The Worst 139 Cards in Magic History 

It always hurts seeing epic art on unplayable cards

Good video but I hate to say that your pronounciation of mana really bugs me

Sorrow’s Path goes crazy in Dinosaur Enrage decks.

Brutal Suppression actually saw a tiny bit of play in sideboards back in USG-MMQ standard iirc, the Lin Sivvi Rebels deck was pretty dominant and super consistent, but had the weakness of being somewhat mana hungry.

The answer to "why is it bad?" question is - Limited and "spend more money for rares"

Confirming for the laces - I bought at the time Revised boxes. On a good day, you'd get a Bayou or a Plateau. On a bad day you'd get a Deathlace. I had at least a couple of those colours. I used to own a Sorrows Path. Yes, it's somewhat useable in a dinosaur deck. Too bad we were more than a decade away from dinosaurs in 1994 :)

26:25 re: Divine Intervention My understanding is that the purpose of this card was anti-ante tech. With Magic (theoretically) being played for ante back in the day and a few cards playing around with adding or removing cards from ante, Divine Intervention was a way to prevent yourself from losing your cards -- literally losing them, as ante was for real life ownership of cards. (Imagine losing a Black Lotus 'cause it got ante'd) Nowadays, of course, it's just a really bad card. And it's not like ante stuck around for that long, either.

Aven Trooper has such amazing art for such a terrible card

I did not expect these to be so laughably bad. You made my day 😂

I won a bunch of of games with the Giant Slug back in the 90's. Obviously a lot of the cards listed have been nuked by power creep, but back in the day... win cons were almost always a result of creature damage. (except Red)... which changes everything. In some areas (in my own experience), such as Australia, & Canada (but not UK) "Pentagram" was very popular, as well as being the the only non-standard variant other than "multi-player free for all" that I had witnessed see any play... so a lot of the colour-specific and land-walking cards received a lot of play. I have seen a Wood Elemental played. once... it did not end well.

I mean, 99% of this cards are bad, but I need to make a point for City in a Bottle. From the 3 set nulifying cards, is the most useful because in the early days or Magic, Arabian Nights was a good set with quite some playable cards. And the effect is static, with no activation cost

Kind of surprised to not see One With Nothing on this list, but then again I actually saw One With Nothing see play at a FNM as sideboard hate against owl decks back in the Kamigawa-Ravnica standard era.

For a lot of these, I tried to think how the card could be modified to make it ok. For many, even costing 1 mana would be too expensive.

i once drew a game with Divine Intervention in a Phelddagrif EDH deck

Martyr's Tomb was decent in Limited. The thing with cards like that is just the threat of being able to use them has power. Like if I have it in play, my opponent knows that if he blocks my 3/3 with his 3/3, then I can pay just 2 life to effective kill his creature. Great video! Lots of nostalgia there.

Thing to know about Sandstone Deadfall: its reason for existing is that it was the only targeted way of getting rid of Iridescent Angel in all-Odyssey limited.

This was a great trip down memory lane. I remember a lot of these cards from when I first started.

You're missing the point of the lands without mana generation and the self-nullifiers with the life-loss clause. The first are essentially uncounterable spells that are relatively hard to remove and don't cost mana. The second force your opponents to make decisions, and if they don't make the right one, you get a double effect. They also hurt decks that use their life as a resource.

I’m gonna fall asleep with this playing so many times before I ever get all the way through. Need infinite videos like this so I can sleep lol

I actually use Armegeddon Clock as a win condition in my Jolrael, Empress of Beasts deck. My opponents almost never pay the 4, and thats usually because I've animated their lands and killed them.

Loved this video! Exactly the kind of fun mtg history content that is my favourite!

Some of these cards obviously belong on this list... other ones made me wonder if this guy had ever played a combo deck or magic at all.

32:11 the card is actually useful -- its image provides the lore how exactly those weird spider creatures relate to the actual unmorphed Morph creature (turns out the spiders are some kind of shell).

