The Most Hated Card from Every Year of Magic: the Gathering (MTG) 

1995 could have been Jester's Cap. It yields the same effective result as Jokulhaups with all the brutal efficiency of Counterspell: it guts any deck by knowing the right to card to name. It is less fair and less fun and equalizing than Tormod's Crypt. 1996 it has to be Lion's Eye Diamond because there are no fair fun uses for the card but there are a lot of uses that could inspire someone to Jester's Cap the Diamond or Tormods Crypt your graveyard in a preemptive self defense.

OBM is annoying as hell but I honestly thought 2023's would be The One Ring.

It's okay, we all made mistakes in 2006.

You also said "it's basically just _seven_ mana restart the game..." when it does in fact cost 8 mana.

​@@billdotmu Zidane and Trezeguet agree

Nice 2nd account crim, but yeah it was rough

@@zaya431green was objectively busted in half that year, and 2020. Oko, Uro, Growth Spiral, Veil of Summer, Once Upon a Time, Nissa, and Hydroid Krasis were all supposed to be in Standard at the same time, if many of them hadn’t been banned.

Nissa, Who Breaks the Game* Also don't forget Kenrith and Fires of Invention.

@@andyspendlove1019 honestly i'd love that standard format if the cards were moved around the color pie a little bit (of course changing cards to fit their new color; i mean power wise)

@@aqswd6825 idk, with shocks and checklands being available for most of those cards’ lifetimes, I don’t know if moving them around the color pie would’ve really changed anything. Plus I wouldn’t want to see those cards real those colors for other formats 😅 the problem is with the cards themselves, which are hilariously overpowered to the point where I sincerely believe it was a tactic to boost sales of paper Standard sets in a time where that format was starting to wane in popularity, with the rise of Commander and Arena

Thanks! They seem to work well for the 30th anniversary yet. I expect we'll get a few more over the next few months.

Same. This gave me upgrades for edh

Also not sure why people would objectively hate the card because of the art...yeah it's weird but alot of MTG art back then was weird.

While I don't mind the iconic art, I think a game benefits from a more uniform look and feel. At some point, they got it right and just nailed it set after set. However, I believe they lost this streak quite a while ago. Currently everything is so uniform, it is almost bland.

@@pinobluevogel6458 While I still think MTG has the best art of any TCG ever, the switch to mostly digital art hurt the game IMO. Non digital art simply can't be totally recreated yet digitally. This sounds weird, but digital art is almost too good.

@@mattm7798 Thanks for the response. I think you are on to something. With the advent of AI made art, this is only going to be more prevalent. I don't want to sound like an old boomer and say everything was better in the old days, as it certainly wasn't. However, as much as I fell in love with the art being more standardized and recognizable as 'magic' art, I also slowly fell out of love with it a few years ago. This might be the digital art issue you mention, or it could be the style they chose not being designed for players like me, or maybe their graphics department isn't as good as it used to be. I would say, it is probably a combination of all these factors.

@@pinobluevogel6458 I completely disagree. I think that the contrasting art styles gives the game more variety, I can understand that even you have your limits, but I think the game hit those limits a long time again. I'm a huge fan of the old art style with less of a focus on photorealism and a lot more abstract styles. I love the Stasis art, I think it's just great. But honestly, art is so insanely personal to evaluate that literally anyone can like any art for any reason.

i feel like alchemy could be fixed by only allowing alchemy cards in the alchemy format, and not in historic or other formats

Screw alchemy

​@@283leisyes that too. I don't hate them it just feels weird.... There are definitely waaaaaay more archetypes in alchemy tho. I put together a burn list that's mostly uncommons and commons, allows me to play burn seriously which is cool.... I guess I've been kind of enjoying it lol

@@l0lan00b3 yeah dont get me wrong some of the arena-only cards are fun....but should only be with other arena-other cards

I'd say the main reason Alchemy is hated is because it pollutes Historic with perpetual and seek and conjure and all that nonsense.

Thanks! I really love Magic history so I have a lot of fun digging into topics like this.

I'm a little sad that the planeswalker I find by far the best looking, in a color combination that I like to play (RW) is a stand-in for 2 of the things I dislike heavily about modern magic: Planeswalkers and Mythic rarity. Teferi, or one of the many Jaces could have been a better example. While the planeswalkers in the first set they showed up in were okay, it didn't take them long to come up with completely broken versions. They utterly dominate every lower powered format and it took Wizards years to design some reasonable removal for it. I don't even want to start with the Mythic rarity issue, it reflects everything WotC corporate greed stands for and negatively affects the players by making necessary game pieces even more artificially scarce than they already were.

I think Elspeth would've been a better example. No one was really concerned about Ajani's rarity because it was the pre-release promo so there were a million copies floating around and you could get it for like $5.

