The regular release of new sets always brings an infusion of opportunity for your decks. Sometimes, we gain better tools for our decks, such as Satyr Wayfinder, Murder, and Bitter Revelation. Often, we see some unusual and interesting takes on unexplored areas of the game, and that includes Fate Reforged and its take on morph via manifest.

What are some of the best cards in the set for your next casual night? Whether it’s multiplayer or duels, Magic before that tournament on Friday night or at your kitchen table, there are a lot of great choices for the best of the best from this set.

So, what are the top ten cards from this thing? Here is my take!

Let’s begin with a few cards that just missed the cut.

Honorable Mention #1 — Reality Shift

Blue doesn't have a lot of creature removal, but ever since Pongify and Ovinize, we have doled out a few removal spells that represent changing a creature's form (Polymorph Other). Reality Shift is the latest iteration of that concept, and we have a nasty version—because blue can now exile that target creature. Folks, that’s a powerful removal option. And then, on the far side, you have manifested some card as a thanks for playing. Shoot, you can even Reality Shift your own stuff, especially if you know what's on top of your library (via Soothsaying or some such). With a lot of flexibility and exiling built into this card, it's another useful tool for the toolbox that you can use regularly from here on out.

Honorable Mention #2 — Marang River Prowler

At first, I sort of dismissed this guy since it requires controlling a permanent of another color (green or black) in order to recur it post-death. But then I did some math. Of the two-color combinations that include blue, half (two out of four) include either black or green. Of the three-colored allied pairs (such as Esper and Bant), all of the combos include either black or green. Of the wedge pairs, two out of three use one or the other (or both). So of the two- or three-colored combinations, blue is used with green or black seven out of ten times. That's how often your multicolored blue deck, in Commander, will be able to use other colors. Now, outside of Commander, you can just run stuff like hybrid cards that use blue, even if you aren't running that card (such as Dimir Guildmage and Sygg, River Cutthroat—you can also be clever with things like Possessed Aven and Shyft). Therefore, bringing the Prowler back into play after it's been killed off once is a lot easier than it may appear. Due to its unblockable nature, it's a winning condition that can continue to be a threat long after other stuff was killed.

Honorable Mention #3 — Rally the Ancestors

If you want a powerful spell to abuse for defending yourself with your dead stuff, this will work quite well. It also gives you another round of enters-the-battlefield triggers for your troubles. It can be quite flexible, and you can set the X cost suitably to give you the most bang for your buck. Unfortunately, it can be hard to use this aggressively, using this to spawn a bunch of creatures from your graveyard and attack for a turn before they die—they don't gain haste. So, combine it with something like Hammer of Purphoros or In the Web of War in order to get in some face-smashery with your Ancestors.

10 — Harsh Sustenance

Token decks in W/B have been increasingly respectable as a thing since Innistrad block. Even if that's not your preference, you can rock them easily enough, right? The great thing about multiplayer is that there are quite a few expensive token-makers out there that can singlehandedly give you an instant army—like Decree of Justice, White Sun's Zenith, or your dying Symbiotic Wurm. After dropping one of these cards, it's an easy thing to Harsh Sustenance someone for a lot of damage (or a creature if you prefer), and you can kill someone out of nowhere. Imagine attacking Robert for lethal damage and then Harsh Sustenance’ing Rachel for lethal as well. Sounds harsh from here, right?

9 — Flamewake Phoenix

It doesn't even matter that this guy will suicidally attack into a fiery, flaming death because the ability to recur it is so cheap. It’s just one red mana? And you'll attack in the sky? We're all in! Now it does require the ownership of a bigger guy to enable the ability. Red often does (hello, Dragons), and you can push this requirement from "reliable" to "virtually guaranteed" with the right commander.

8 — Destructor Dragon

Mono-green doesn't really see a lot of quality flyers. Sorry, green! Giving you a 4/4 for 6 mana that's in the air might seem a bit behind the curve for today's class of creature, but it's still really strong for green. Sure, it's a bit smaller than Jugan, the Rising Star, but it has an improved death trigger. It destroys stuff! We've seen how useful the death trigger has been on Archon of Justice. People will often keep from trading or killing it in order to avoid the death-removal-trigger it threatens. Destructor Dragon can do likewise for green!

