To me, even the worst Izzet cards are actually interesting to use even in their inefficiencies. Izzet card designs tend to be in some form of "if you do this then this happens" and it encourages giving a lot of thought in making game decisions.
When standard rotates, maybe do a top 10 from the last years standard format? I thought it was interesting to see goldspan dragon in a top 10 so soon after being printed.
Having played too much MTG:A standard, I'd expect it to look something like: 10) Teferi's Tutelage 09) Elspeth’s Nightmare 08) Lovestruck Beast 07) Elspeth Conquers Death 06) Binding the Old Gods 05) Extinction Event 04) The Great Henge 03) Goldspan Dragon 02) Embercleave 01) Bonecrusher Giant In other words: red's had a few too many tools this season.
Dracoplasm is going straight into my Marchesa the Black Rose deck! Sacrifice all my crazy ETB creatures with +1+1, they don't die, return to battle and trigger, and I have this giant creature for my troubles, awesome!
Izzet was the first deck I ever constructed myself. It was really bad. Like, really bad. It was still pretty fun to use though - it just could never finish the job.
I don't know, the Dracoplasm is basically "UR Enchantment - Aura, enchanted creature gains flying and R: +1/+0 until end up turn". Which sure, Auras are terrible and this one isn't even impressive but it lets you turn a big dumb creature that isn't going anywhere into a threat, and it can bypass enchantment removal. The possible upside of turning more than one big dumb creature into and even better creature is not common, but possible. Dracoplasm + Phyrexian Dreadnought is probably your ceiling here, but creatures that require sacrifices to get better have been used in all formats, and this one could be much, much worse.
That's not a terrible way to think about it, but the problem here is that it also removes any beneficial text that creature may have had. This is really only upside if you're playing big vanilla creatures, which you usually don't want in your deck anyway.
@@camdenwaldron9496 Or a creature that you only have because it has a good ETB or death trigger. I admit my viewpoint is biased, I just went to the AFR prerelease where my deck got ripped apart by 'soft' removal, and something like this would have been handy.
@@camdenwaldron9496 It's also worse because since it doesn't have haste, you can't attack with it the turn you play it, whereas with an aura, you could cast it on a creature then immediately attack with it.
@@GigaBoost it is if you steal multiple creatures in one turn with, say, a domineering will, or reigns of power, dracoplasm ends up looking much better lol
I gotta stump for Emberwild Caliph a bit, back in Tempest it wasn't a complete bust. That was the first time that blue/red decks were really possible as an on-the-meta threat, and the Caliph wasn't completely useless in them. Obviously it wasn't part of the pro tour decks at the time or it would have points, but Izzet decks were actually really popular using other creatures with drawbacks like phasing along with burn and counters to control the game. But in a meta where most decks had no flyers and creatures that sported power and toughness equal to their mana value were rare and treasured, you could use the Caliph. As long as you're locking it down, who cares if you're taking damage as well, the game is ending quickly and all you need is some counters and another creature or even a bolt and you win. If you end up against a deck aggro enough to make the drawback real, you got easy cuts for sideboarding. Overall it's not a good creature, but at the time it was printed it didn't deserve such ignominy.
Something I would really enjoy for a Top 10 is Planes. Take every set that plays out on a single plane (adding the Core sets might be a little too difficult since then you would have to separate every single card from them into piles based on which plane they come from) and take the 10/20/50 most powerful card from each of them. Then add up their scores and make a top 10 based on that. Of course, the planes which already had multiple sets might have an advantage, but it would still be an interesting list in my opinion! Other than that, great video as always! :)
For one creature, Dracoplasm is basically an aura that can sometimes have utility in steal and sac, and that has the further problem of destroying the creature when countered.
Dracoplasm just seems tailor made to play with Threaten effects; Low Mana cost, sacrifice a creature, red in the mana cost... plus, the better the creature you Threaten, the better the Dracoplasm ends up.
Personally I love Goblin Test Pilot and I think it's almost a perfect card (merely missing haste).. But I admit that's mostly for having such an awesome flavor rather than playing well ;)
I remember being a newbie to MTG and wondering if there was something I was missing about Petrohydrox. Turns out, it really is just bad. It needed haste in my opinion. At least then, after recasting it, you could immediately go back to attacking with it. - RA -
Petra was actually a solid limited card back in the day. The thing is, it was big enough that it could still be useful, and back then you could use the stack to take down creatures while blocking or attacking, then bouncing it back to your hand. This gave you a persistent attacker that could stall a board or slowly grind down your opponent by trading creatures.
One of mine is the Frostburn Weird, which is similar to Talonrend, but it really cuts deep for me because it was pretty much the first foil that I pulled
Frostburn Weird was actually very highly played in Standard, mostly in blue devotion decks. It was in 4 of the top 8 decks at Pro Tour Theros and has over 30 GP top 8s.
@@SirZapdos The only reason Frosty saw play was out of necessity. There were only two two-drops in the format that cost UU, and Frostburn Weird blocked better than Tidebinder Mage.
@@hiimemily That still means it saw considerable play in it's time and was a decent limited card, which is much more then can be said about any card on this list.
As someone who took a 20 year break from Magic, all these names for color combinations are quite confusing. _Back in my day, we just called it blue-red!_
Schismotivate was a beast in my constructed Izzet deck, because I had these 1/3 flyers who get +2/+0 for each instant or sorcery you cast, and suddenly having 7 flying power isn’t a bad thing.
Regarding Dracoplasm, I did think of one interesting option; killing a temporarily controlled(via various red spells) creature. It requires some setup, but it is a potential use.