Agree. I don't think Bowmasters should get banned, but The One Ring probably needs to be emergency banned in every format it's legal in.

imagine paying 2 million dollars just to have to Rule 0 your One Ring

I lost one time vs the one ring on mtg arena, this card suxx ;)

if you watch/play Legacy then Bowmasters is definitely your most hated card of the year so far

I hate atraxa more than bow masters. Bow masters is just a strong card.

This comment is correct.

Exactly. Also, 'Ego drain' from WOE. Even if not using or having faeries in play. If you're using plenty of cards with adventures on them, then even though you loose that side of most cards who have them, the other and usually more powerful side of the card can still be used. Like with 'Virtue of Persistence'. Most of us uses the adventure side first, but I've wondered many times, if that is really a "mistake", because it gives a warning for your opponent, and they could potentially prepare themselves for what's to come, which makes the card more fair. But even though it can use more creatures from graveyards, 'Breach the Multiverse' is more scarry, because it happens on the spot, and by having both yours and opponents top 10 cards milled, this gives a higher chance of very powerful creatures to choose from to etb. Very difficult on the other end to prepare for this, if you don't know if your opponent has Breach or not. So if one avoided playing the adventure side of Virtue, then if able to do so, in either the same turn or the next one as playing Ego Drain, that would give your opponent significantly less time to prepare for it. And you could use Ego drain to potentially make your opponent discard a very powerful creature that you could take and use for yourself a bit later. And there're probably other adventure cards that could be utilized/misused this way as well. Maybe even more so for eternal formats from the previous Eldraine set. Oh, and what if one played Breach before the turn, where you'd use Ego Drain and Virtue. Then suddenly there are more potential candidates to etb under your control in the future turns to come 🤔😆😅😬

No one actually hated siege rhino though. It was literally honored as the best card in standard at the time and so many people made goodbye videos for it

When it rotated, I burnt my copy… that ass destroyed every little deck idea I had when I returned magic that year…

Siege Rhino wasn't a hated card. The second Siege Rhino, on the other hand...

i think it was one of the most beloved 'best cards' in history of standard. it was just an efficient "fair" card that didnt hose any archetype (no not even aggro, multiple aggro decks existed despite siege rhino)

Wait, that cards not from Dissention?

@MTGGoldfish blame the hybrid mana cost, which originated in Ravnica ;)

Ha, I've also just started a year ago after a break of 25 years. Though I only played one tournament back in the day and only for 1,5 years during the Urza block (though it seemed much longer as a 14 year old). I found the decklist of the Goblin deck I played at that tournament and it listed 4 wastelands. Of course, I sold them for little beer money shortly after, as I did with most of my academy deck (which I built shortly after the ban just for the fun of it).

you should prolly get some low sodium popcorn, there's already enough salt in the video

I have an orc and ring for you to consider

Really? Combo winter nearly killed magic.

Probably in your memory…

Bro. Winter orb

I mean I stopped playing magic in 2019 for a reason. I haven't picked the game up again since. My only exposure to magic now is through Seth, just because I like Seth as an entertainer.

Probably could have been a honorable mention.

Icy Manipulator - the original Urza.

I play Rakdos and seeing people pause on Arena finding out in real time that it gets countered by Stomp has been a blast these past weeks.

You invented replicate!

DUDE YOU HIT THE JACKPOT

It also wasn't even played before the ban which further shows how bizarre decisions behind bans were back in early mtg

I used to run a Plow Under speed green deck. It was so broken.

I used to play stupid green and run copies of both plow under and stunted growth. And good times were had by none.

Quite the opposite actually, The One Ring isnt really an issue since it wont win the game on its own and it doesnt prevent you from drawing cards it just helps the opponent a lot and if you know what you are doing and play around it you can get around its protection to everything. Bowmasters is imo Sheoldred on crack because they both tax card draw except Bowmasters has 2 bodies you gotta deal with and its 2 mana compared to 4 while also having Flash becuase why not oh and did I forget to mention its also not legendary? Also the only real good answear to a Bowmaster is your own Bowmaster which is not healthy for the game.

​@@JulioDRaiany removal spell is a good answer for an orcish bowmaster. Another bowmaster isn't the greatest answer itself anyway since you have to rely on your opponent to draw cards, so you loose flexibility. And I'd argue that the massive amounts of card draw the ring provides wins games by itself in 60 card formats right now, especially since it's playable in any deck.

@@KeganKirby What removal you have that is 2 mana or less and removes both the bowmaster and the army? I'll be gald to hear all the good options we have that meet that requirement. Also idk what 60 card format you are playing where decks dont naturally draw tons of cards especially since almost everyone is running the Ring in their decks so Bowmasters are naturally good and you dont need to build around them or anything they are just another really strong midrange card you throw into any deck that has access to black.