Hidden Path and Yavimaya, Cradle of Growth is a nice synergy...unless your opponent has green creatures too. I think because of that synergy itself having that in the "Worse of the Worst" category with these other guys is undeserved.

cyclopean snare and/or razor boomerang can be 'somewhat' useful in a mass production mirrorworks deck. keep bouncing it, keep casting, and keep copying it. there are better ways to do this but if you were drafting/cubing into it and this is your only option, itll suffice. angel of jubilation helps aether storm a LOT. and since stax is usually azorius colours, i could actually see aether storm seeing play in the right stax variant. proliferate makes armageddon clock potentially very funny. power leak is indeed bad but it falls into that catagory of 'off colour cards'. so if you wanted to play mono-blue burn, this is like to be one of your very few options. tidal flats again fits into the off colour catagory. both for being a first strike giver but also a card that benefits go wide strategies. but could actually be somewhat useful in the right jank deck. barreling attack basically gives a creature the rampage keyword. and rampage IS a deck you can build around if you splash green to add effects that force everything to block your rampage creature. suddenly your rampager becomes an almost board wipe. bonus points if it has deathtouch. again, rampage is potentially a good mechanic. however rapid fire being a white spell might hurt this as in my experience rampage is a gruul deck. cephalid snitch is...bad. no debate on that. however it is one of very few cephalids. hint of insanity could be an ok sideboard if shadowborn apostle, persistant petitioner, or relentless rats decks ever see play in a relevent way. oops, 50% of your hand is now gone. parralax inhibitor is 'fine' if you for some reason wanted to build fading matters in something like commander. note artifacts can easily be copied by mirrorworks, prototype portal, and stuff like that. but you'd be better off proliferating most of the time i guess. aether rift: oh look another card that becomes good under the angel i mentioned earlier. wirefly hive is potentially the only card ive ever seen that makes 'wirefly' creatures (aside from changeling-makers and that one 'choose your own creature' card. which matters for those wanting to make wirefly typal decks....not that anyone would want to do that divine intervention makes a great protest card for the formats its legal in. is a particular deck running rampant at touraments? get as many folks as possible to make divine intervention turbo decks to force a 'everyone tops/everyone loses' tournament statistic. then maybe wizards will see a problem and ban the problem card. blue lace in particular may be useful for grand architect shenanigans. task mage assembly is actually not bad at all in group hug/group slug style commander decks. sorrows path triggers effects like phyrexian vindicator and brash taunter. so it slots into decks with that strategy potentially as a 'dont block me or youll suffer' kind of deal

In legendary tribal, those banding lands are actually really strong. Banding is actually a very strong ability. I use both of the ones for my colors in my legendary tribal deck

Martyrs tomb has a place in life swap decks, its not many cards that let you pay life ad lib, so not that bad compared to 6 mana 1/1's

Oh and if Task Mage Assembly makes it on, then Samite Sanctuary, its mirror image, should too!

I think Aladdin's Lamp is one of the worst. I wouldn't even hesitate to put it in the top five.

Aether Storm seems like it'd be a solid burn spell if you're against a creature focused deck. I'd be surprised if nobody ran it alongside four Psionic Blasts in blue burn decks.

Sorrows path is so good that it got my Golos deck banned.

Edh players will play these cards, not all of them, but its gonna be that one amazing tech card. And the while youre not impressed, the other 2 will be more interesting in talking Jank.

