Hello folks!

I have played a lot of Magic during my adult life. In fact, before I ever turned 18, I played Magic as a senior in High School. Back in 1994. I haven’t stop playing since. In that time I have played a lot of casual, Constructed, Limited, and special projects (like Cube or AbeDraft, a draft with a copy of every card ever made (save for around 20). As a result, I have played with a majority of the cards printed. That’s how I roll.

A short while ago, I debuted the idea of doing a random Top Ten. Given my play experience, I thought it would be pretty cool to randomly select 10 cards from Gatherer, and then talk about how great they were and how you could use them at the kitchen table. For the first article, my cards included Terrifying Presence, Snow Fortress, Magnetic Mountain, Grim Lavamancer, and Laccolith Whelp. All of the cards were those I played, and I talked heavily about the various ways to use them. For my next article, we had Silver Seraph, Infernal Darkness, Corpse Dance, Hail Storm and the 19th card in the project, Trokin High Guard, was my first vanilla creature and my first card that I hadn’t ever played.

So I thought that this would be a fun way to continue. Let’s sidle down these paths again, hit up another Top Ten Random cards, and delve into what the Chaos Gods have in store for us today.

Ready?

10. Boiling Seas

Did you know that Tom Waenerstrand is my favorite artist? It’s true! Did you know that there was a sorcery speed version of Boil? It’s true, this exists! The choice of Boil for the Amonkhet Masterpieces makes more sense than Boiling Seas, given that flavor-wise, we lack seas. Now if there is ever a reason you need to get more than one Boil in a deck, you have this one to use. People often shy away from the meaner hate cards like this one from the early years of Magic in casual land. And I get that 99 times out of 100. But what about when you are up against that nasty Commander player with the tricked out Mono-Blue deck that plays like Legacy and runs cards normally bad for Commander, like the card disadvantage of Force of Will, along with stuff like Stasis and Gush, or a third-turn kill combo that’s pretty reliable. If they are running those cards, then why not hit them with Boil and Boiling Seas? It works. Toss out Red Elemental Blast, Pyroblast, and a bunch of Red Hate on Blue and then just stop them from playing. Every time they pull out that nasty deck, you bring this, and be honest. As long as you are playing that junk, I’m going to play this. Or you can just play a more casual version of Commander and all move on to more happy times. Your choice.

Oh, I have used these in tournaments as my 5th and 6th Boil from the sideboard way back when.

9. Feast on the Fallen

Note that this is not Feast of the Fallen, or Feast for the Fallen’s Memory, but literally eating them. How cool is that? This will give you a fun +1/+1 counter each upkeep, so it gets multiple triggers as you go around turn order. It also works well with the Black part of the Abzan counter theme, which often feels pretty spare on the Black side. Also, note that this triggers for life lost every upkeep, not just yours. And that is even cooler. Check out cards like Mer-Ek Nightblade, or a Commander like Marchesa, the Black Rose or Exava, Rakdos Blood Witch.

I have played this in Limited multiple times, as well as once in a Commander rebuild of Oloro, Ageless Ascetic, whose bleeder effect triggers this regularly.

8. Transguild Courier

Much like Mistform Ultimus, Transguild Courier is an odd answer to a lot of Magic trivia questions, and can do some fun stuff, from Coalition Victory to Bloom Tender. Note that this is also an artifact creature, so you can run it with a variety of pro-artifact effects as well as those that care about color. Toss a Pledge of Loyalty on it and it will have protection from every color. Civic Saber gives it +5/+0 for just one mana to play and another to equip. Guard Dogs will combine to prevent combat damage from a creature. Conqueror's Flail makes any of your stuff a big ol’ beatstick as long as you control the Courier. Knight of New Alara? Soul of Ravnica? But the best card I can think of?

Spirit of Resistance. You are welcome.

I can’t even begin to tell you how many decks I’ve run Transguild Courier in!

7. Where Ancients Tread

This is a more limited version of Warstorm Surge and other similar effects. It only works on your big stuff, but it shoots someone or something in face for a Fiver of Damage. That’s a quarter of the starting life in formats not named Commander, and is a major board presence at most kitchen tables as a result. As a toned-down version of the Surge, it often goes under the radar until you begin to seriously abuse it. It also works well with the high-power, low-toughness creatures of Red, such as Ball Lightning.

I like it in Commander as a redundant adjunct to the Surge, and have run it myself a few times. I named it as one of the Ten Enchantments You Should Play, But Aren’t, for you back in 2011. Check out that article here.

6. Looter il-Kor

Huh. How has Looter il-Kor never been reprinted? No clue. It’s a classic Commander card, with a 2-drop that is hard for most to handle all day long. And it can get you great card quality, fill up a graveyard with reanimation targets, Incarnations like Wonder, or get you to threshold or even discard for madness. It has so much utility, and yet, it’s still great on its own or grabbing a piece of equipment like a Sword of Fire and Ice and smashing away. It’s still one of the best 2-drops in Blue for Commander today, and if you aren’t playing it, then why not?

I run it in a few of my Commander decks, Abe’s Deck of Happiness and Joy, and my Commander Cube right now.

