Best of the Best: Amazing Magic Card Mechanics That Were Only Used Once 

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Mark Rosewater actually mentioned hellbent in one of his Ravnica podcasts and said R&D liked the mechanic but didn't like how useless the player felt after getting it. He mentioned that if they where to try it they would do it so it activates with only one card in hand as opposed to an empty hand kind of how Hazoret works.

Morbid could also return in Murders at Karlov Manor. I don't know, something about it seems to indicate that death and murdering plays a big part there.

I mean... Undying was damned cool too! And... an honorable mention for me is... well, spore counters. I'd like to see a return to that design space, where there'd be thallids and enchantments that have alternative uses for spore counters, while also increasing the production. For instance, one thallid could have "XX, tap; remove a spore counter from X permanents you control; each non-fungus creature gets -X/-X until end of turn". something like that.

i know its a basic one but i LOVE raid, the mardu keyword from Khans. cards like raider's wake and mardu heartpiercer are just so so fun and i can't help but feel the simplicity of the card and it's limited application leaves it unexplored

The number 1 mechanic i wanna see return is definitely Bloodrush. Having your efficient creatures also be combat tricks led to such great cards and fun combat for people that like attacking, and I'd love to see it explored again.

RE: PLAY BOOSTERS -- I know this is the hot topic, but as you (hopefully) know, writing and producing a video is something that takes time and when big news stories like this drop, I like to sit and contemplate before writing a script rather than just shout out the first thing that runs through my head. In other words: please be patient. Yes, I will talk about this, but as always, I'll be later to the conversation than most.

I miss the Devour Mechanic. I started playing Magic around the Alara block and completely fell in love with Jund and Devour. There is nothing like creating some small little Goblins just to have them be snacked by a big dragon that becomes even bigger. At least in LotR I got a Hobbit variant of it xD I guess if we ever revisit Alara, we might see it again. But it looks like this will take a while.

Hellbent should work nicely with typically red exile card draw

I know it's basically brand new, but I'm really excited to see where they go with Backup in the future. It's such a flavorful and intuitive mechanic, and it seems to have a lot of cool design space for the future

I'm sad that Wither wasn't on the list. I loved the ability and it has no support.

Id love to see mutate return with anything other than "when this creature mutates" triggers. Keywords, static abilities, etc. I understand that ut us definitely a difficukt design space with a lot of potential to break games, but I think the mechanic is a lot of fun and finding ways for it to work outside if only working with itself would be a lot of fun.

As soon as I saw this I thought "we're gonna be seeing some RTR block mechanics on here." I was right, though not about which ones. Also, I'd really really like to see threshold come back, that's perhaps my all time fave mechanic.

One of my favourites is populate, don't think that's been in standard other than return to ravnica. Was disappointed it didn't feature in guilds of ravnica.

I really wish Grandeur would come back to standard! I love the ability to turn extra legendries into spell effects. I haven't seen the mechanic outside of a couple of cards, but I thought it was brilliant. With so many legendary creatures out there, it'd make a lot of sense.

return of arcane and splice was all i wanted from neon dynasty and i got totally let down on that lol. so much design space still available for it, and combining spells together is such a cool thing to do

I'm probably one of like 3 people out there who dearly loved Modular and Arcbound, I'd love to see more cards, if for no other reason than to help me fill out my Arcbound/Modular deck without having to take every single one thats available

Its a good day when the prof uploads

I can't wait to see my favorite mechanic, banding, on this list. Surely prof talks about banding in this list. Surely.

These are some of my favorite videos you do, Prof! These are exactly the kinds of cards I look for when digging through my or my friends' bulk/chaff boxes!

Hellbent could be great for impulse draw decks which exile cards to use later

dredge is probably my favorite mechanic missed by this list.

Love the vid concept been wanting one like this since I discovered this channel 💯🙏🏼

Great video , good energy. You get better at this every year my dude! GG

The card that got me into MTG was when a fellow Boy Scout played a Beta Dark Ritual when I was watching other Scouts play MTG for my 1st time. The coloring and art is just so amazing on it. The 1st keyword I fell in love with was Trample... Ball Lightning was one of my favorite cards when I started for the art and the ruthless 6 power with Trample.

