Hello folks and welcome to all things exporting with Dinosaurs and Pirates. As always, we have a blaster- full of new cards from the latest set just hitting full spoilerage, and that gives us all time to sit and be with the cards. Be with the full spoiler. Give it time to breathe. Come back. See how the cards work in tandem. See the potential of those cards in given areas.

Luckily, in casual Magic , we usually don’t need a bunch of play-testing for our cards to understand just how good they are. They are what you think they are. Here let me give you a quick example:

This is Belligerent Brontodon

No it’s not making my list. But we already know how to gauge the “deals damage equal to its toughness” ability already. We have it in cards like Assault Formation and Doran, the Siege Tower. So, I know how good it will be already. We can all pretty easily predict just how Belligerent Brontodon will play at your next Commander night.

And that brings me to today’s article. Given how many cards we are about to add to our decks, what are the best? Which ones are going to punch above their weight?

What are the Top Ten cards in multiplayer and Commander from Ixalan?

10. Siren Stormtamer

Siren Stormtamer is great and I think other writers are missing just how good this will be in their set reviews. This is almost a perfect 1-drop for Blue for formats like Commander and multiplayer. Why? Well, on the first turn, you can drop it, and flying lets you swing. Now, as long as you keep a Blue mana open, people are going to think twice about targeting your stuff. They still might and trade that Swords to Plowshares for sacrificing your Siren Stormtamer, but as a general rule, they will either hold off until it’s too late, or they will just send it elsewhere.

Do you know how good of a 1-drop a 1-power deathtouch creature can be? You’ll hold back better stuff from attacking and invariably trade it with a better creature? Well the Siren Stormtamer is the Typhoid Rats of removal. People aren’t generally running poorer cards in Commander or multiplayer, so it’s value increases there immensely. I can see this is multiple shells moving forward.

9. Thaumatic Compass

On the initial play, Thaumatic Compass is a cheaper-to-play Journeyer's Kite. Drop it on turn two, and then start using it the next turn to search up some basic lands into your hand. You can guarantee that you’ll get to seven lands in time to transform it. And later, if you draw it after you have a lot of lands, you can still cast it, use it for one land, and then transform at the end of your turn and you still gained a card from it. And then, post-flip, the Compass becomes this cool variant of Maze of Ith that can tap for a mana as well as pull back an opposing attacking creature and untap it. Typically, you’ll use that defensively when you are attacked, but you could pull back something that one opponent is doing to another. I’ve used Maze of Ith in the past to keep one player from dying to Commander Damage from another to keep them in the game, as one example. Note that Spires of Orazca actually removes it from combat, rather than preventing damage, so it works better defensively, and you won’t have to worry about dying to Guiltfeeder or similar cards.

8. Carnage Tyrant

Sometimes you don’t need to be tricky. Sometimes you don’t need to frumping around the table. Sometimes you don’t need to play a bunch of off-putting combos. Sometimes you just need to punch face. At the end of the day, Carnage Tyrant is going to punch face about as well as any Green creature will. Six mana for a 7/6 creature? Check. And Blue ain’t countering it? Check. And Red, White, and Black aren’t burning, exiling, or destroying it? Check. And Blue isn’t stealing it or tapping it or anything weird? Check. So the only way to deal with it is either mass removal or in the combat phase? Check. And when someone tries to block it with Fog Bank or something small and indestructible like Stuffy Doll, then it has trample, to force the face-smashing. The combination of uncounterable, untargetable, and trample on a 7/6 for 6 mana body makes this one of the best game-ending threats Green has, and it’s a great addition to your team. Smash away my friends, smash away!

7. Hostage Taker

For a moment ,I want you to ignore the creature part of this card. Black and Blue’s options when dealing with artifacts is limited. Blue can counter, bounce, or steal. Black can . . .  sacrifice something to Phyrexian Tribute? Clearly, we don’t have a lot of wiggle room here. And the Hostage Taker steps in and gives you one. On arrival on the battlefield, you can run this out there, and then yank their artifact. And it’s not coming back until you answer the Pirate, much like a Banisher Priest or Faceless Butcher. And if you have the mana and the desire, you can cast the artifact yourself before they can answer your Taker of Hostages and then get the artifact on your side, permanently. And then you can bounce it or flicker it or something to get it again if you want to keep stealing artifacts permanently. And then remember how I mentioned before to ignore the creature part for a minute? Now imagine how good it is when you add that all together!

