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Pet cards in Magic
What are all of your pet cards/hidden gems for your magic decks?
a few of my favorites are pull from eternity, divine presence, and eye of singularity
What are all of your pet cards/hidden gems for your magic decks?
a few of my favorites are pull from eternity, divine presence, and eye of singularity
Flickerwisp and Eldrazi Displacer are probably my top 2. I just love flicker, and the fact that your first glance pass at these is "eh ok" when in the right shell they can (or maybe could) do wonders.
Flicker has such interesting interactions in MTG, and it makes me sad how afraid of the mechanic they are in standard, while ephemerate is just....boring in everything else. Thematically, I LOVE eldrazi death and taxes, but it's never really hit hard enough to be legit. I get that they probably don't want the super complicated, hard to track, and unintuitive flicker interactions to be super common in standard, but I wish they'd at least let taxes be a more common archetype.
I had a Felidar-Panharmonicon deck in Kaladesh standard that I loved, but Saheeli Rai ruined that for me (cat combo got Felidar Guardian banned). It was my first combo deck... 😈
My first real combo deck was so simple. It was a Vampire tribal mill deck focused almost entirely on getting both Mindcrank and Bloodchief Ascension into play. The trickiest part was that as soon as my friends saw that I had Bloodchief Ascension in play and close to powering up they'd gang up on me since the combo goes semi-infinite (once active, any time any opponent either looses any amount of life or any number of cards enter their graveyard from anywhere, it either mills out or kills them).
Oh yeah, my first modern deck was an Eldrazi D&T, absolutely love it. Also played a BW D&T and a bit of D&T in Legacy. Absolutely love the deck but had to call a judge for my opponents every game since the interactions are pretty complicated if you aren't playing the deck.
Also played a lot of Jund and 4c Death's Shadow variants. But I suppose my favorite "pet cards" were some reanimator cards I used in a mardu reanimator. It wasn't very good but it was fun and people enjoyed playing against it until I'd get Iona out :)
Mindslaver. I once had a competitive Sisay deck that I transformed into a monstrous stax machine after Paradox Engine got banned. Between tutors, Sisay herself, and other legendaries, it was possible for me to draw Mindslaver from my library when I wanted to and play it (provided I wasn't just totally unlucky in my first draw).
I remember one time, I was in a four player game with a guy who was very accustomed to winning. He was making a big deal of whipping out his (very expensive, very effective) top end deck and was gearing up to trounce everybody. He decided to be "kind" and said he wouldn't try to play the combo until the third turn (just say your combo happens on turn three my man). Anyway, a bad draw meant that turned into four, and I asked him about how his deck operated. More than happy to oblige, turns out. Once I felt I had a decent understanding of how his combo worked, I brought forth Mindslaver.
I did not combo the table. Instead, I misplayed the combo, to defuse it. Then I incorrectly played the abilities of what remained on his board, and discarded a card because I felt like it. I feel like I witnessed a kind of anger for which there is no English word lol. I always ran Mindslaver after that.
I've had to kill so many darlings as I, and my playgroup, have gotten better at EDH.
I have a few pet/favorite cards in various decks.
Araumi - Faerie Miscreants. Using Araumi's ability, I built my own Ancestral Recall!
Mizzix - probably just the lame answer of Firemind's foresight, and it tutors a win by itself. My copy is sign by the artist, which is why it's my pet card.
Nekusar - Ebony Owl Netsuke. I found a super shiney foil, and I've played it ever since. It doesn't trigger often.enough tbh, but shiney!
Alesha - Ponyback brigade. I love playing it as a morph, and even though I only ever play 1 morph card, nobody remembers what it is. It also makes 5 power for 2 with the commander.
Aesi - Spontaneous Generation - putting in a lot of saprolings for 4 Mana is nice. Routinely 8-10 if the ball is rolling. If you already have a board, saproling symbiosis to double your board at instant speed is also great.
Zedruu- Form of the Dragon. The best win condition!
For context, I mostly play EDH.
I throw Homeward Path and Arcane Lighthouse in just about every deck - being able to retrieve creatures that have been stolen, or target the untargetable is always good. I also put in War Room if I'm playing two or fewer colours, and Urza's Saga is usually in there as a utility land. I think a lot of these are probably relatively popular, so maybe not a hidden gem, but I do enjoy them a lot.
I often put Phage the Untouchable in black decks. I have a deck where she is the commander, and it is like playing russian roulette; just having her in the command zone is sending a message to people. I've never gotten her to win a game.
Whenever possible I like to put Ixidron into decks, though that happens infrequently. I have it in a Kadena, Slinking Sorcerer deck (Morph all the things - it's a questionable, uncompetitive deck) and I'd like to put it in more things. I often try to think of ways to use or abuse morph, but it's also just a nice way to turn off synergy in other people's decks. All your things are now just colourless 2/2s, deal with it.
Those last two are probably my two favourite magic cards ever printed.
Kuldotha Rebirth for a long time. It's a little more mainstream now that Gleeful Demolition is around to give the deck more consistency.
edit: added links to the cards