen at a less than ideal time for your opponent. Bit since the card is face down, you have no idea before you cast it what effect, if any, the face-down creature gives when it is flipped face up, so you can't know if it will matter.
What you think will happen: Haha! I'll flip this card to activate their effect before they're ready, like a Willbender!
What will actually happen: Oh, okay, I guess I'll just kill your creature now instead of at your end step. And also for free. And also discard a card from your hand because you had to use Break Open.
Pale moon is kinda hilarious because if it was an enchantment it would be insanely good.
Some Limited format context would be nice. Steamclaw was in a same set as threshold and flashback thus the graveyard hate. Still a bad card though, even in limited.
I actually got a few copies of break open for free from someone else's collection. I wonder why the person didn't want them...
I use mog Squad in my revenge death deck which deals damage to my opponent anytime a creature enters my graveyard. Dealing damage equal to the creatures base power. It's a niche use, and a gamble, but it's fun none the less. It's a black red deck that primarily recycles monsters over and over again so I really just need to pay the base cost of the card once. I initially thought to spam regerate it. But unfortunately that's not how the effect works sadly lol. I do still spam tf out of deathtouch+ first strike, combined with lopsided creatures (like a 5/1 black crypt keeper weird) to ensure a kill and flat damage to either my opponent, their planes walker, or one of their creatures.
Good idea Nizzahon! I think I'll make a Break Open coaster!😂
4:50 Steamed Hams
I actually like Break Open - the card effect is so terrible it's actually funny card.
Mogg Squad has a narrow use in 2 decks. Piru the Volatile and Zurgo Helmsmasher boardwipe tribal decks. Drop Mogg Squad on an empty board, let your opponents play 3 creatures to kill it, then drop another boardwipe on those creatures.
Stop, goblins - what's that sound?
Everybody look, what's going down?
Pale Moon isn't Modern Legal, but I can see running it in Merfolk. Cast it during the opponent's upkeep, flash or vial in your fish and they're screwed on mana and could get run over the next turn. Can be a like a really bad Mana Short effect. Bad card, but I see SOME potential with it.
Break Open at least has some niche uses though. If you're about to lose anyway, use it on your opponent's facedown and you might get a game win if they lied about it being a morph creature
(joking, ofc)
Here is how bad Break Open is... when I was a kid I won a decent number of (casual) games due to Parallax Inhibitor, I only remember losing almost immediately if I used or drew Break Open. The card did not stay in my deck very long though so the sample size is quite small.
Root Cage does have one big niche though....Changelings...they ARE Mercenaries.
You have an interesting definition of "big"
I like mog squad for when you want a creature to go to the graveyard, you can use it to chump block too.
triggers "when a creature dies" as well.. honestly not a bad card if you know how to use it... wouldnt say its the 10th worst tho
In my first read of Parallax Inhibitor I omitted the Sacrifice portion of the activation cost and thought that the card wasn't so bad!
You know if they made walls stronger in the early days, cards like Tower of Coireall & Battering Ram would 've been relevant, the design flaw was with the wall design not those cards. Imagine for exemple if walls could have blocked more than one creature depending of it's stats, people would have definitely play them.
I have actually played Steamclaw in a format, that format being Standard 15-card Highlander during Invasion/Odyssey Block...
A way to fix one with notting:
Black Lotus Ashes. Sorcery. B. As aditional cost to lay Black Lotus Petal discard your hand. Add tree mana of any one color..
So...Lion's Eye Diamond? Sounds busted.
The 40 people who put Break Open in their EDH decks probably didn't read the card properly (thinks it works on their own cards). I suppose they could be playing "Worst-Cards-of-All-Time" tribal, but that's such a high a level of masochism that I seriously doubt that many people would would subject themselves to.
I see it working best in multi player formats, because you can basically force flip before they are ready to do so.
Break Open had a interesting missprint in Brazilian Portuguese: It said just "Turn target faced-down creature face up", being a little broken in our local game level.
Back in 2002 when we didn't had that much information about other languages and MTG generally, it took a long while to figure out it wasn't intended that way.
Flipping a Towering Baloth was fun. Still lost to Doubtless One tho
I got a janky 5 color screw with my opponents deck with Root Cage and Artificial Evolution where I turn their commander into a mercenary.
The way to make failed parasitic mechanics evergreen is to constantly print absolutely busted Commanders that interact exclusively with said failed parasitic mechanics.
