Hello awesome folks! I hope that your day is most pleasant! Today I have a fun little assignment for you! What is that? Great question! I typically write up my articles around a week or so before publication. Take my weekly Tuesday article. I start the Monday the week prior and then finish it and edit it the next day and send it in a week early or so. What that does is let me deal with things like writer's block or writing to a deadline much more easily.

So...here's the thing. How do you write a Top Ten Article when the spoilers are only a couple of days in but when they are published we'll be a week deeper? Rough, right? If I did an article like "The Top Ten Cards That Have Been Spoiled So Far" as of Friday, January 28, then by the time you read it on the 4th everything would have been spoiled. It's not easily done.

Therefore, what am I to do? How about this...what if I combined my love for randomly infused projects with my Top Ten? I am, after all, the person with the Random Commander challenge where I build around a random Commander selected over at EDHREC.com. I also do a Random Top Ten where I selected 10 cards from Gatherer's "Random Card" and write them up. Shoot, I even built a Random Cube where I grabbed a random card from Gatherer and then added a real card to add a space. (This is where I start the Random Cube project and this is where I finish it off). Here's the Cube over at CubeCobra.

So...clearly, I love Random challenges...shoot I used to build 60 decks inspired by a Random Card.

What I want to do here today is to grab a bunch of random cards that have already been spoiled similar to how I use my random cards for a Random Top Ten, but instead of using Gatherer, where that wouldn't make sense, I'll use Random.org to generate each number that has been spoiled in the queue, then I'll do a deep dive into each random card. I also won't change the number. On the 28th, after posting updates, we have 52 cards spoiled, a fun number. I push this off until Saturday to see if we get any new cards published on the official spoiler page at 11:00 am EST. Alright, it's 11:23 am. Anything new? Nope, I guess they aren't updating it over the weekend.

Let's do ten cards out of 52!

#10. Ancestral Katana

Our tenth card by randomness is this fun 2-drop Equipment that's common in White. There is a Samurai and Warrior theme in this set. Good synergy with older set and less insular with just Samurai which was an issue with the first block. Equip 3 is a bit on the high end for just a +2/+1 equipment, but if you swing with the tribe by itself you can equip it for just one mana, and that feels much smarter. It feels playable in that tribe's decks and that's pretty much it.

#9. Tamiyo, Compleated Sage

Whoa! I just grabbed the banner card from the set! Everyone loves Tamiyo, and she's worked with the Gatewatch Super Team. I'd love to see an Oath of Tamiyo. Here she has joined the dark side. She has a four/five casting cost, and she arrives to party with 3 or 5 loyalty. She can +1 to tap a dork or artifact and it skips an untap step. It's not great in casual world like Commander. She can -X to exile a non-land permanent from any graveyard and token-ify which I like a lot for casual play since you can both exile a problem recursive option and get it as well. She's okay. Phyrexian mana is one of the most powerful brokenest mechanics every created since losing life to gain a turn or two advantage is well worth it. There are not many, but they have been banned and restricted in multiple formats. Here we get a fixed version with the compleated keyword. I think the extra two loyalty is really worth the extra mana since that -X will have a much better range. I love Tamiyo!

#8. Invoke Despair

This is the first spoiled card in the powerful mono-colored Ultimatum cycle that is supposed to be pretty good. I have already sent it to my Type Four fellow aficionados about how powerful this card is in that format. (Rules for it are here). You have infinite amount of mana but you can only cast a spell a turn, so you need sorcery speed stuff to matter. An Edict for a foe's dork is fine, and if they are dork-less they lose a pair of life and you draw. Then you Edict their enchantments and planeswalkers. It's very powerful there as a triple card advantage since you will ither draw three cards, force three sacrifices, or some combo there of as well as losing some life. I love it there, but in places like Commander it can be harder to play outside of mono-Black, which reduces its power. I do enjoy the potential of this cycle when able to be cast (just like the Ultimatums this is based on). Enjoy it!

#7. Michiko's Reign of Truth // Portrait of Michiko

Hello happy people! Our seventh card on this list is this Saga flip card. This is okay in a deck with an artifact/enchantment theme, but it's pretty hard to get value from earlier on, so its mana cost is deceptive.

Then you can exile and transform it. Note that it exiles first, so that means it leaves play and cannot attack unless it has haste. It arrives as an X/X where those Xs are the same bumps in power and toughness it gave, so it has the same synergies. Also note that this transforms into an enchantment just like it's an enchantment on the front side, so it counts itself. It's a good card to build around, and since it's both an enchantment dork and a Saga it feels like an enchantment home might make more sense, although a Voltron Commander deck with both auras and equipment might really like this as well. Enjoy this uncommon transform card!

