Hello!

I hope today finds you well!

I still have a soft spot in my heart for Portal cards. I have done Portal booster drafts! (My favorite archetype is ). I adore the art, especially that of Portal: Second Age and Portal: Three Kingdoms. To this day, the various Portal and Starter sets have a lot of awesome cards that I just have a soft spot for. I can't help myself. I love this stuff.

Let's me share a few cards from the intro sets (including Starter) that have never been reprinted outside of these sets.

The goal of this article is to share some of the awesome cards out there that you might have forgotten about (or never knew about) and which have never been printed in a later product like a core set, as a judge foil, and so forth. From Commons to Rares worth more than $100 on the secondary market, we got a lot here to uncover!

Let's take a gander!

10. Fire Imp OR Personal Tutor

For today's #10 spot in our countdown, which do you like better? Fire Imp or Personal Tutor? Let's vote! Which one do you think is actually my #10 card? Which one do you think is better? Personal Tutor is a sorcery version of Mystical Tutor that only gets a sorcery. It's slow, card disadvantage, and half as useful. Hey! It's still a tutor and it's still a good card! It's also legal as a four-of in any format in which you can play it - Vintage, Legacy, Portal Block Constructed? Sure! On the other hand, Fire Imp used to be the absolute Cream of the Crop for casual gaming. When it arrived, you could burn something down, and unlike Ghitu Slinger that came along later, you didn't have to pay any echo to keep it around! (Although Ghitu Slinger could Shock someone's face, and that made it even in my mind). Lots of stuff would die to your Fire Imp that they had cast on turns 1 or 2, so you could stamp out stuff like Soul Warden, Birds of Paradise, Priest of Titania, and more! Later stuff like Wellwisher would fall before your Fire Imp as well. I think we were all surprised that it never got a shot in the Big Game of a Core Set. But, again, time has ebbed, and there aren't as many dorks with a low enough toughness to kill. Take Commander. Many 2-drops have three toughness. And you can't punch someone for two damage, (and that wouldn't matter as much in a 40 life format anyway.) Hence, the Fire Imp isn't as good today as it once was.

Which one today would really make my #10? I'm unsure! It depends on the venue. Fire Imp is strong for Cubes and formats not called "Commander." Personal Tutor's role as a backup Mystical is better suited for a format that wants duplication but can't play more than one copy of card - Commander. It depends. But as a general rule I prefer the Fire Imp.

9. Brimstone Dragon

The Problem with Portal: Second Age is that almost all of the great cards it introduced have been reprinted during the years. It introduced cards like Wildfire and Ravenous Rats that were heavily reprinted and strong. Angelic Wall? Angel of Mercy? Coercion? Goblin Lore? Goblin Matron? Sleight of Hand? Sylvan Basilisk? Temple Acolyte? And even some great cards were just reprinted in Masters sets like Sea Drake and Predatory Nightstalker or Ogre Arsonist in promo form. All of those cards are either iconic (such as Ravenous Rats and Coercion) or powerful, (such as Goblin Matron) or play very well, like Sylvan Basilisk which kills immediately upon being blocked, not when damage is dealt or at the end of combat - which makes it the best Basilisk ever printed. Many of these cards had smaller releases, like Temple Acolyte's appearance in a duel deck, but that counts. And cards like Goblin Lore are dominating Modern. This is a great set with very few cards in it that have never been reprinted somewhere, and most of the cards listed above would have been in contention for this list.

With one notable exception . . . 

Other than reprints of high profile cards (Temporal Manipulation), Brimstone Dragon is the only major card in this set to never see the light of day, which is just bizarre to me. The first of the "From the Vault" series was Dragons, and it gave you two Dragons from this era that had never been seen elsewhere - Thunder Dragon and Ebon Dragon. But not giving us Brimstone Dragon was a mistake. I still have this in multiple decks and projects as it's pretty cool! (I also love that artwork too!)