7 — Whisperer of the Wilds

Whisperer of the Wilds is going to be a very useful mana accelerant for green going forward. It rocks Utopia Tree stats (0/2 for 2 mana), which gives you the ability to occasionally block some dorky 1/1. And you can tap it for double mana if you control at least a 4-powered critter. (That's going to be quite frequently.) You can have 4 mana on turn three to drop any number of 4/4 class acts for 4 mana. Now, on turn four, with our next land drop, you'll rock 6 mana, and the big guns will start flying. By the way, Commander folks, if your commander is green and meets the requisite ferocious trigger, this is a powerful tool for your deck!

6 — Valorous Stance

There are two things that I like my spells to do in multiplayer. This first is to save my team from impending death. Mass removal is everywhere, and running something like Golgari Charm, Rootborn Defenses, or Akroma's Blessing can be a nice way to keep your stuff alive. I also like having removal spells that have a built-in level of flexibility. You never know what you'll need. A removal spell with a lot of flexibility is key to having an answer. Valorous Stance gives you that useful Reprisal ability to kill the large stuff, and it meshes it with the option to instead give something indestructible for the turn to keep it alive. This spell is precisely the sort of flexibility that you want for multiplayer.

All right, let’s take a looksee at what cards made my Top 5 from the set!

5 — Alesha, Who Smiles at Death

It’s a 3/2 first strike for 3 mana? It’s so easy to drop this good Alesha; meanwhile, she doesn't suck in the red zone. And when you bring the heat, you can tap some hybrid mana (which doesn't include red) and bring back a smaller creature that is going to come out for another frolic in the hay. This is a great way to bring back stuff with a useful enters-the-battlefield trigger (Solemn Simulacrum, Manic Vandal, Murderous Redcap, Karmic Guide, Nekrataal, etc.). You can also return your best smaller beater, bringing down some additional threats in the red zone for your team. Don’t’ forget that Alesha can pull this trick over and over again. Repeatability is vital to winning games.

4 — Jeskai Barricade

Flashing out a 0/4 Wall for 2 mana is not likely to result in a game-winning play. Barring an unusual situation (such as Doran, the Siege Tower), it's not the biggest flash threat you are going to unveil. But you can flash it out to change combat math, give yourself a body to block with, and more. Where the Barricade shines is in that you may bounce something back to your hand when it arrives. You can save a creature from targeted removal or combat death, replay a creature with a fun enters-the-battlefield trigger, and more. There are a lot of slick options under the hood of this Barricade.

3 — Torrent Elemental

So let's talk about the awesomeness that is the Torrent Elemental. Imagine that you are sitting around the table at Magic Night and getting your multiplayer on. You drop Torrent Elemental and attack. First of all, you are guaranteed to get in a hit with your forces because you'll tap all of the crap that defending player controls. That's pretty useful stuff already. In that multiplayer game, you can open up a defense to multiple waves of attackers. For example, in a five-way game, with clockwise turn order, you can attack the person to your immediate right, and that person can be attacked three more times before untapping. That's a huge bonus! Now add in the fact that the Elemental can bring itself back after an exiling death, and you have yourself a potent card that is going to be a powerful tool at kitchen tables everywhere.

2 — Palace Siege

The Siege cycle of enchantments is pretty useful. But of all of them, I don't think that any holds a candle to Palace Siege set to Khans. Take a look at fellow enchantment Oversold Cemetery. This little guy from Onslaught was so good that it was a classic powerhouse of multiplayer. (In fact, I named Oversold Cemetery the #49 best multiplayer card of all time). Now, this card is 3 more mana, but it removes the restriction on having four dorks in your discard bin before working. That's a powerful trade-off—5 mana for your best dead creature turn after turn after turn with no mana activations or additional requirements is a hugely powerful card. And if your deck prefers, you can set this card on Dragons mode and just use it as a slow, grinding clock to kill folks (other Sieges aren't kill cards). Palace Siege is the real deal.

1 — Ugin, the Spirit Dragon

And there we are! There are a lot of cards that came close, and they were in my original cut. Monastery Siege, Frontier Siege, Yasova Dragonclaw, Return to the Earth, Atarka, World Render, Orc Sureshot, and Sage-Eye Avengers and were all in my Top 20, but they were pulled out for various reasons. Those are my personal twenty through fourteen (not in that order).

Don't worry! A lot of recent sets have rocked great cards for your decks in the common/uncommon slot. Some of my favorite multiplayer cards of 2014 were not rocking gold or red expansion symbols. Of these thirteen cards, just three are mythic (and some of those are cheap, such as Torrent Elemental). More than half are common or uncommon. This set has a lot of quality below the highly touted mythics that are making all of the top-cards articles for Constructed formats.

What cards are you most looking forward to rocking? What do you think the best casual and multiplayer champions are going to be?

See you next week,

Abe Sargent