6. Makeshift Munitions

Most long-term readers of my column will know of the love affair I have for one Goblin Bombardment. It’s one of my favorite cards of all time, and I use it in countless builds down through the ages. Makeshift Munitions is clearly a take on that card, with the Bombardment artwork, and a Goblin loading the cannon. It’s also a solid variant on the old classic. In exchange for being able to sacrifice artifacts in addition to creatures, you have to spend a mana to sacrifice it. It’s more versatile and yet less abusable. But for kitchen table gaming, the advantages will usually outweigh the disadvantages save for when you wanted to be abusable anyway. So welcome a great new tool to harness at your next battle.

5. Deadeye Quartermaster

Welcome aboard Ixalan Enthusiasts! We’ll give you a tour of the sea, spit-spot, but before we do, we’ll need to get a Vehicle or piece of Equipment for your pleasure. This tethers a powerful pro-artifact theme to a creature, and we’ve all seen just how powerful Trinket Mage is, and that can only tutor for the cheapest possible artifacts. But Vehicles and Equipment are strong and powerful adjuncts to a lot of decks, like Commander. And like our good Trinket Mage, the sheer amount of great options and uses in color is staggering. And like Trinket Mage, it gets Skullclamp. ‘Nuff said!

4. Regisaur Alpha

Don’t sleep on the fact that you are investing seven mana into seven power of creatures, three of which has haste and trample. And unlike something like Shivan Wurm, Regisaur Alpha has no disadvantage at all to mark it. I also works well with blinking, enters the battlefield effects, reanimation, and a lot more. And that’s a lot of value before you add it into Dinosaur deck . . . 

3. Huatli, Warrior Poet

Sometimes, a new Planeswalker debuts and you have to really look at it a few times to make sense of what is going on here. What’s going on? Is this thing going to work? Now, the problems that Huatli brings to the table suggest that anyone looking to run her in Standard will likely be disappointed. Five mana for a three loyalty Planeswalker? And all you are getting is some life gaining, token-making, or some light damage-dealing? And she is going to drop in financial value as a result. But here, in our town? Let’s take a closer look, and let’s begin with the best ability she has . . . 

0 — Make a 3/3 token with trample every turn. Now there are a number of Planeswalkers that make tokens each turn, some for 0 and some for + that can be used over and over again. But hers is one of the best. Right there, she’s worth the price of admission.

Her next best ability?

+2 — Gain life. Now even if you run this in a creature-light deck, you can get life equal to your tokens’ power, so that’s three life right there. Are you playing Commander? Most Commanders have high powers as they are often oriented to heading into the red zone, so you can rely on having that as well, and then more. Don’t sleep this life-gain stapled to a +2 ability.

-X — Her ultimate can be used immediately to clear out a few smaller creatures or to keep larger ones from blocking. Either mode really works well for Huatli. The adjunct removal tethered to cannot-block is a cool combo. She should be good in the red zone as a valuable tool in case it’s needed.

The result is a flexible pocket-knife of removal, keeping someone blocking, making token creatures, and gaining life. She’s good!

2. Revel in Riches

Could this be the easiest alternate win condition ever printed? There are so many cards that work with it. Damnation? Clear the board and win? A counter spell like Spell Swindle:

Is just one of many examples. There are so many friendly cards that you’ll want to wield anyway that you’ll be in a good place moving forward with the treasure making. And that’s despite things like Doubling Season or mass removal spells to give you a ton of treasure. It just seems like Revel in Riches is likely to be the easiest of the alternate winning condition.

1. Growing Rites of Itlimoc

In case you were hiding in a bush, they have a card which is, for all intents and purposes, Gaea's Cradle as a transform that has a very easy-transform trigger of, “Well, do you have at least four creatures to abuse with the Cradle?” It doesn’t even wait until your upkeep, you can get the flip right now at the end of your turn and begin the abusing. You can also draw a creature with its ETB trigger as well, so there is a lot to recommend here. I simply cannot imagine a stronger card being printed for casual tables in 2017, let alone in this set.

And there we go! Another dosage of awesome cards for the kitchen table! What are you hoping to crack open? What did you think of my list and where did I go wrong? What do you think is the best card and do you agree with my pick?

And as always, thanks for reading!