Top ten Worst Lists are a work of art! But I really miss your decks history too. You never did Storm.
Have a nice week
Deep Water - For when there are too many blood moon effects in your meta
Tower of Coireall could be playable if they ever make a symmetric Maskewood Nexus, although it'd have to be in the command zone to really be worth it...
Pale Moon is surely one of the worst designs (albeit not explicitly grief beyond the waste of mana and a card). That card is literally countered by just tapping your lands before it resolves.
I'm surprised your CZcams channel isn't bigger. It really shows the effort you put into every one of these videos
Thanks!
Not gonna lie, the only big turn-off I have towards these videos is that I mainly listen to CZcams videos while I do other things like housework, but I don't know what 99% of the cards he's talking about do, so I have to watch the video to understand what he's taking about.
If there was a quick blurb about what the card does in audio, like "At number 10 is Mogg Squad, a 3/3 goblin that costs 1 and 1 red and gets - 1/-1 for each other creature in play" then continue with why it's terrible, I'd listen to these videos more.
Riot cage can punish a changeling deck technically
If they wanted to power up walls and make them playable they should have either given them powerful effects like etb/pay tap draw or even life gain OR increase their toughness/power (say 0/10) and make them able to always block multiple creatures.
Rave cage shuts down Changeling.
Pale moon would be amazing as a enchantment...its basically better blood moon
It is worse than Blood Moon in almost every way. If a land already produced a ton of mana it still does (they do nothing against Tron lands), and it holds on to all of its other activated abilities
Pale Moon would be absolutely ridiculous as an enchantment, not "maybe good," it'd literally be a better Blood Moon at that point.
Can confirm, Root Cage was terrible in Masks block limited.
Parallax Inhibitor inspires me to try and build SOMETHING with it in EDH
Believe It or not, I actually killed a blistering firecat with a break open in Onslaught sealed prerelease( I suppose..?)
You could run Trapfinder's trick in Yu-Gi-Oh
Haha Break Open looks like it comes from Yu-Gi-Oh as well
When you hit 100k you should do the top 100 worst cards of all time
Root cage hits changelings.
Yep.
Pale moon does see good play in CEDH as if you cast during that player's upkeep they basically get silenced for the turn
That is a massive overstatement. Your opponent has to have the exact right deck and board state for it to matter.
@@NizzahonMagic you do realize that in CEDH, over 80% of decks are 3 to 4 colours and usually run very few basic lands. The most basics i usually see is about 7 and those are decks not running thoracle because they would need to run only 1 of each basic and maybe one of each snow basic for tainted pact.
I have used this many times in a mono blue as a silence effect and it has worked in major CEDH tournaments.
Loved this video, and the number #1 in on spot!
It may be a creature with two useful creature types, but Squire still belongs here.
I am in the market for some new coasters......
Could you use pale moon to target yoruself to get colorless for eldrazi deck?
You can’t even use the inhibitor on vanishing permanents because they get time counters.
"Break Open" might be the worst 2 mana card on this list but at least the flavor text is actually top tier.
"Even as an enchantment [Pale Moon] wouldn't be an impressive card."
I don't know how you can say that. It would be comparable to Blood Moon and even stronger in some ways.
This is like the third time YT has recommended this vid.
And I’m here for it. Tell me again about the stupid artifact thing.
Mercenaries are terrible, but I REALLY wanted Cataran Overlord to be good as a kid because the art is so cool!
Same
This had to be one of the hardest lists to do
I missed the Sacrifice part on Parallax Inhibitor and wondered why it would be bad enough to be at #2 on the list. Yeesh, that line added makes the card just flat awful.
Someday we’ll get a walls mater set!
Balm does have funky but cool art though 😊
Lots of these have good art! So at least they have that going for it.
My boy squire isn't looking so bad
While not strictly speaking *the worst*, Squire deserves an honorary mention as it is often considered a poster child for bad 2 mana creatures.
A two mana 1/2 is so much better than everything on this list.
Tower of coiroll could be good in something like Doran the seige tower were you attack with wall creatures, by using toughness as power
The tower makes it so that walls can't block the target creature, not that walls can't be blocked. And Doran just makes every creature deal damage based on their toughness. The card you're thinking of is Arcades, the Strategist
I swear I've seen several worst lists where Nizzahon dunks on Break Open repeatedly. Not undeservedly, obviously.
Im sad to say I used to play with steamclaw as a kid and I thought it was cool. Dont ask me why im not sure.