Oh, and this was true of the first Portal set as well as many strong cards from it were reprinted almost immediately, like Gravedigger, Thundermare, Alabaster Dragon, Raging Goblin, or Natural Spring as well as draft standards like Mind Rot, Volcanic Hammer, or Breath of Life which was a cheaper version of Resurrection in White, and then others that were reprinted here and there later, like the afore-mentioned Ebon Dragon, or Endless Cockroaches and Gift of Estates. And of course Wood Elves, a heavily played land-fetcher.

8. Jungle Lion

I was a little surprised to see Jungle Lion not get reprinted in Masters 25. Before the various Portal and Starter sets became legal, the biggest pushback against their inclusion in various formats was that two amazing cards would get added to games and warp metagames and such -the horsemanship ability, which was essentially unblockable, and Jungle Lion. How are you going to deal with such a fast and reliable critter? All of the other fast dorks at the time, such as Mtenda Lion or Ghazban Ogre, had ways to answer them. We were living in an era dominated by Jackal Pup and friends, so Jungle Lion felt too good to bring over to a lot of folks!

Back in 2004 I wrote a two-part article series on incorporating Portal sets into your game. I have always had a fondness for these forgotten cards.

Part 1, Part 2

I adored these sets, but again, it was Jungle Lion that was considered too good from them! Times have changed as the power of creatures has risen, and yet this Lion never got another day in the sun. There's been no chance to draft it in a modern set, for folks to enjoy the Lion. It's a fine Cat you could print today and it wouldn't be anything major. This is your Jungle Lion!

7. Hunting Cheetah

Speaking of fun Green Cats... This is your Hunting Cheetah! Take a look at the ability to smash someone's face and then fetch up a Forest for free when you do so. Now, as I am sure you are aware, Green regularly has face-smashing triggers for when it's dorks bite your face off. This is no different. But what makes Hunting Cheetah so awesome is that you get a Forest. Not a basic land. Not a basic Forest. Any Forest. That means Forests like Bayou, Dryad Arbor, Murmuring Bosk, Temple Garden, and Sheltered Thicket. That's a lot of recurring land-fetching utility in this Cheetah. Smash away my friends! Smash away!

6. Devastation

The good thing about a mass removal card like Devastation is not what it destroys, but what it leaves behind, that inspires me. At first Devastation might feel to you like a weaker Jokulhaups or Obliterate. It just sweeps lands and dorks? That's worse! But you know how to build the deck already! Just include cards that aren't killable. Artifacts are a great choice. You can have artifact mana and non-critter artifacts that will survive the Devastation's casting. You can have planeswalkers. I like playing with those that can turn into a dork after you can cast this, and then swing on a naked board with Gideon Jura or Sarkhan, the Dragonspeaker. This is a great card that has obvious merit in multiple builds! I have run Devastation myself in a few different decks from Commander to 60-card casual and a lot more - I have a number of builds, and one Cube, that feature it right now!

5. Rain of Daggers // Righteous Fury

With the power creep of creatures, Brimstone Dragon feels at least one mana too many to most modern audiences, but these two sweeping effects from Portal: Second Age are still strong. They even mirror each other, as one indiscriminately kills all of your foe's stuff but you lose 2 life for each dork that bites it, and the other just the tapped creatures but you gain 2 life. Now, Righteous Fury is the better card for multiplayer and Commander. You can cast it before attacking and then swing, and thus you won't lose any of your stuff. When you kill all tapped dorks then that often means you took damage from them when they smashed your face, so the life gain here actually helps to alleviate the damage you took and it's a very strong card as a result. In duels, I would call the Rain of Daggers better because it's a Plague Wind for three fewer mana, and that's good. In Commander and other multiplayer formats, I think Righteous Fury is the better card of these two, and it's in some of my Commander builds right now. Both of these cards are strong and work really well for your needs!

4. Riding the Dilu Horse

This is one of the most unique cards ever printed. Can you see why? Is it because it's Green and gives evasion? That's part of it, and that's one of the major reasons it is still getting played today. You can run it in Commander to give your Green leader some pump and unblockable which is not something Green would normally have access to, so there is value there, sure! But that's not why it's unique.

Look at what's missing from the card that would normally be there. Do you see it? That's right! It's missing the "until the end of the turn," phrase!