5. Sea Drake

When did Sea Drake stop being a common Legacy creature? I can’t recall. It was one of the most impactful additions to Vintage and Legacy after Portal was legalized. This is a 4/3 flyer for 3 mana with a very manageable ETB weakness that will win quickly. Now it is weak to Lightning Bolt, which hurts it more than Serendib Efreet, but it takes the Efreet 6 turns of beating to deal 18, usually lethal, and this just 4 turns for 16, and 5 for 20, so it’s a lot faster, and you aren’t smashing yourself in the face either. I feel like it’s a great surprise in any deck that plays with landfall or runs cards like Exploration, such as Commander. We really need to get a non-Portal 2 reprint of this thing going, where you can get a foil so we can have this sweet Rebecca Guay art all foiled up.

I have run this in a few shells, probably my most famous being my Big Zoo deck which was a Vintage deck that ran power and other accelerants into cards like this, Serendib Efreet, and other very fast winners that could win quickly. Hey, if you were running a turn one play, why waste time with Kird Ape? Play something with a considerably faster clock.

4. Scaldkin

All right, where there’s my third Blue evasive creature in a row, and 2nd flyer. Scaldkin is more of a limited player. You aren’t tapping four mana for a 2/2 flyer and then using another three mana later for a sacrifice for two damage to the face of a creature or player outside of Limited. Now in Limited, it was a great card to draft if you were Blue and Red in Khans of Tarkir, which is one of the best Limited environments of all time. Don’t forget that you can splash a color for an off-color activation like this that you want to use, but not anything else. I’d rather be guaranteed this as an expensive Wind Drake than to have some unplayable card in my hand because I never drew the right mana.

I can still remember grabbing three of these once in a draft. Loved every minute of it.

3. Friendly Fire

Apparently we are staying in Tarkir Block with Friendly Fire. It’s the random effect tied to this card that drops it in playability. If you ran this with either a variant of Sudden Impact that hit the creature and player, or looked at their hand and chose a card to use, then that would have levels of reliable strategy built around it. Instead you swing and miss and they flip that dumb land and then you move on.

I’ve played it twice in Limited, both Sealed where my removal options were weak and I needed some more to supplement my strong creature base. It was too unreliable most of the time, and luckily, I was able to knock off a few morphs before they became major players, but that was about it.

2. Swell of Growth

The first of these Random articles began with Terrifying Presence, a cool Fog variant in the right build. Similarly, this is the right Giant Growth variant for some decks out there, given that you can use it to drop a land too. I kind of wish I had gotten this at #1 for pure synergy, but I’m sure you can see the coolness here. This is a great in the right shell, as both a trick of p/t changing as well as the free land.

Now I think it’s crucial to run the right variant of these utility cards. We’ve seen so many that you can usually find a better one for your deck.

Take as an example, the simple “Search your Library, Put a Land Onto the Battlefield” effect. We all know how good it is, and which cards are the best, right? Not really!

Running a deck that puts a lot of cards into the graveyard and builds it up? Like Golgari or Mardu?

Far Wanderings — You have the easily-busted chance of getting that three-for-one card advantage land fetcher.

Running a Mono-Green and want to get the best bang for your buck?

Nissa's Pilgrimage — Getting two basic Forests is fine in a Mono-Green shell, and again, you have the chance for a three-for-one here later

Want to get Forests that aren’t basic, so you can get dual lands instead like Stomping Ground?

Hunting Wilds — With the kicker option, it’s better than Ranger's Path or Skyshroud Claim.

Only need to get a few lands out, and then after want other options?

Edge of Autumn — Free cycling and fun times commence.

There are a lot of options out there for support cards from different shells. Don’t sleep on Mwonvuli Acid-Moss, One with Nature, or Nissa's Expedition. There are often some better choices out there.

The same is true of Giant Growth effects like Swell of Growth. Check out the awesome history of the game for some deeper and more synergetic options.

1. Daring Apprentice

Ah yes, the card that was errata’d before it was released. It was originally devoid of the “Use this ability as an interrupt,” clause that let you actually counter something, and then interrupts were removed, making the original text work as is. It’s a very simple card, and I ran it myself.

I cracked it and ran it with Mirage flying Blue and White deck, my first sealed tournament ever, out in Fairmont, WV. I ran this with 2 Azimaet Drakes, a few Bay Falcons, a Teremko Griffin, a Harmattan Efreet, a Hazerider Drake, and a few others (I think Melesse Spirit) and then some support like an Afterlife, this, a Thirst, and such. I won it all!

So you can win with Daring Apprentice and flyers. You’ve got this! Go out and win!

I hope you enjoyed this look at all thing random and awesome. Once again, I have played all ten of these cards, although four of them (#9, #4, #3, #2) exclusively in Limited. And once again, Gatherer has shown some great cards here for you to build around and include in your next deck. Why not run Swell of Growth in that landfall deck as your Giant Growth of choice? You know you want to Feast on the Fallen, right? Sea Drake? Looter il-Kor? Transguild Courier? Where Ancients Tread? You’ve got this!