Hello all! I hope that you are having an amazing day today! I had wanted to do my first Strixhaven Top Ten. Often when we are early in spoiler season, I will grab random cards from the set in the spoiler and then talk about them in a deep dive. It's a lot of fun!

But with so few cards previewed as of writing this, let's do another send up of my Random Top Ten list!

How does this thing work? Awesome question! I head over to WotC's Gatherer and then hit random card. I must talk about that card in the order #10 to #1. I've played the game since 1994 and I have played most cards in decks or Limited. I have a draft called AbeDraft that has (at least) one of every card ever printed that we draft out of so if I didn't run it in Limited during its run, then I might have done so in AbeDraft. Of the first 140 cards in the first 14 articles, I've run every card somewhere save for the vanilla Trokin High Guard.

Now if I hit a basic land or a card I've already done, then I'll hit the random card once more. Ready?

Let's kick this thing off!

10. Novablast Wurm

Did you know that this card exists? It does! I run it places like Abe's Deck of Happiness and Joy as well as Commander. It's pretty good. Swing and sweep and keep the Wurm for more swinging and sweeping and keeping. It'll kill players almost as fast as it kills creatures. Trust me! Enjoy the power of Novablast Wurm!

9. Orzhov Pontiff

Hello, haunt fans! The first Ravnica block has some great mechanics for guilds like convoke that were huge hits! One was notably overpowered, cough...dredge...cough. And then some were just misses like Boros' radiance or Orzhov's haunt. Yuck. This would be in the argument for one of the worst mechanics of all time. Anyways, enough about haunt's shortcomings, this card is about one of the "better" haunt cards in the Pontiff, which I have run in decks both Limited and otherwise. When this overpowered 1/1 for 3 mana arrives to the party, you get to pump up all your stuff for a turn or more likely -1/-1 all of the opposing creatures for the turn. When it dies you must exile it on something you control and then when it dies you get its trigger again. Enjoy!

8. Ulvenwald Tracker

Oh, Fight Lord! I like you at the kitchen table where you can tap and fight repeatedly, giving you that creature kill that Green craves. All the crazy fights will commence when being lorded over by this Human Shaman! I've run it in Commander builds. It is registered an amazing 6,830 times over at EDHREC.com, which is a lot for a card.

7. Thalia's Geistcaller

Hello, Commander 2019 cards! I have run this in Commander. It's good early, and then you can sacrifice the flying token you made (or another Spirit) and then save a key creature from removal or combat damage by giving it indestructible for the turn, which is pretty good. It can do a few things and fuels certain graveyard-builds. Enjoy it!

6. Goldspan Dragon

Huh. It's not often that we randomly get a card in the most recent set. Hello, Kaldheim mythic rare! I've already talked about Goldspan Dragon twice! On the first time, it clocked in on my first Top Ten Cards from Kaldheim which you can find here. On the second time, it made one of my favorite pieces of art from the set sections and I discussed that at length here. What else can I say about the Goldspan Dragon that I haven't already said?

All right....top five time! Which is chosen randomly so I'm not sure that this pushing it matters. But hey, it's a top ten list so why not?

5. Magus of the Disk

Hello "Magus of the" fans. This one was printed in Time Spiral and they were colored versions of key artifacts in MTG's past. My favorite is Magus of the Jar, which is a Blue Memory Jar, and then this is my next favorite. They include Magus of the Scroll in Red, which is a Cursed Scroll, Magus of the Mirror in Black which is a Mirror Universe and Magus of the Candelabra which is a Candelabra of Tawnos in Green. None of this cycle appears in Time Spiral Remastered, sorry to say. I love this card and its power. I run it in places like Abe's Deck of Happiness and Joy as well as Commander and multiplayer all over. It's pretty awesome!

4. Triton Fortune Hunter

I drafted a lot of Theros and had many a heroic deck in there with this guy, although I prefered Boros heroic. This guy is nice in an Azorius build, which was dense with White targets that were pretty good at common and then you'd draw a card when you targeted this guy. Pretty good, right? It created a longer game heroic deck than the faster ones that gave power boosts or +1/+1 counters, where you could use this as an uncommon card advantage engine. It's pretty nifty and cool!

3. Fortify

Although the Magus cycle of cards is not getting a Time Spiral Remastered reprinting, Fortify is! It's a good Limited trick that plays well. I've run it myself as my 22nd or 23rd card. It's better than a Trumpet Blast in Red and various similar effects. Fortify is flexible and can be used to save your team from combat damage instead or damage like burn and things like Pyroclasm. It's a better class of card!