That means this sorcery permanently pumps a dork and gives is the virtually unblockable horsemanship. That's bizarre. But that's not everything!

We know that this card wasn't intended to be printed without that "until the eot" phrase and was, in fact, a misprint. How do we know? Check out the FAQ released with the set from Wizards of the Coast itself!

At the release of the set, this card said that the bonus was permanent, but the FAQ stated that it was, in fact, just another end of turn sorcery. So, it didn't work as it read. But then when the sets moved to the normal game, that was removed!

The current Oracle for this card?

What really triggers my "WTF" radar though is not just this change, but also how other cards were changed in a way totally opposite to this. Here let me show you:

This is Cruel Edict and Imperial Edict from the various Portal sets. Great! As you can see, they were beginner versions of the typical Diabolic Edict effect that forces someone to sacrifice a dork of their choice, right? Great! Now here are the Oracles for these cards today:

How did two cards that read the same go in two bizarre directions? Typically, when they moved the cards from these various sets to the rest of Magic, they would bring them in line with the conventions of the game. Sorceries that could be cast as instants were now just Instants. Creatures like Goblin Bully were given the creature type Goblin. Why they chose to go in the opposite direction of Riding the Dilu Horse when it was a known reprint and according to the FAQ it wasn't supposed to be played that way was just bizarre to me.

And that has made Riding the Dilu Horse a unique and powerful card due to it's permanent sorcery nature. It's powerful in tons of builds with cards like Zada, Hedron Grinder or getting a Commander through any defense enough times to win the game, and such. Riding the Dilu Horse!

3. Grim Tutor

Ah yes, Grim Tutor! This three-mana Demonic Tutor is arguably the 2nd best for Commander after the granddaddy of Demonic Tutor. The three-mana cost is fine and the three life is nothing when you have a 40 life head start. The other options are ones that are cheaper but lose you a card (Such as Vampiric Tutor), or cost more mana (Diabolic Tutor) or only tutor for a sub-set of cards (Open the Armory) or otherwise have serious restrictions on them. Grim Tutor is awesome for Commander, and it's not bad elsewhere. Because it's never been reprinted, it's a pricey card. For that reason, it's one reprint away from tumbling, so you might want to hold off on picking up a player's set if you are risk adverse. (It's also solid in older formats as well like Legacy and Vintage).

2. Sun Ce, Young Conquerer

Of the Portal: Three Kingdoms legendary fun-times, Sun Ce is probably my favorite to run as a Commander that hasn't been reprinted. I also love Sun Quan, Lord of Wu and my personal favorite, Diaochan, Artful Beauty. But the combination of a (virtually) unblockable Commander and a Man-O'-War effect on a 5-drop is great investment. It's in the perfect colors to abuse for blinking effects, and it can really give you tempo and answer. Bounce something and then counter it later. Toss some equipment onto it and smash harder and faster, with stuff like Batterskull. It's perfect for Brago, King Eternal or other builds, as well as a strong addition to your rebuild of Aminatou, the Fateshifter. And outside of Commander, he's great. You can use it well in Cube, 60 card fun times, and lots more. Sun Ce for the win!

1. Dong Zhou, the Tyrant

Ah yes. Dong Zhou. There could be no other card here other than the Tyrant himself. Dong Zhou is unique, as a dork that smashes someone's face for damage equal to the biggest powered dork they control. The bigger and nastier your foes become, the biggest and nastier Dong Zhou works to dial them back. Take Commander. There is a tendency for folks to play with creatures that are very large, and very cheap, often on turn four, like Zurgo Helmsmasher and Ruhan of the Fomori. The next turn, for five mana, drop Dong Zhou and smash their face for 7. Note that the creature is hitting their controller, so you can get some triggers. I have killed players of Phage the Untouchable with Dong Zhou. The nastier your metagame becomes, the more powerful Dong Zhou becomes. He's great in tons of places and shells. Dong Zhou for the memories!

And there we are! I hope that you enjoyed this trip down these various starter blocks. Was there anything in here that triggered your deck-building radar? Any cards you want to give a spin or add to your next Cube?