Are you excited? I know I am! Eternal Masters is happening, and I couldn’t be more excited. I was always a bit lukewarm for Modern Masters, although it certainly played nicely enough in Draft. But this? This is devastatingly awesome!

A ton of cards come to mind that I want to see have another day in the sun. Welcome back!

One of my passions as a writer is to bring some solid old card back to light, and I love to include one or two in my Commander decks for you here. So this plays right into my passion.

Now I don't want to turn this Top 10 column into a "Top 10 Cards I Want to See in Set X." That's not really interesting over the long term. But when the Eternal Masters set was spoiled last week, and when it's a set made exclusively made of Eternal reprints, there're a lot of options here for an article!

It's important to remember that a lot of the cards we see printed in the first two Masters sets are more aimed for casual players or for helping in Draft. You've seen stuff like Doubling Season or the Dragon cycle from Champions of Kamigawa (like Kokusho, the Evening Star). I think there'll be a ton of casual cards printed in this set for one obvious reason:

Slivers.

I also wouldn't be surprised to see G/U Madness or a Reanimation theme around stuff like Buried Alive and Reanimate. Or what about drafting a Fires of Yavimaya deck? Decks in that era had awesome stuff! Oh, quick prediction: How about the Invasion Dragons as mythics? Makes a lot of sense seeing as the first Modern Masters set rocked the Kamigawa ones.

So what cards would I really like to see in Eternal Masters? What casual or tournament all-stars could we print?

Just as a reminder: None of these cards can be on the reserved list. Cards that made this Top 10 did so for a number of reasons, so get ready—it’s going to be fun!

10 — Genesis

Genesis has always been the class of the Incarnation uber-cycle in the Odyssey block. There were multiple hits, like Wonder, Glory, and Anger running around. Wonder hit tournaments quickly, and Anger has always been a mainstay of Casual Land. But Genesis? It's the unique one. It fights against counters by letting you recur the same creature over and over again, no matter how many counters that are pointed at it. (And even if someone is rocking Hinder or Dissipate, you'll have other creatures to recur.) It dominates the mid- and late games. It can layer in fuel. You can reload after a Wrath of God sweeps the board or recur that Acidic Slime to kill a vital permanent. Genesis is truly a casual powerhouse, and reprinting would give a lot of tables and players a lot more copies of a great card.

9 — Dong Zhou, the Tyrant

While I don't think we'll see horsemanship in this set (sorry Sun Ce, Young Conquerer), we can certainly find a space for Dong Zhou. Our good Tyrant buddy is great in a lot of decks and strategies. As a simple 5-mana creature, he brings a great enters-the-battlefield trigger with him when he comes to party. Remember when you were a kid and someone a lot stronger than you would grab your hand, hit you with it, and then ask, "Why did you hit yourself?" Dong Zhou is the Magic version of that. Any creature is pushed by Dong Zhou into hurting its owner. I once killed someone by getting his Phage the Untouchable to “touch” him. It's a great Commander player, and it’s fun for casual mages all the world over. It would be awesome to see Dong Zhou into a lot of decks.

8 — Sterling Grove

I have no idea why this uncommon has never been reprinted. It's amazing. It could have been in the Savage Auras G/W enchantment deck from Planechase or made the cut in a Commander or Conspiracy product. But it hasn't, and that makes me a sad Abe. It fits two great roles. You can drop it, and your various enchantments are now immune from targeted removal. That's great—thou shalt not target my enchantments! (That includes my enchantment creatures, by the by.) Plus, I can sacrifice Sterling Grove to tutor my deck for my best enchantment for the situation. If that seems clunky, it's not. You are paying for the total ability to both play and sacrifice the enchantment—the same converted casting cost of Idyllic Tutor. You can pay that across two turns, use it to protect your stuff, trigger your pro-enchantment triggers (like Verduran Enchantress), and react and grab an enchantment at instant speed if you need to. Sterling Grove is long overdue for a reprinting.

