Back in the late ’90s, the NBC network ran some promos focused on increasing its summer viewership. The summer was always the doldrums on American TV, in part because there were just reruns of shows that had been seen before. In order to increase viewership, NBC’s advertising angle was simple: “If You Haven’t Seen It, It’s New to You!”

Everybody is different, but one of the things I like about kitchen-table gaming is finding that card that no one knew about (or remembered) and using it to a great advantage in that deck. A lot of older cards have strong synergy with newer sets and concepts. Take a gander at Hermit Druid, that unloads your deck into your graveyard while grabbing a basic land, or Storm World, for that discard-centric deck. Energy Storm? Faith Healer? Crystal Chimes? Argivian Archaeologist?

And stuff can be Modern-legal and unleashable as well. That sort of fun can be had in a lot of places. There’re a lot of dead cards out there you can ignite.

There are over fourteen thousand cards. That just blows my mind . . . fourteen thousand cards. I could write an article highlighting twenty underused cards every week, and it would take fifteen years of articles to discuss every one! Now, obviously, even if you removed the vanilla, French vanilla, and boring, Limited-only stuff, that’s still years and years of articles (French vanilla creatures are those with just keywords and nothing else). And many of those are still worth mentioning. (After all, Akroma, Angel of Wrath is just French vanilla.) And cards that just give abilities, like True Conviction and Berserkers' Onslaught, are still worth a lot of value.

Now layer in the cards from the Commander releases each year that see print. What about Conspiracy-type sets? And we could see Planechase or some such as well. With all of these casual-friendly sets making new cards at the same time that we now have four expansions a year, that’s a lot of new cards, probably the most we’ve ever seen in a year before moving forward.

So remember that impressive fourteen-thousand (-ish) figure? It’s so long and farewell and good night.

No one can keep track of it all, no matter how hard we try.

Let me put it this way: If Hasbro announced it was shutting down Wizards of the Coast at the end of the fiscal year (this summer), we’d still have so many new cards that the game could continue for a decade and there would still be cards we’d never have played.

That’s the way of things. If you haven’t seen it, it’s new to you.

So let’s look at a few cards that strike me as “new to you”—or maybe a better way to phrase it is, “Kick the tires again.”

Attunement — Attunement is exactly the sort of card that was needed early on for a handful of effects with which it was a key support card. Then, it was largely forgotten by time, even though people today could use the support even more. Today, we have a passel of decks that want cards in the graveyard. You return Attunement to your hand to draw three and discard four. Obviously, this is card disadvantage like Bazaar of Baghdad is. But remember: If you have a deck with a lot of recursion, flashback, dredge, and more, this is a very useful way to gain card advantage. Attunement was a key piece in a deck that used it to find Replenish while filling up the ’yard and would then use Replenish to bring all of the goods back (with an Opalescence to swing and win the game). Today, you can use Attunement to do the same thing with cards like Living Death, Open the Vaults, or Scrap Mastery. And you can still use it in enchantment decks. Because you can return it over and over to your hand, it triggers cards like Mesa Enchantress or Sigil of the Empty Throne. Attunement is a great card for a lot of decks even today. Check it out!

Bazaar of Wonders — I want to take a closer look at this card for you because it does some good things for you in a lot of decks. First, as it arrives on the battlefield, you exile all graveyards. This gives blue a very powerful tool for fighting against graveyards and recursion. Blue often has a lot of milling options as ways to win the game, but in a lot of casual formats like Commander, you have given your opponents a lot of great cards and options as you churn cards from opponents’ libraries to their graveyards. Casual players love cards like Genesis, Soul of New Phyrexia, flashback cards, threshold cards, reanimation, and more. That’s the struggle with a milling strategy. Until you kill them, you just make them stronger. The second trick Bazaar pulls is that you can cast it while you drop cards like Traumatize or active your Ambassador Laquatus, and you’ll do some strong work ending their options. Third, don’t sleep on it in with effects that Flicker it back and forth. If you Flicker it out and then bring it back, you can end all graveyards again and again. That’s pretty hefty as an ongoing tool to deal with graveyard junk. Last, it’s great to exile a bunch of “safe” cards to reload back to people’s graveyards with the Processor Eldrazi that we’ve seen in Battle for Zendikar and Oath of the Gatewatch. The Bazaar has a lot of value even without its phrase saying, “counter something if it has the same name.” Explore the Bazaar!

