The Ten Most Revolting Blue Magic Cards, According to Gatherer – Part One

Think of a blue Magic card.  What comes to mind?  Control powerhouses like Counterspell and Volition Reins?  Fun and goofy combo staples like Intruder Alarm and Body Double?  Game shattering super-cards like Fact or Fiction or Jace, the Mind Sculptor?

Yeah.  We ain’t gonna talk about those cards today.

If you’re a long-time Magic player, you know the meta-game wrecking nature of blue.  Blue alone takes three spots in the infamously broken Power Nine (the other six spots are colorless).  For years, Wizards labored to balance the colors and control the color of control.  And for years, Wizards failed.  Weaker versions of blue spells were printed, but with a trick attached to it to maintain the audience’s interest, like discarding two cards to buyback Forbid (Forbid costs more than Counterspell, and returning it to your hand is card disadvantage.  That must mean it’s a worse spell, right?).  It didn’t work.  Marginally worse than bonkers is still bonkers.  Blue kept a tight grip on the throne, declaring itself King of Colors.  It’s been twenty years since the first Magic players cracked open a pack, but we’re still living under the long shadow Blue cast last century.

But for every priceless blue treasure Wizards waved under our noses, though, they’ve assaulted our senses with ten utter stinkers.  For example, let’s look at this column’s breath of fresh something, and Honorable Mention: Field of Reality.

How narrow can you get?  For three mana, Field of Reality reads “Enchanted creature (Card disadvantage) can’t be blocked (No effect on the board state.  Doesn’t protect the creature.  Uses two cards to accomplish one goal, as opposed to casting, say, Phantom Warrior.) by Spirits (lolwut?).”  It also includes an activated ability that, um, saves this craptastic spell from the graveyard.  Gee, thanks.  With enough mana up, I can not be blocked by Spirits forever.

But as bad as Field of Reality is, it failed to claim a prized spot in the bottom ten.  There are, in fact, 51 non-gold blue cards between Field of Reality and card ten.  Why?  Maybe because as bad as this card is, and trust me, it’s a bad card, it could theoretically be a great sideboard against the perfect deck: a stalling Soulshift deck with a never ending pile of Spirits forever chumping your team.  It would also be funny to watch your opponents groan when you slam Unnatural Selection on the table and beat them down with a fantastically lame combo.  But mostly, this card didn’t breach the worst ten cards in blue because each of those cards are soul-numbingly worse.

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Number Ten – Hisoka’s Defiance

Splooshing in at number ten is Hisoka’s Defiance.  Hold it.  This card was a tournament staple.  In Kamigawa block constructed, it appeared with common regularity.  Need proof?  Here’s Pro Tour: Los Angeles Qualifying Season’s Top 8.  Hisoka’s Defiance was a feature in five decks, including Joseph Kambourakis’s winning mono-blue control deck which held two in the main, and two in the side.  How can a card with that much value simultaneously be the tenth worst blue card in Magic?

Well, first, we need to realize Gatherer isn’t a rating system for how instrumental a card is in the Magic meta-game.  Gatherer is built on the opinions of the players, who determine whether a card is good or atrocious based on how individual people react when they’re exposed to a card.  Ask a hundred Magic players, “Does this card sound good?”; if the card you showed them was Hisoka’s Defiance, all one hundred would likely say, “No.”  Arcane spells were one-and-done in Kamigawa (though, it should be noted the majority of this card’s votes come from before a short pile of Arcane spells were reprinted in Modern Masters.) If you never expect to see an Arcane spell, why would you run this card? Why not use Essence Scatter, instead?  Technically, Hisoka’s Defiance counters Crib Swap, but that’s one heck of a stretch.

Second, Hisoka’s Defiance is too obvious, and insults many players’ sensibilities.  Compare this card to Laquatus’s Disdain.  That card also counters a specific sub-group: cards with flashback.  But Disdain leaves wiggle room for potential future value.  For example, Disdain can be a big surprise for an opponent who tempos into Haakon, Stromgald Scourge.  Who’s to say Disdain won’t sneak away a victory or two from a strange new mechanic in the future?  Hisoka’s Defiance could be useful in the future, too, but only if that future is full of Arcane spells.  The card is too obvious.  There’s no reward for paying attention; just a math formula that tells you to run Hisoka’s Defiance if a critical mass of Arcane and Spirits enter the meta-game.