I'd never really thought about it, as it hasnt come up in any games I can remember, but I didnt know that +1/+1 counters and -1/-1 counters canceled each other out. I thought they were seperate entities on a permanent. Interesting.

I've always like Provoke as a way to mess with the combat phase. Being able to force a block from a specific creature is a new way to play the combat part of Magic. Unfortunately, it has never been printed on a good creature, and was printed before the 8th edition, that means no Modern playability... So it was long forgotten. But it was good! And I'd love to see more printed in the future.

Thank you for listing my favorite card in Magic history, Tolarian Academy, as a great mechanic! I love that card! It is part of my favorite deck in all of Magic history!

I was always a big fan of exalted, it let you swing big by going wide and left several options for blockers of your side of the field

I came into magic around ixalan/guilds of ravnica on arena. I loved the Enrage mechanic with the Dinosaurs. Like many, I do love me some dinosaurs, but the thing I love about the mechanic is how creature centric is. It was also fun seeing what option I had to deal damage to my own creatures to create an advantage. Ranging Raptors + Forerunner of the Empire helped me out on mana fixing. Also Temple Altisaur was a must have for me in my Enrage Decks.

Great video prof! Enjoyed your explanations and the cards you came up with.

I really wish they'd put Overload on spells with two targets. Either spells with two separate effects, where maybe one of them doesn't have the "you control"/"an opponent controls" restriction, i.e. scales up symmetrically to make for a double-edged sword, in line with reckless Izzet mad science; or even spells with one effect connecting two targets for quadratic blow-up - imagine overloading a "target creature you control fights target creature you don't control" spell. There's a lot of interesting design space to explore.

I started playing Magic basically during Avacyn Restored, and absolutely loved the soulbond mechanic. It felt clever to work with and had neat interactions. Even with a somewhat niche flavor and only moderate design space, I'd love to see it again.

Morbid is my #1 fave mechanic, with Tragic Slip being one of my fave cards of all time! Hoping for a return in Duskmourn. Also got SUCH nostalgia hearing you talk about Goblin Grenading your Arsonist to Brimstone for 5! that was me too back in the day!!!

Innastrad was the first set that came out after I started playing. I'm very nostalgic about that set (well block) and all the mechanics were so good.

I loved extort due to how efficient it made your curves, allowing it to overperform in casual environments. I also like how with it being loaded on creatures it encourages you to stall out the board rather than wiping it.

Rakdos and the hellbent mecanic was my first introduction to MtG before actually playing with 1st Theros. It will always have a special place in my heart. I made a Grenzo Dungeon Warden deck because the bottom mill gives card advantage without ruining the Hellbent :3

This was a great video! As a Commander player, I'm fortunate that I get to see all those mechanics a lot of the time, but yeah, it would be nice to see them reintroduced into a Standard Set to give us even more options, rather than just the one or two we get in Commander Precons. Also, it's awesome seeing my name in the credits! Proud to be a Patreon sponsor!

For Evoke, dont forget that its also crazy synergistic with decks that care about death or sacrifice triggers. You don't need flicker or undying to get amazing value out of it in Korvold for example.

Handsdown one if my favorite content creators for Magic even if I'm not a huge Commander player. Keep up the good work, Prof. c:

Ah yes the Lorwyn block was my first encounter with MTG, truly a blessed time to start playing.

I know most are talking about old mechanics, but I thought demonstrate was a really cool mechanic that I would love to see again.

One of my favorite keywords in general is Offering (even if the cards it is on aren't my favorite), but they did return to it for one card recently!

AB-solutely love that you included Indestructible Aura in your cold open card gallery... that art is très'mazing (I love it So. Much.)

Im so happy to see extort on a list like this, ive loved extort for so long and since i started playing mtg for the very first time. This was so vindicating to me

Wither is a simple one that I rather favor. Nice simple sidegrade to damage that discourages people swinging into your creatures that have wither and works against +1/+1 counter decks. I understand why its been left behind, but I cant help but feel as if it only failed by being printed on poor cards, or perhaps wasnt taken as far as it could have reached.