I feel like Pale Moon needs to be in there somewhere. Probably in the "Does Nothing" category. Bad cards, in my opinion, come in three flavors: Active, Reactive, and Blank. Blank cards are those that just don't actually do anything you want to do to begin with. Reactive cards are those that only exist to react to a situation that your opponent might (or might not) be causing (and usually fail to do anything relevant in those situations, or cost too much to do so, or both). Meanwhile, Active bad cards, while still definitely bad, are at least trying to Do A Thing, and, at least in theory, that is something you can try to make useful in that weird janky commander deck you like to run in your kitchen table group. Cards like Sorrow's Path get a *little* bit of leeway in my book, because they are able to do active things: in SP's case, that thing is "Damage your own creatures and yourself repeatedly" by causing the Path to tap, and it's actually solidly 'okay' at doing that... if only that were actually something you wanted to do, ever. But you could, at least in theory, actively seek out other cards that would benefit from you doing that, and nothing about that relies on your opponent to make it work, which is nice. Compare to something like the well-justified-placed Break Open, a card which is Reactive to a situation that you cannot reasonably engineer, and which you wouldn't want to play even in the situation where your opponent happens to be playing the things it can affect. Or to my suggestion for Worst Rare above: Pale Moon, a Reactive card that you cannot force your opponent to care about in any way - the only way Pale Moon could be more useless is if it mentioned Snow lands somewhere on it :P

Sad at no mention of Spinal Parasite, the card with the funniest stat line ever.

112 in those colours is very useful theres more then a few cards that trigger on life lose or stop you from losing the game for having 0 life

surprised One with Nothing wasn’t on this list

I'm really surprised One with Nothing didn't get a call out here.

I'm surprised Mercenaries didn't make the list. Also, the white remove landwalk enchantment card Great Wall only targets, like, two cards (Look out! It's Zodiac Rooster!) making it far worse than the one blocking Swampwalk or Forestwalk.

Now I want to see people drafting a Cube consisting of some of these cards.

I don’t think city in a bottle should be on the list because it currently sees play in vintage! It’s a great sideboard tool against bazaar aggro decks which are dominating the format at the moment.

Goblin test pilot may be bad, but I love him anyway

Fun fact: you can't even spend the mana that you get from Snowfall on anything but the cumulative upkeep, so it's actually even worse than it was given credit for in the video

Sorrow's path seems like it might be useful in a Zeddru deck...

"Your opponent discards all trap cards" I thought I was playing Magic, noy Yu-Gi-Oh

I am so getting Rhystic Cave. I love lands that tap for any mana, even if they kinda suck. I also have a soft spot for the Rhystic cards. Tutor and Deluge being tops.

You’re missing some key context with some of these cards. Juju Bubble was around when you could respond to going to zero life (there was no negative life total) by using this card to go to one life. That’s why it has a cumulative upkeep because otherwise you’d never die if they didn’t have a Shatter. Claws of Gix was another card that did this and was constructed playable. The rules changed though somewhere around 6th edition and now these cards are useless.

"bands with other" is also actually completely different to banding.

Tombfire is next level sideboard hate vs Storm when used alongside Quicken or 3feri

I find it interesting how inconsistent old MTG was when it comes to the power of the cards. How it is possible that in the same sets have both worst cards in the history and staples that are still played to this day? I wonder how many of those terrible designs were intentional?

Damn, old Mtg art is beautiful 😍

Is it just me, or could Keldon Battlewagon be kinda nice in a Power Matters green deck? Imagine tapping your whole board to massively buff it's power, then sac it to greater good, or use it for a fling spell without losing your big creatures

Martyrs tomb does have the unique upside of allowing you to pay your whole life total, which is relevant for some funny EDH meme decks

Id like to see these cards remade. What if Rakalite cost 0 and it had 1 activation

I choose you Monachu!

(Vi) I will say, for as bad as goblin test pilot is, it (alongside many other terrible goblins) is an absolute flavor win in my book

Did I miss it or was one with nothing not on the list?

Wasn't Mindless Null like a misprint or they changed it last minute and forgot to change the P/T or something?

You should try doing The Best 139 Cards in Magic History and see how that goes...