As a control player, I'd 100% rather face the ring than the bowmasters. Bowmasters are just Sheoldred on crack for 2, which is supremely retarded, while the ring is a 4 mana card that kills you if they counter your other rings.

@@KeganKirby Removing the bowmaster with conventional removal would be a tempo swing for the bowmaster’s controller.. it’s a 2 for 1. Such is the problem with the FIRES design era where threats immediately generate value and snowball later on… best answer to a bowmaster is another bowmaster

He said in another comment that he was working on this video a few weeks ago, so TOR hadn't blown up yet, and that if he did this video again, he'd pick TOR

That's kinda what I used to do whenever someone pulled a splinter twin infinite out of nowhere, except instead of conceding we'd say "okay you auto-win, now the rest of us will play for second place," and give them a big sarcastic smile.

Wasn't played back in the day at all. I currently play it in an alt wincon tribal deck and the players that are losing are always grateful when I end the game in a tie.

i mean we have grand abolisher at 2 mana with a much stronger ability...

That doesn't combo with Knowledge Pool.

Teferi cards have always been busted so

It did.. he was mentioned in the 2019 section… which seth mentioned the year also had lot of annoying cards and could probably have a section of its own..🤣

There was a brief mention in the long list of hated cards from 2019. Honestly, that year was so broken it was a bit overwhelming.

This would make a great video on its own. However, it might be nice to focus on some of the good things too, to balance it out. Almost every horrible period had its positive undercurrents. For example: even though Throne of Eldrain was completely busted and they had to ban several cards, the graphic design on the cards was surprisingly good. Making a set about fairytales and still making it cool is an achievement on its own.

@@pinobluevogel64582019 made me quit Magic. Power creep made me hate my life playing modern. I’m happy I retired since everything went downhill from there

@@MTGGoldfishthat year was the beginning of the end for MTG. Nothing was the same since then. I’m glad I quit

Heh heh. Loose.

Ye this doesn't feel like a historical list, but rather what cards everyone hates in 2023. Winter Orb was not the most hated card in Alpha. That probably goes to Mind Twist, Balance, Sink Hole, or Strip Mine. I don't know how you could even skip over Shahrazad. Shahrazad + Regrowth + Timetwister was an actual thing until Shahrazad was just banned.

@@nekrataali absolutely this does feel like the perspective of a commander/ modern magic player rather than a person who spent time playing in that time. Imho the abyss and nether void were the most hated until 96 .

They're really fun in vintage cube draft, but miserable in constructed. Once you reliably break the symmetry they become I-play-magic-and-you-don't cards.

Same for my 5c mana bases

That's not the problem with those cards though. The problem is that wheels punish the snot out of everyone whether they wish it or not, and often, the decks that abuse these draw punishers are also drawing a bazillion cards.

Facts

Nah, fable is forgivable. Plenty of really good players underrated it when it was spoiled, it wasn’t an immediately obvious mistake like Lurrus. An Unfinity card needed to be the 2022 winner

Fable is mid card outside of standard

@@adammorin2955 Mid card? Nope… it’s being used everywhere.

One problem: no-one plays block constructed.

I think Nazgul are too strong unlike Bowmasters; you need up to 9 removal that do at least 3 damage, deathtouch, counterspell, enchant lockdown (also can suck if it doesn't disable pump), or return (which sucks against Nazgul); or you need multiple board wipes. Nazgul players also seem to understand this and usually only play 2-3 at a time and just Tempt over and over to pump while blasting your board. With 4 x Bowmasters you only need 8 removal max if you include the amass creatures, and returns completely kill them, enchant lockdown also completely destroys amass strat by placing on army, bowmasters die to 1 damage instead of 3, etc. Much easier to deal with. If I hadn't seen so many One Ring breaking strats I'd say Nazgul is my most hated.

​Most of Nazgul's problems go away when you get rid of their consistency in a 60 card format. T1 Delighted Halfling T2 Nazgul T3 Nazgul +cmc1 interaction T4 Nazgul +cmc2 interaction The nut draw can be an opening play for any golgari deck. "Fair Agro" likes the t4 kill on the play before 4cmc sweeper. Midrange likes the 3 should answer threats that accrue residual value. Control likes the board tarpit that distracts and delays while they assemble an unstoppable wincon. If you take them down to 4/60, then they are less ubiquitous, so you as the opponent can react in a more informed way. (The Nazgul player is either midrange or playing jank in 4/60)

How DARE you

And is completed negated if you can stick. Sheoldred alongside the ring.

It's too early to say for this year, he really should have left it off. Especially when he chose a card that's only been out a few weeks.