Brimstone Volley is super underrated. In that standard format I won multiple games by just sacrificing my Geralf's Messenger, ETB lose 2 life, cast Brimstone Volley. 7 damage out of nowhere, instant speed and just 3 mana. MaRo has also mentioned that it was a fantastic flavor mechanic, because what happened was that it made creatures dying inherently suspenseful. If your opponent suddenly sacrificed their own creature it meant a demon might be coming! That's literally straight out of a horror film.

I real hope they give us more evoke creatures (that aren’t free spells)

I like the Ashling background when you introduced Grief! Similar posing, it definitely had to have been intentional xD

The card that made me fall in love with the game was Geralf's Messenger. It was such a horse in Innistrad standard. I had been aware of the game for maybe seven or so years prior and played a few games from some early 00's, but it wasnt until that set and the zombies that made me sink my teeth (and money) into. Love that battery-chested doofus. Outclassed nowadays for the cost, but still very powerful in the right deck.

Fateful Hour from Dark Ascension is a mechanic I’d love to see return. Love the flavor of making desperate plays when you’re on the brink of death.

I think there is more you can do with morbid outside of 2nd main. Firstly you have sacrifice decks that can trigger morbid at instant speed, removal spells such as lightning bolt or doom blade can do the same. Then you can combine it with other keywords like devour and causualty in a plane focused on survival and Exploitation of weaker beings. The addition of more evoke cards would also make morbid more viable on 1st main.

I love effects that give you card advantage when you're hellbent, stuff like Asylum Visitor and Mindstorm Crown and Ghirapur Orrery, it's like you're playing slay the spire dumping your hand and filling up again every turn

I really liked the flavor of the Emerge mechanic. The idea of something bursting out like an Alien is so on point. I love that they finally returned to the mechanic with the Dr. Who set.

Rampage! I loved rampage, and I will eventually be adding earthbind, lure, and teeka's dragon to a deck for some jank winning.

Cool to see persist in the top spot. Definitely one I’d love to see more of.

I'm always going to have a soft spot for modular. I love both having a bunch of small things, and building one big thing over time, so this is a perfect mechanic for me. Sadly, the infamy of Arcbound Ravager means I don't think we'll be seeing it in standard after Mirrodin block, but at least it reappeared in modern horizons 2.

The card that made me fall in love with Magic was og Emrakul, and after the Prof started hyping up the keywords all I could think of in my smol head is Annihilator, only showed up once, over 10 years old, "loved by everyone"...

I look forward to your video on bands, hoping it explaining how it's very easy to understand mechanic now that damage is off the stack and how it's an excellent counter to trample. I really want bands back in new sets! No, seriously it's actually pretty good now.

I was looking for izzet hellbent cards earlier this week for my Edgin, Larcenous Lutenist deck since I can dump my hand pretty quickly

I would just put Morbid first because I love the mechanic. It's just great value and fun. And I would argue that it's not color restricted (every color can deal with death: red through grief and blood, white through tested resolve and contacts with the other planes, blue through risky studies and learning from failures) Plus, it doesn't actually need a horror plane to come back if you sprinkle it around instead of making a big return. I mean, we are going back to Ixalan, there you can easily find a reason to put it on a vampire, dinosaur or pirate. Fierce worlds like Ikoria were also a great chance, and any plane with a cleric or a demon offers a chance. Not to mention how, like landfall, we also had some functional morbid cards without the name. Hellbent has a balancing issue, which is that the cost is really massive, but I think that a way to deal with it could be gathered by watching at a similar mechanic from another cardgame: Brave. It was slightly less restrictive (three cards in hand rather than zero), but still a steep cost, yet it became very strong both by being pushed and by having cards that rewarded you with card advantage at the end of your turn. Drawing after taking a risk is very flavorful for red and black, so I think that permanent supporting hellbent by making you recover hand after would go a long way to help.