Fasting would have been so much funnier without that destruction clause. Milled out? Fasting lol I'm not drawing

"Mona" lol

Break open has got to be the worst card. It can’t even be cast 99% of the time and then when it can it just helps the opponent

Found some staples for my “Only bad cards” edh deck

Phyrexian Portal shouldn't be on this list! Imagine it were instead an artifact for 3 with "3: Draw a card."; that card would be fine, and barely anyone would ever allege that it's bad. Might not make it in constructed formats, but it's fine. Phyrexian Portal is that plus card-selection! And a really fun minigame! And yes, worrying if you're going to deck yourself or your card-engine is going to run out of gas. Just pick the nine-pile! Hornet Cannon is indeed bad, but I wouldn't call it worthy-of-this-list bad. The tokens it makes are creatures AND artifacts; you can definitely do some engine-y stuff with that. It's worse than Nuisance Engine, yeah. But there's no way it should be in the bottom 140!

I wish there was 360 of these so we could make a trashlocke cube

I have to disagree with snowfall there's a few combos that work out okay in a ice age block. Illusionary forces is a pretty good creature. One blue three-colorless for a 4/4 flying with cumulative upkeep of one Island.

Nice list Spike.

Also, quick correction on Security Detail. If you have no creatures, due to a board wipe or something, and its already on the field(assuming turn 5 with a mono-white deck with no ramp or mana rocks) you can activated it for 2 of your 5 mana then in response to the trigger going onto the stack you can do it again. Sure, 4 mana for two 1/1's aint great, but it is technically better than your evaluation suggested.

Try looking at the old cards when they printed. The Laces were useful when the knights were staple in white and black. Try building a deck with Revised era cards and you would see how some of the cards were more useful.

WHERE IS CORAL REEF? It's my personal favorite bad card :) Coral Reef BlueBlue Enchantment Coral Reef enters the battlefield with four polyp counters on it. Sacrifice an Island: Put two polyp counters on Coral Reef. Blue, Tap an untapped blue creature you control, Remove a polyp counter from Coral Reef: Put a +0/+1 counter on target creature.

I don't think anymore that Sorrow's Path is worse than Break Open since Dinos with Enrage exist and maybe a weird Path/Death's Shadow deck can be imagined no matter how bad the land is. Break Open has no such might be positive use

Imagine playing Cube with those cards!

Trap finders trick was planeshifted from Yu-Gi-Oh

So here is me....playing several ones of these unironically. A lot of them can be made decent with proliferate.

129 is a shame. Hiw dare you *giggiti* to blame quagmire.

I just hope wood elemental isnt on the list, its so good

Apocalypse Charm can be useful because anyone that plays cards from Homelands deserves to be punished

No love for coin flip cards? Flip a coin cards will always be playable because of chance encounter, kark's thumb, and zndrsplt and okaun.

A lot of these are just flavourful draft chaff or experimental early cards. I can't be too hard on them, they had their purpose. And weren't egregious examples of power creep like we're seeing increasingly nowadays.

Definitely needs Malignant Growth in the top 40. One of the worst cards ever and somehow no one seems to know about it.

Ive made a commander deck with the soul purpose of being miserable to play with. A lot of the cards here are in the deck. I'm torn on whether I should actually buy it though

even if a lot of these are awful, some are at least flavor wins!