2. Wild Dogs

Wild Dogs is an incredibly good example of the value of cycling in the first sets it debuted in. Wild Dogs is a slightly worse version of the powerful one-drop Ghazban Ogre, a heavily played common from Arabian Nights, Chronicles, and Fifth Edition. You saw it get dropped on the first turn and then on turn two before damage was dealt you were tied with the most life at 20, so you kept your Ogre. Then you swung and dropped your foe to 18 and then you kept on keeping on. It was really strong on turn one, but if you drew it when you were behind in life then it was a dead card. Wild Dogs trades a toughness for cycling and that was worth it. It was also played and the two cards were featured in the same deck where legal. If you draw the Dogs on turn five or six when they were a dead draw, you could just cycle them into something better! The Dogs were a great addition to the canon of Green aggro, and the card was heavily played by me as well as others.

What's my #1 card, as randomly determined by Gatherer?

1. Silverflame Ritual

If you count gold cards, this is our sixth White card! This fun adamant card is better in mono-White builds so it will give your team vigilance as well as a +1/+1 counter! This thing is best in builds that either go wide or care about +1/+1 counters, or both! Do you know what? This is now the second card I've gotten randomly that I have never played in Limited or in constructed! Wow, that took a while!

And there we go! Anything in here that you forgot about or never knew existed? Just let me know!

Random Appendices

Did you like those random 1-set cards of craziness? Excellent! Here are the first eleven iterations of random fun for you to unpack!

1. Random Top Ten #1. My first top randomly features both hits (such as Grim Lavamancer) and 'what the?' moments, such as Narwhal. Enjoy!
2. Random Top Ten #2. If you like high profile spells like Gush and Fire // Ice, then you came to the right place! If you like old and obscure stuff like Silver Seraph and Infernal Darkness, then you also came to the right place.
3. Random Top Ten #3. Sometimes in these random builds you have a lack of any sort of theme. But we did finish with a rare that I used to win my first ever Sealed tournament, so there you are!
4. Random Top Ten #4. This was about when I realized this series had legs, so I began to codify the various articles. This Top Ten's random feature is high profile cards and a full three are commonly seen in multiplayer or kitchen table gaming.
5. Random Top Ten #5. Including cards like the dreaded and the game-winning Door to Nothingness, this is a fun random blast!
6. Random Top Ten #6. This Random Gatherer-Inspired slate of ten includes cards such as Thallid, Forbidden Orchard, and everybody's favorite infect creature. And cards you likely forgot about (or never knew about) with Savage Firecat and Wall of Light in there as well! Check out the randomness!
7. Random Top Ten #7. In this Random Gatherer article, we see cards like Blessing, Coercion, the Zombie Dinosaur beasts of Putrid Raptor, and Dingus Egg. Check it out!!!!
8. Random Top Ten #8. From Bad Moon to Ball Lightning, and from Armory Automaton to Power of Fire, we have a ten-set of randomly chosen cards for your enjoyment. This Random List is the list that keeps giving, as I decide to pause and create a Top Ten Ways to Abuse Power of Fire in the middle of my top ten list so you get TWO TOP TEN LISTS for the price of reading a single article. What's not to love?
9. Random Top Ten #9. Who wants Black Sun's Zenith or Muldrotha, the Gravetide? Who wants Kjeldoran Knight or Staggershock that you may not have known about? My #1 card was a Commander legal leader and I turned and was inspired enough to create a budget Commander around him the next week!
10. Random Top Ten #10. Top Ten Ten Time! and you can see cycling lands, Eldrazi, Defenders, and Beetles. And not necessarily in that order! Enjoy!
11. Random Top Ten #11. Lets break out of the ten-set! You can see cards in here like Sorin, Solemn Visitor, Claws of Gix and a powerful #4. We even get my favorite card name of all time. What'll be? Check it out!
12. Random Top Ten #12. For this fun article I get forgotten cards like Samite Alchemist and fun cards like Hot Soup. I know you wanna check it out, right? Right!!!!!
13. Random Top Ten #13. It's awesome. Sauce. Sau-some. It has cards in it like Call the Skybreaker and Kor Hookmaster. I know that you want to click that link for the Sau-some!
14. Random Top Ten #14. Hither thou goest! It includes cards like Cloudshift and Blighted Fen. For the first time in the series the top card by power and quality in the list actually hit my #1 spot randomly.