One of my favorite decks i ever played was in RTR standard. RUG land destruction with ember swallower, acidic slime, polis crusher, mizzium mortars, and cyclonic rift. Destroying all your opponent's lands and then bounce their entire board. Plus this was rtr/theros standard so all i had to use to be competitive was sylvan caryatid and courser of kruphix.

My fave use of persist was on the Hybrid W/B instant *Cauldron Haze* Its a unique feeling when your opponent goes "Wrath", and you go "response: *Cauldron Haze* , I pick all my creatures and none of yours." Heh.

I was shouting so excitedly when I heard #1 was also from the Llorwyn/Shadowmoor twincycle, because I really like Kinship as a mechanic. I *REALLY* want more of a heavy focus on "Tribes matter" because I love playing tribal decks. I've got a casual Bant/Brokers Merfolk deck that plays with a bunch of silly Llorwyn cards, and besides lands, everything inside is a merfolk. Merrow Reejery + Drowner of Secrets + Stonybrook Banneret + Fallowsage leads to a pretty silly infinite combo where you play a merfolk, mill yourself with Fallowsage into Drowner, and draw a card for Fallowsage, then use the cast merfolk triggers to untap lands and Fallowsage. Repeat until you've got 2-5 cards in deck, then drop Thassa's Oracle. Silly fun.

Echo. Great mechanic. Lets you play a big card. Also cumulative upkeep I miss as well

Watching these videos in the morning is the best. Reminds me of watching the actually fun educational shows mixed in with cartoons on Saturdays as a kid.

Couple of my friends met you at portland retro game con this past weekend. Wish I could’ve too.

No mention of Undying along with Persist? It functions almost exactly the same, albeit with less "loopy" support.

Grove of the burnwillows comes to mind for me. I'd have thought they'd have shown up just because of commander. Giving one player instead of all would be another cycle of them too.

I absolutely love morbid as a mechanic. I made a morbid pauper deck, and it is one of my favorites

Sunburst. SUNBURST!!! And Converge, I guess, very similar. Absolutely wonderful, beautiful, perfect mechanics. If you apply shower thoughts to the idea of Sunburst/Converge, you see that it intrinsically shows a property of MTG. If you play fewer colors in your deck, you are going to be somewhat restricted on card quality and strength. If you play more colors, you are going to have access to stronger cards, but you'll notice it'll be more difficult to make sure you have access to all of your colors on time. Cards like Engineered Explosives and Pentad Prism are perfectly serviceable if you only have two colors, but they scale in value the more colors you have (EE can hit a wider range of CMC; you can reap the benefits of the "any color" clause of PP). So, it doesn't completely punish a player for not having lots of colors, but it showcases the power of lots of colors. This deck building restriction trade-off is probably what makes deck building so much fun.

Indestructible Aura is the greatest card art of all time. Thank you for putting it in the intro

Provoke is one I'd like to see return. I understand that it has essentially been replaced with fight spells, but i like having the ability on a creature!

Hellbent feels like it could fit very at home on Innistrad as it’s a plane which now features madness as a returning mechanic, and self-discard is great with the eventual no hand payoff, and could be a fitting keyword for devils of the plane

A mechanic that Id really like to see more done with is cipher. I always found it to be an interesting mechanic. I didnt even know a new card with cipher was recently printed until just now. Which is awesome but I want more!

The art for Indestructible Aura is crazy! I didn't know that card! I need one just for the art! xD

I love "ingest". Ingest makes it so when you do combat damage to a player, they exile a card from hand. It was printed on eldrazi drones. Now it as an ability is not why I love it, but, instead, I love what it allows and implies. When you have a mechanic that is based on exiling thing then you need something to mess with exile. In the same set as ingest, there was an unnamed eldrazi mechanic that required you to put cards from your opponent's exile into their graveyard for an additional ability. This was printed on eldrazi processors and is the actual mechanic I want to see more. The problem is that since it doesn't have a name I just always go with ingest. But the thought of utilizing a zone that is often not touched, messing with adventures and suspended cards, or giving someone a flashback card back, makes me so happy

Gosh the old cards art is so nice ❤

Crazy that extort is that old now, I remember playing with it when I very first got into magic. Orzhov and Dimir in RTR, my first magic loves. Still play BW to this day, though it's mostly on arena sadly.