- From what I know, Mindless Null was supposed to only cost B1 for a 2/2 creature with downside. While it would still be bad, it wouldn't be useless if it cost 2 mana: I can still see it being run standard of that time in a mono-black aggro deck - Aven Trooper is still SOMEWHAT usable in limited: it IS still a discard outlet in an environment that has both Madness and Flashback and Threshold. If you can get your hands on a better discard outlet (i.e Patrol Hound), then there's no reason to use the Trooper. If not, then it's not a total disaster to use it - the anti-set cards are NOT completely useless. While they hit very limited targets, some of them are game breaking... so it may be worth considering. Bottle is the best bec it just completely shuts down cards from the set. Also, believe it or not, Chime had a place in the sideboard during its standard years because it was the most generic way to get rid of Autumn Willow, one of the best creature of its time. - While not a good card, Goblin Bomb is insanely fun to pull off >:) I was kinda playing then... and in playground magic, where everything is generally slower than snails, the lingering threat of a 4 fused bomb is always a fun game state to reach - Sorrows Path is one of the best targets for Donate and Harmless Offering... or a coaster for your drink... I thought the following cards would have made it in this list: Indentured Djinn: a UU1 4/4 flier... it would have been a great card... if it didn't cast Ancestral Recall for all your opponents O.O I would tolerate this if the opponent draw ONE card... but 3?? Hired Giant: a R3 4/4 creature that allows all opponents to search their library for a land card... read it's ANY land... and put it in to play. Back then, when lands weren't as utility as it is now, it's an ok card to drop for red aggros... but with the plethora of creature lands and utility lands, this card is probably giving your opponent a bigger plus than you playing a 4/4 pretty much vanilla creature'' Fog elemental: a U2 4/4 flier that, at the end of combat, if this creature attacked or blocked, sacrifice this creature. Why? Just... why? Marjhan: a UU5 8/8 creature with the dreaded Islandhome mechanic. It comes in to play tapped, and doesnt untap as normal during your untap phase. You pay UU and sacrifice a creature to untap this creature... and it has an ability where you can pay UU, give the creature -1/-0 ... and then deal 1 damage to any attacking creature without flying Honestly, ANY creature with the "Home" mechanic is HORRID... but this creature is EXCEPTIONALLY bad because of its high cost and difficult to use. Oh, for those who are not aware what the "home" mechanic is: it's a retired keyword ability where a creature can live and attack if certain land types are in play. The most common is "Island Home"... where a creature can only stay alive on your side of the board if you control an island... and can only attack enemies who control islands. Goblin Rock Sled and Bog Serpent are the only 2 creatures I am aware of that has the home mechanic that is NOT island (mountain home and swamp home respectively). Wild Wurm: R3, 5/4 ... when this card comes into play: flip a coin. If you lose the flip: return this card to your hand... so yea... for 4 mana, you get a 5/4 creature... or you get jack s*** ... wanna risk it? Segmented Wurm: GR3, 5/5, if this card is the target of an effect or spell, but a -1/-1 counter on it. It's NOT efficent already... and you STILL tack a drawback on it ... why???

Hmmm collapsing borders seems ok though, for the time it was released when it was stabdard I guess

many of these cards are cheap. but lets talk about the foils. they're also cheap. however, there's less than 100 listings for each card to skyorcket. when all bought out. plus they are from old sets. only a matter of time before they skorocket.

Say monna again

eh, the red glyph is kinda interesting. You might try to fling it in red or something. 10 strength for 1 mana is worth some experimenting.

Where is One With Nothing in this list?

There was a few decent cards in the list tbh, bit by no means good lol. A lot of those were made specifically with drafting in mind. In normal games theyre terrible. In block draft, they can be useful.

There is exactly ONE use for Sorrow's Path, and that's in a combo in which you give your opponents infinite spirit tokens through an animated Forbidden Orchard enchanted with Freed from the Real, animate Sorrow's Path through some effect, then Mirrorweave all creatures into copies of Sorrow's Path and tap all of them through some effect. Yes, you could also accomplish this with City of Brass, but that's not as funny, now is it?

Combining the cast cost with activation costs seems pretty dishonest. Not saying those cards are great, but unless it is a one-use card.. the casting cost is up front and you pick and choose to repeatedly use the activation when it suits you. It isn't "9 mana to give a creature +2" or "8 mana to rummage" or "10 mana to make a 1/1"

I was hoping to see snowfall on this list as it has always been on my list of terrible cards

Jeez I need a cube of these

I remembered distinctly owning a card calles "Zombie Fanboy"... i had to look it up, bure it surely exists and is in my collection. That card is my worst pick

This was a good watch

Urza's Bue prints. ECHO 6 ????

Still not convinced wood elemental isn't the worst card ever printed

I find ironic and humorous how many of these cards are on the Reserved List and cost more than Fetchland; yet are complete trash.

mon na My dude its MAN NA

Wouldnt warping wurm keep phasing out and stay a 2/2 because they phase out and lose the +1/+1 counter?

Now I want a format where you can only play these cards