Finally… how do I put this.  A lot of people seem to think the ejaculation of substance in the artwork squirting at Hisoka’s face isn’t water.  What could it be?  I’d rather not… the internet is a weird place, you know?  Let’s say it’s ectoplasm.  Hisoka was wandering around some cave when a ghost tried to slime him.  But Hisoka raised his hands and said, “Oh no.  We’re having none of that,” and cast his anti-sliming spell.  Hisoka is a pimp.  You know, like, a ghost pimp.

Best Comment by DoctorKenneth: “Boldly, Hisoka blocked the spirit loogie with his bare hands. Unfortunately, he was not immune to splashback.”

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Number Nine – Sea Eagle

In Eighth Edition, Wizards fed a selection of square stat vanilla creatures (creatures whose power matched their toughness, with no abilities) into the core set.  The reason was simple.  Square stat creatures are excellent teaching tools for new players.  Magic is a very, very confusing game to learn, and the more knobs you can remove from the game’s rules engine, the quicker new players can absorb basic information, like how to cast spells, and what flying means.

Eighth Edition contained twenty such square stat creatures with zero, one or two simple keyword abilities, starting with Eager Cadet, sprialling all the way up to Enormous Baloth.  There were also decks designed for new players, with cards layered in a specific order, so you could play along with the example game, card for card.  In round two of this example game, the new player was instructed to tap an Island and a Plains and cast Sea Eagle – a card identical in power to the Eager Cadet he cast last turn, except this creature could fly.

So what do you do when there are no flying creatures that cost two mana in blue with square stats?  You make one.  And because you can’t make that creature a 2/2 for , you make it one of the worst creatures in the game of Magic.

Where this gets weird, though, is when you realize Storm Crow, a card identical in every way except for a different name and an extra point of toughness, was also common in Eighth Edition.  It turns out that Sea Eagle, was only printed as a teaching tool for the example game, and would never be found in booster packs.  Most players never noticed the distinction.  What many players saw was a Sea Eagle that somehow floated into their collection, and a Storm Crow from the same set, and they couldn’t help  but wonder, “Does Wizards think I’m stupid?”

Maybe Wizards’ decision could be excusable if there were no other options.  But there were perfectly serviceable reprints in both Bog Imp and Wind Drake.  Either one would be a fine teaching tool for new players, if only they were in Eighth Edition.  And they were.  Bog Imp, Storm Crow and Wind Drake were all present in Eighth Edition.  It’s as if design came up with the ‘great’ idea of including Sea Eagle in Eighth as a teaching tool, and development decided to put all the other better teaching tools in the set, as a way to mock them.

Best Comment by goliath_cobalt: “Anyone mention that it is strictly worse than Storm Crow? (23 [times so far.])”

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Number Eight – Eternity Snare

There’s a game designers sometimes play when determining what a casting cost should be.  It’s called “Compare and add up.”  Enchanted creature doesn’t untap during the untap step?  Oh, that’s like Dehydration.  Also, cantrips, cards that draw a card when you cast them, often cost more than whatever the base card would cost.  For example, add to Force Spike and you get Runeboggle.  Therefore, add to (Dehydration) and you get Eternity Snare.

Sounds fair.  Except Dehydration isn’t a good card.  It’s limited filler that sometimes stops a threat, but only gets to work the turn after your opponent already hit you.  The card made sense at a time when blue specialized in bouncing and countering, and couldn’t really handle permanents.  But Magic is more fun when it’s interactive.  Blue’s ability to counter and bounce were scaled back over the years.  Meanwhile, blue’s ability to pin creatures on the table gets better and better.  Personally, I think Curse of Chains and Narcolepsy is too extreme.  Blue shouldn’t have cards on par with Pacifism; pinning creatures on the board is supposed to be number one in white.  But Claustrophobia and Paralyzing Grasp seem fair.  And whether or not I like it, Narcolepsy exists.