7 — Burgeoning

In any deck that draws a bunch of cards or fetches a bunch of lands for your hand, this is an amazing engine. You can drop one land for free anytime your foes do, and it's an amazing 1-drop on the first turn in a multiplayer game. It’s better than Exploration for an early acceleration of your lands. It'll work wonders with cards like Journeyer's Kite or Shard Convergence. Meanwhile, you can just spew lands all over the table. You’ll be dropping so many lands that people will ask if you need to see the doctor. I like it in conjunction with the self-bouncing lands like the Karoo stuff. Play a land like Selesnya Sanctuary, and you can drop the land you were forced to return to your hand on subsequent turns. Plus, Burgeoning has never been reprinted, and it's a bit pricey as well.

6 — Aggravated Assault

Aggravated Assault is among the great casual all-stars of smashing faces. As a repeatable Relentless Assault for 1 mana more per iteration, it's a bona fide tool of destruction for everyone within range. It's the perfect red card. Angry. Passionate. And very destructive. It's also pricey, and it’s never been reprinted. It's time. Assault away my friends, assault away.

But it didn’t make my top five. So what did?

5 — Horn of Greed

I like playing lands. I like drawing cards. A lot of people out there really enjoy the feel good aspect of cards like Howling Mine, Mana Flare, and Veteran Explorer. Know what else feels good? Horn of Greed. Everyone is being rewarding for playing the lands they wanted to play anyway. And while everyone else is getting their draw on, you can put the Horn in a deck that can get the most use out of it. You can toss it in a Mina and Denn, Wildborn Commander deck or one with extra lands drops and accelerants. You'll be hitting multiple landfall triggers or card-draw ones (I like Psychosis Crawler). Plus, you'll get a new dose of Horn of Greed for the casual market.

4 — Living Wish, Cunning Wish, and Burning Wish

Other than as judge-foil promos, the three good Wishes were never reprinted. They are a great choice for the mythic section in Eternal Masters as well as very unique cards that set the stage for a (relatively) unique time of dominance by these cards. At the time, they were ruled to work on cards that were exiled, so you'd have some brews that simply exiled some of your library and then tutored the exiled fun time with a Wish to find the perfect card. But as you know, most of them were used for sideboard-fetching in tournaments. And even there, that's pretty flexible and compelling. But even without that, you have a trifecta of cards that have proven themselves at the kitchen table over and over again. The Wishes rule, and this certainly seems to be a strong place to give them another era.

3 — Scroll Rack

It's sad that the only reprinting of Scroll Rack we've ever seen was a prestige foil. This card is awesomely useful as a key tool in a lot of decks. You can use it alongside cards that manipulate or reveal the top card of your library, shuffle away that crap, or give your hand added flexibility. Scroll Rack is a great card! (It's also nicer and faster than Sensei's Divining Top.)

2 — Imperial Recruiter

Ah yes, Imperial Recruiter, the card that punches above its weight. The card that will arrive at the battlefield, ready to spring into action. What’s the best creature for the situation? As long as it has a power of 2 or less, you can fetch it up for free. It works in Commander, sixty-card casual, Five Color, tournaments, or whatever. Any brew will do. And if the Recruiter came down in price to a reasonable number, and you could crack them from a pack on the shelves with a black border . . . Well, that's just the best thing that could happen to 2016.

That is, the best thing other than this next card . . . 

1 — Sneak Attack

Invest 1 red mana. Put a creature card right onto the battlefield with haste, and it heads away at the end of the turn. The number of sheer and popular synergies and strategies that Sneak Attack brings any table is incredible. Sneak Attack has countless roles to play. Drop a big beater to get in a nice face-smash of damage. Drop a creature with an enters-the-battlefield trigger to gains a free ability for a single red mana. Drop a creature to block. Drop a creature to put it into your graveyard. Drop a creature, swing, and then put it back into your hand with Erratic Portal or Barbarian Guides. Just drop creatures!

A lot of these cards have never even had a promo foil version, so you'd be able to find foils of stuff like Horn of Greed, Dong Zhou, and Sneak Attack.

Honorable mention to Gamble, Erratic Portal, Eladamri's Call, Mirri's Guile, and Patriarch's Bidding.

There’re so many awesome cards I didn’t belabor. Shoot, I could do a Top 10 article for just each color (I won’t, though—I want to move into different articles!). I’m pumped for Magic. 2016 looks to be a strong year!

What are you looking forward to perhaps cracking when summer hits? Get ready for the invasion.