I start watching Dr Who because of you Prof! I'm on episode 11 from the 2005 serie,i'm going to enjoy the long ride! Thank you

I am happy that in commander decks they reuse old keywords. I also love that things like surveil and landfall can be on a single card. I think if the card does a keyword, it should use it, even if it not a keyword of the set. Such as 1 card in ONE with flashback.

I really hope that we get more foretell cards, I love that mechanic!

I pulled out my thousands of magic cards for the first time in years and started looking at them at the beginning of this video. In a random pile, the 4th card I looked at was the basilica screecher that he mentioned for extort. I literally did a double take when I realized it.

I’ve been playing pauper lately and feel like a Rakdos Hellbent deck would absolutely work well.

TBH at 18:20 I was sure you were going to say wither. I hate poison counters but I love wither so much (go away, infect). It's such a great answer to indestructible in commander, but there just aren't enough ways to make it happen that can mesh with many deck types. You need to be playing mostly or monoblack to run Corrosive mentor and you need to be able to equip a Blight sickle :(

Hit me woth some more Hideaway creatures! I love the landcycle, but the enchnatments like rabble rousing are so fun in commander and draft! I reallllly want to see mkre creatures with the keyword though!

Hellbent with impulse draws would be amazing. I also want to see more fortifications. Just one card with Fortify and I think there is some interesting design space for land "equipment". A legendary creature with Extort would be nice.

I would love to see Madness come back and was so excited when it had made a return in Modern Horizons 2. The idea of a cost of a spell, that being a discarding of a card in hand, being turned into a benefit is always so much fun especially if the card gains an additional or slightly altered effect when cast this way! Maybe having lands that can enter tapped if discarded, or evoke-like cards that are sacrificed if cast with their madness cost. It's a fun mechanic and I hope someday we will be able to go mad with the mechanic again.

this list makes up for that mana base video. hellbent, morbid, extort and evoke are some of my favourites for sure

I saw someone’s custom card once with embalm AND eternalise, with both costs different to its mana cost colour, which looked really interesting

I still can't wait for new Mutate cards. I loved the flavor of it.

I agree with all mechanics but persist. But that's mostly because I don't like combos as much. The first combo I had in my first commander deck, was great hendge, plus sac, plus the treefolk you mentioned. And people are usually not as happy with there lands blown up 😅

17:53 Prof just casually droping this HUGE BOMB!! 😍

Hellbent also shows up as 'heckbent' of 'one or fewer cards in hand' - Djeru and Hazoret, Neheb, the Worthy, Dread Wanderer.

Man, watching this video definitely made me feel nostalgic af! The creatures that made me love the game were funguses! Their art was so viceral yet beautifully grounded in nature. And more importantly, i loved spore counters! Theyre not very good but (insert Marge Simpson "I think they're neat") meme xD

Splice onto Arcane was really interesting but I know its massively difficult to design for, as there are few ways to interact with it, since the cards sit in your hand. But I'd love to see some form of "build your own spell" mechanic that is a spiritual sucessor to Splice come back.

Mentioned elsewhere down here, but spore counters are my absolute favourite. I have a fungal tribal slimefoot deck, and its so much fun. If only the cards didnt feel obscenely slow outside of a few outliers (tendershoot dryad, mycoloth, sporesower thallid, the saproling infinite etc)

I really dig Threshhold, mill could always use some more support especially in green and white!!

I find it funny that many of these mechanics are associated with Ravnica, so it would be amazing if they end up in the Murders at Karlov Manor set. Still, I hope we make a revisit to New Capenna because the mechanics associated with the Crime families (Alliance, Shield Counters, Connive, Casualty, and Blitz) are so dope.

Rancor, Treetop Village, and Argothian Wurm were the cards I remember most when I started.