Eternity Snare’s biggest flaw, though, is that it’s unnecessary.  I love two-for-one cards myself, but when you tap six lands, you shouldn’t be invested in one-upmanship.  You should be dropping a game warping bomb, or clearing the table.  Six is a casting cost dedicated to Magic’s most awe inspiring spells.  You can only stick two to four 6-cost spells in the average deck.  Do you really want to waste a spot on this unwieldy tool?

Best comment by Arachobia: “Yeah it’s fun going on gatherer and having a laugh about the crappy cards wizards has made over the years… until you go home, and you have some card with a rating lower then 1 just chilling in your card box. And you know its there, but you just can’t do anything about it without appearing crazy. […]It is then that you feel the chill hand of magic card hell on your soul…

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Number Seven – Wilderness Hypnotist

Oh my.  That is bad.  We broke the barrier that divides suck from blow.

How do you justify this card?  Even if you were playing a tribal deck using both Merfolk and Wizards, and your opponent was playing red/green, this would be horrible.  Shadowmoor/Eventide included a theme that untapped your creatures multiple times… but what were you expected to do with this ability and multiple untaps?  Showcase how lonely your life is?

That’s some flavor text, too:

“I felt as if I were moving in brackish water, as if I were drowning, even though I knew I stood on dry land.”
—Dindun of Kulrath Mine

I get the impression Dindun isn’t talking about the first time she saw a Wilderness Hypnotist, but the first time she saw the card ‘Wilderness Hypnotist’.  I get that uneasy feeling, too, whenever I look at this card for too long.  I’m pretty sure the only reason why the Hypnotist didn’t end up in this list’s bottom three is because Rebbecca Guay is the artist.  The card must have picked up a few stars from her reputation alone.  I wonder if the style notes going out to Rebecca mentioned the art couldn’t possibly be as ugly as the card is bad?  If it did, then Rebecca took them up on that challenge.  She failed.  It was a good attempt, but she’s too talented an artist to achieve that level of blow.

Best comment by Vinifera7: “All right, a more costly, more situational, and less effective version of Silvergill Douser! Awesome!”

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Number Six – Cephalid Snitch

Cephalid Snitch, you are an idiot.   My first thought was to compare this card to Thoughtlace.  You know you’ve got a bad card in your hand when Thoughtlace seems like a reasonable alternative.

In Torment, black was the big bad.  Card for card, a larger percentage of black cards were printed in Torment than any other set.  And the card quality was great: Nantuko Shade, Mutilate, Chainer’s Edict and Mind Sludge all made first appearances in Torment.  Meanwhile, White and Green, Black’s traditional enemies, dropped in number and quality.  Black’s allies, Red and Blue, seeing which way the plague winds blew, gave Black an assist as the color went all kinds of diva-evil.

Except Cephalid Snitch didn’t get the memo.  Caught up in the excitement, Snitch thought all the non-Black spells were supposed to be bad.  Not just Green and White, but Red and Blue and maybe artifacts and lands as well.  Every night, after work, Snitch would go home, stand in front of the mirror and practice for the day when he could be inconsequential.  Finally, that day came, and Snitch entered his office, tapped a pencil on his desk and nervously waited to enter the Torment card file.  At 10:30, cephalid services called Snitch to get his picture taken.  Snitch went to the cafeteria and took his place in front of a backdrop.  The photographer adjusted his camera and said, “Strike a pose.” Cephalid Snitch responded by raising his tentacles and exploding uselessness in pulsating purple and blue glory.  The cameraman, overcome with revulsion, lost his balance and staggered into the shot.  A picture snapped, and the cameraman collapsed to the ground in laughing hysterics.  Standing above him, Snitch smiled.  He did a good job that day.  He was one of most useless cards in the game.

Best Comment by markamor:  “Considering there’s [currently 45] creatures that inherently have Pro-Black, this is one of the worst creatures ever printed.”

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Continue on to Part Two.