Final Fortune — Red used to have a mechanic of taking another turn but then losing at the end of the turn. It’s a very risky, red mechanic, and frankly, I’m not sure why we haven’t seen it reprinted recently. One Portal card is Warrior's Oath, a card I was really surprised to not see in Theros block. The concept of a Spartan coming back either with his or her shield or on it (victorious, or dead, but not to retreat) seems to really be seen. You could have reprinted Warrior's Oath in a Greek environment and made perfect sense. That was a missed opportunity. But you can still run these cards. And there’s an obvious use for them. There are a few cards in the game of Magic (like Time Vault) that will let you store a turn in order to take another later on. If you don’t have the Final Fortune turn, you can’t lose when it ends. So you can use this with a card like Magosi, the Waterveil to gain a free eon counter on it and take extra turns from a Final Fortune later without worrying about that kill switch. Take another turn!

Citanul Flute — I want to apologize to you. I love Citanul Flute, but I don’t think I run it very frequently for my decks for you. And that’s sad because it works really well. It’s prefect for decks that need a creature that’s an answer—like Nekrataal, Uktabi Orangutan, Cloudchaser Eagle, and so forth. You can also use it to gain some serious utility: Mulldrifter, Solemn Simulacrum, and so on. If you have a deck with a lot of synergetic elements in the creature section, you can Flute up the right card for the situation (such as a deck with some sacrifices grabbing a Sifter of Skulls). You can fetch the perfect problem in a deck that seeks to control the board—like Sphinx of the Final Word. Usually, the decks that want this are decks that have a lot of creatures or a lack of pure card-draw (red and white). Play that Flute!

Gigapede — Green has a few self-recursive creatures running amok. Black has had them ever since Nether Shadow was in Limited Edition Alpha. But green has a few here and there sprinkled among the creatures of Magic’s history. Everyone remembers Vengevine, but not this Insect. Now, it does require you to discard a card to bring it back, but a 6/1 shroud body can trade with a lot of stuff and can easily swap for that extra land card you have as the game progresses. The Gigapede provides a nice recurring long game for green. Recur that Insect!

Retaliate — In a format like Commander, in which you have enough life to absorb the hit and then smash someone, a card like Retaliate is nasty. How dare you touch my great self!? You shall be smashed-ed!

Malignus — Even though it was a mythic from a beloved block, I still feel that Malignus has been lost to a lot of people. Folks, when you are in a four-player game of Magic, having a creature that is an 18/18 as a 5-drop (in Commander, assuming one player has at least 36 life) is pretty cool. As long as you aren’t attacking the player with the most life, it remains steady while you carve off the other players. It’s a potent game-changing creature when it’s in play. Give it a whirl!

Followed Footsteps — There are a ton of cards that Clone creatures in Magic, and many make copies of the creature in question with tokens. Followed Footsteps can give you the same creature again and again and again, which is ideal for a simple card like Solemn Simulacrum or Wall of Blossoms. From abusing it with Woodfall Primus to gaining another slate of beaters for your decks, you can really push your battlefield into your favor quickly. Also note the flexibility of duplicating your opponent’s best creature or your own. Fork a friend!

Thelonite Hermit — Who likes making token creatures? This guy! Who likes playing with a fun morph trigger? This guy! The original Deranged Hermit worked great as a body that immediately produced some Squirrels and gave you a nice combination with Flicker effects and such, but you have to pay another 10 mana on the backside to keep the Hermit around. Here, you don’t make the tokens immediately, but you can unmorph as a surprise to do so, and you pay just 8 mana total, not 10 for the whole thing. Green is my favorite of the morph colors, because your best morph triggers are both high-quality utility cards and beaters. Start the Saproling Beats!

And there we have it: another slate of cards that are pretty saucy and that many of you may not have remembered. Hey, after all, if you haven’t seen the card, it’s just as new to you as the latest from Oath of the Gatewatch! Check out some older cards, and give them a spin in your next deck!