#6. Boseiju, Who Endures

I love this land's art! It's really nicely done by Chris Ostrowski. Good stuff! This is a very strong card despite the legendary land status. It taps for Green mana rather than colorless and it arrives untapped, ready to be used. You can discard it from your hand for two mana and you do, you can Naturalize or destroy a nonbasic land that a foe owns. When you do, they can search their library for a sort of basic (it's a little better than just a basic land) and then ramp it and shuffle. And this costs one less if you control a legendary dork.

First, channel is very good on a legendary card since you have a way to use it if you draw a second copy. Secondly, this is a much harder to answer removal effect since it's an ability rather than cast spell like a Beast Within or an Acidic Slime that can be countered on the stack with traditional countermagic. It's very strong even in Commander that won't have an extra copy to drop since it's hard to answer and land hate for nonbasic lands is really needed give the abuse, and the lack of a tempo loss for running it really increases its value.

This is easily a four-of in some decks in Standard that run Green. It's very strong! Also note that it's very powerful in Type Four where it doesn't count as your spell for the turn since you just activated an ability. It's basically a cycling trigger like Decree of Silence or Resounding Silence. It's nasty good!

#5. Jin-Gitaxias, Progress Tyrant

5/5 for 7 mana is fine when it brings two abilities like this to the table. Jin will copy the first artifact, instant, or sorcery you cast each turn, which is pretty good for the entry fee already. Then it'll counter the first one of those types of spells each of your opponents cast each turn. Jin is also legendary and thus eligible for a Command Zone representation. I have also shared him with my Type Four folks, but it might be too good there since it auto-counters the ways to answer it, barring a creature or planeswalker based answer. And you cannot dig for those answers either with traditional methods of doing so. It's probably too good for a one spell per turn format. It's also not friendly at all and it's pretty mean in Commander and other spaces as well. I wouldn't play it.

#4. Scrap Welder

The fourth card on our list and 26 of 52, the halfway mark is this 3-drop 3/3 Goblin Artificer. On curve! For your investment you get a tap ability to sacrifice an artifact you control with mana value X. The you can return an artifact from your graveyard to your battlefield with that cost or less and it gains haste. This is basically a fixed Goblin Welder which is arguably the most powerful Red 1-drop ever printed. This is fixed since it cost three mana to drop and doesn't go up in mana value but the same or down. It's fair, but I wish it were legendary so you could build around it at the Commander table.

#3. Silver-Fur Master

Hello Happy Ninja fans! Just like Warrior joins Samurai, Rogue joins Ninja as well! This 2-mana 2/2 uncommon Rat Ninja is a key way to draft, so you'll be looking for those cards from your uncommon gold draft-around-me card. As you can see, this on curve option has Ninjutsu equal to its mana cost which won't set you back a few turns like many others out there. Your Ninjutsu abilities are one fewer colorless to activate, which is pretty nice and it pumps other Ninja and Rogues by +1/+1 making it a powerful tribal Lord. It's great in both tribal builds and really helps to push Ninja around with the power and toughness boost and cost reduction for your Ninjutsu stuff. I like it a lot in Limited and tribal builds alike.

#2. Akki War Paint

This is a common 1-drop aura that can equip an artifact or a dork. If the equipped card is a dork it gets +2/+1, so it has synergy with artifacts that can become dorks like vehicles and Guardian Idol. Because of that it's better than just pure +2/+1 one mana auras like Unholy Strength. Remember that this set has an enchantment matters theme so this aura may not be junk in enchantment matters brews in Limited, as well as vehicle ones. It's fine. Nothing typically played as Auras are card disadvantage but it's fine.

#1. Spirited Companion

#6 on the list but #1 in our hearts in Elvish Visionary...er...Spirit Companion. Not as good as a free Elf due to its tribe with the ETB Draw trigger for two mana but it's still pretty nice. This is as cheap as it gets at two mana. Elvish Visionary is played in a massive 18,000+decks over at EDHREC.com and its color isn't gagging for card flow like this one provides. The first mono-White Commander that appears awesome for our little puppy is Teshar, Ancestor's Apostle, which will, for no mana, recur a 3-drop from your graveyard to the battlefield for a historic cast trigger. That's mad card flow! This is also great card fun times for decks that abuse Aristocrats with things like Viscera Seer, Skullclamp, and then triggers like Blood Artist and Zulaport Cutthroat for winning. It's pretty sexy.

And there we go! So....what did you think of my random dive? Anything in here that you are excited to try out? Let me know in the comments below!