I keep thinking about a jank modular ramos edh deck and dracoplasm would be great in it. the idea is basically to sac big creatures to make a ton of small creatures to sac for even more value, and an effect like this is basically exactly what I want bc it keeps the same amount of power on the board and gets me a massive body. then you sac it to stuff like slaughter the strong and bam, your goin off. and then of course the things you saced to it were modular creatures so you also basically doubled the power of your board and dumped all those +1's onto ramos.
Dracoplasm with Domineering Will or Reigns of Power was a delightful 60 card deck i ran for awhile. Steal all their stuff, hit em with it, then sac it all for a giant dracoplasm instead of returning it? Feels good man. 👍
tbh i am very surprised there are no decks that use some cheap control until end of turn effects to abuse dracoplasm as an effective "discard (x) cards to kill (x) creatures, then play this as a strong creature". with multiple timed control effects this can get an insane ceiling. i know, it stays wonky, but is there really no deck to build? blue and red are THE colors to do such things.
The best part of the 'worst of vids are imo the subtle tilt at the designs ive been on a pretty persistent design tilt since modern masters 1 and these vids just flaming actual wastes of artist and player time are great
Oh, I own Petrahydrox! I used to play it as a kid. As expected, it was bad, and we hardly played that much removal, just the biggest creatures we could find.
Step 1: Play Petrahydrox. Step 2: Find a way to remove its abilities (Humility, Dress Down, etc.) Step 3: Attach something to Petrahydrox. Step 4: Wonder why you didn't just play any other 4-drop.
Dracoplasm seems nice in limited, actually, if you think of it more like an upgrade to a vanilla creature. Sacrificing a 3/2 on the board gives you a flying 3/2 with firebreathing, which is pretty strong IMO. But I agree that sacrificing multiple creatures to it is detrimental to yourself.
@@NizzahonMagic dunno, if you think of it more like an "aura" rather than a creature it's ok, a ru aura that gives a creature flying and firebreathing I'd say is ok, although there's that 2 for 1 risk
@@P4r4k It's kinda worse than that though. First off, bounce effects hurt a bit more with this one. And then there is the fact that with an aura you could attack right away.
I know you get plenty of these but I got a suggestion for a Top Ten with the digital exclusive cards coming to Arena- Top Ten Commander cards in Legacy
2 mana 0/1 flier firebreath with some decent upside (gobble up somethin that was pacified or something) would be pretty good for limited actually (and not a terrible card).
I think dracoplasm should be seen more like "give vanilla creature flying and firebreathing for 2 mana" There's no need to sacrifice more than one creature and you can even do it to creatures with downsides or that have been enchanted by an opponent.
I dont understand the problem with Schizz. It looks fine in limited. Sure using it as a fog or pump spell is horrible. But using it as shrink your 3/3 pump my 2/2 is fine. Not to mention how much of a nightmare it is to attack or block when you think your opponent has it. You can easily end up in combats involving this were one player ends up binning 2 creatures. The 0/4 looter was also closer to a C- once you were drafting Fate Khans Khans. Firestorm Hellkite and Squees Revenge seem much much worse than those two in my opinion. Love these list though. They make for great thought experiments. Izzet has a lot of bad nonsense. Probably some horrendous coin flip card hiding in the bad cards pile too.
Electric eel doesn't even compare badly to a card like firedrinker satyr lol. It grows faster than he does and the firedrinker will probably deal at least 1 damage to you before it dies
@@NizzahonMagic yes but it is a special type of bad where you want the opponent to own it not just don't want to play it. Kinda like anything that says you lose the game effects. I like really bad cards and that's why I watch these, it's more than just wow this is bad I don't want it to wow this is terrible I want my opponents to have it.
Can "Random Target" choose a shroud/protected creature? It still wouldn't be Good, but if you can give all your stuff untargetable somehow, would it only hit opponent's stuff?
I was hoping to see Noggle Bridgebreaker on this list. For some reason this card an it's flavor text are burnt into my memory. I habe no idea why, it's so bad I've never even seen it played in kitchen table.
I think goblin test pilot isn't eligible for this list. Its effect is useless, but it does something unique and funny, and the flavour is amazing, so there is actually a reason to play the card.
08:40 Couldn't this be a potential combo piece? Still inefficient compared to stuff like Shrieking Drake, but possibly a reason to use it in some jank combo decks. Like with Nomads en-Kor, Impact Tremors, and a way to repeatedly cheat it into play from your hand.
Is Noggle Bridgebreaker that bad? It's a four mana, return a land to your hand, vanilla 4/3. Not good, but if it came up in the average limited game, now you've got a 4/3 on the board. The average case seems lame, not terrible.
I don't think Caliph is bad enough to be on this list. You can make an Izzet Aggro deck where Caliph is decent and useful. Also I have in my collection like 100 worse Izzet cards.
Sorry I'm late, an Izzet experiment blew up in my face so I had to re-calibrate my Top 10 Radar. Nevertheless, I know exactly what cards to add to my Vintage Izzet deck, so that one day we can get a step closer to "Top 10 Vintage Cards (Minus Power 9)"!
You could technically play Temur landfall, for example in commander with things like the 3-color Omnath. But in these colors there are dozens better cards for returning lands to your hand.
Dracoplasm + Ball Lightning: Dracoplasm + Threaten: Dracoplasm + unearth/dash/etc... c'mon man its not the best card in the world, but at least talk about how you're supposed to use it.
@@NizzahonMagic There's a niche format called "Pauper Commander" I play, where ANY Uncommon Creature can be your commannder. Goblin Test Pilot (Or GTP as it's known) is a real fun and goofy commander to have.
