I love meta-humor. I enjoy self-referential meta-comments. If I were a comedian, I would refer to how well I was doing during any given show, with comments like, "Well at least I'm doing better that last night over in XXXX!" I have always found such comments to be funny and interesting. Did you have a joke that bombed? Mention it. Use it throughout the show. A joke about jokes. It's funny on another level, and I enjoy that.

Having a Top Ten List about cards that have never been on my Top Ten List feels appropriate. None of these cards were in my Top Ten series on the ten two-color combinations like Top Ten Cards. They won't be on my Top Ten Cards from Set X articles. None of my Top Ten X Cards of All Time, such a Planeswalkers or equipment. Not my "Top Ten Multiplayer Cards" from Year XXX series. Nothing.

Here's how I created this list -

I created a list of the Top Ten Cards of All Time. I veto'd anything that I could remember making the spot in one of my lists, such as Volrath's Stronghold in my Top Ten Utility Lands of all time and such. In every case, today's cards are major casual and multiplayer powerhouses that slipped through the various articles down through the years. Many of them dominated a Constructed format somewhere. Ready?

10. Winding Canyons

Ah yes, Winding Canyons. I like that we are beginning this list with something that echoes the top card. (Insert foreshadowing music here). Winding Canyons is a great card for everyone who plays this awesome game! The good part about the Canyons is that it's an "until end of turn" effect instead of one that just works on the next creature spell you play, such as Scout's Warning. Everyone who has played multiplayer knows that flash is a great ability as it gives you options. It forces people to count the cards in your hand as threats. Winding Canyons is awesome! And thus the list begins...

9. Stuffy Doll

Who likes 0/1s with indestructible that are perfect blockers? I do, thanks for asking! I enjoy a card like Stuffy Doll. It works with a ton of effects to deal damage to someone's face. Any damage that is dealt to a dork can be done ad-hoc to your worst opponent instead. I love casting Magmaquake for 11 when I control a Stuffy Doll! I also enjoy something like Inferno that deals 6 to everyone and everything thing, and someone is taking 12. It also loves damage doubling effects like Furnace of Rath. You deal double damage to the Stuffy Doll, and then it deals double that damage to your opponent's face. (If you tap it to damage itself, someone takes 4 damage!) So many combos! This is a perfect trick for many decks, builds, and board situations. Why aren't you playing it more? Don't you adore Stuffy Doll as well?

8. Swords to Plowshares // Path to Exile

If you like exiling annoying stuff in order to permanently answer something and you want to do so cheaply, then this duo is certainly on your radar. And it would have been for a loooong time! These two work so well that they are players in every format in which they are legal. Modern? Legacy? Vintage? Commander? Ice Age Block Constructed? Abe's Casual Pick-up Game? They are everywhere! That's how godlike they are. You know it; you love it!

Next?

7. Citanul Flute

Next is an engine you may have forgotten about or never knew about. This is Citanul Flute, which has been printed precisely twice - in Urza's Saga and Tenth Edition. On both occasions, this was a great card that was really strong, and I still enjoy it. But I think an entire MTG generation has gone by without really paying it the due is deserves. The Flute is very strong as it's a recursive creature tutor that gets a dork over and over again. The cost to tap and use can be zero if you want to get a free dork like Ornithopter or something so there is always an option to fetch. It's perfectly flexible, perfectly useful, and perfectly suited for the card advantage needs of Commander. I think it's time a for a little Magic Flute.

6. Nevinyrral's Disk

Ok. Disk on! In the early days of Magic, this was arguably the most played card. It was used in tons of decks as mass removal and an ultimate answer. It's still great! It has a lot of value even today, and you can still hold up a table from doing anything.

My favorite Disk is this foreign black bordered one:

Way back in 2002, a local store had some foreign language expansion booster packs they were trying to get rid of and they weren't popular in that day, domestically. One of my friends and myself divided the packs and cracked them. There was also a single core-set starter pack that I secured and cracked. In it was this card, and that card is still, to this day, in Abe's Deck of Happiness and Joy, my banner multiplayer deck! It's never coming out - it's just too good of a card!

5. Genesis

Genesis is awesome. My favorite thing about Genesis is that, barring a counterspell like Dissipate that is a permanent exiling answer, a traditional counter deck cannot answer Genesis. Did you counter it? Okay! I'll just recur it and cast it again! Did you counter another critter? Okay! I'll recur it and cast it again! Did you counter Genesis? Okay, I can recur something better and cast it again! I'll eventually outdraw and outlast your counters! Just by including and using Genesis, you put pressure on a lot of decks. Genesis is a force of recursive, hard-to-answer fun at your kitchen table!

4. Umezawa's Jitte

This piece of equipment was so good it broke Standard. It's been banned in Modern. I named it my 74th best card for multiplayer of all time. The Jitte is a great card with a strong cachet at the kitchen table, just as much as the tournament one. You can toss counters on it easily, and then produce life, kill critters, and pump your dork up for some game-winning face-smashery. The Jitte is just a perfect card for your Magic gaming nights. But I just haven't paused to discuss it in one of my Top Tens to talk about it until now.

So, I'm talking about it! Play Jitte? Enjoy Jitte!

3. Consecrated Sphinx

How did I miss arguably one of the strongest cards in the New Era of Commander and Multiplayer? I have no idea! But this is clearly a powerful presence at any multiplayer table where card advantage matters. The one negative I have about this card is that it draws a massive amount of heat, arguably the most of any card on this list. And it's hard to see success as a result. But the Consecrated Sphinx, if resolved, will singlehandedly end one of the biggest challenges of playing a multiplayer game - being outdrawn by your opponents. In a game where you are playing against three people you are naturally being outdrawn 3:1 every round. With the Sphinx? Now you are outdrawing them 3:7. That's a big swing in your direction, and the more they draw to keep up, the more distance you gain.

2. Sol Ring

I have this beat up and torn up Sol Ring from Alpha that still gets me mad props when I drop it at the kitchen table. There was a time back before the set was legal in tournaments due to its altered back that these cards were incredibly cheap. While I was in college, I picked up a bunch of cheap, expensive, and often beat up Alpha cards from the local card store that were priced to sell for a few dollars total. It includes cards that I loved like Copy Artifact as well as Sol Ring and some others. I have never sold or traded any of them, because that was cool!

Let me see if I can find you my Sol Ring and take a picture for you:

Here you go! It's very beat up! Let me see if I can find some other cards for you that I picked up during the ban of Alpha.

Here's my Jayemdae Tome and Jade Statue. Again, picking these up early on was fine. They weren't powerhouses of the game any longer. I secured them for very little money, as that was what they were worth. Because it wasn't legal at the time for tournaments, Alpha was considered a mere curiosity and its prices were similarly low. I didn't think anyone would really mind that much for casual games, so I picked some up for cheap, because I was a poor college student in my first and second year of college. I didn't have money for anything more!

I even picked up two banned cards because of how cheap banned and Alpha cards were as they were doubly hit from getting played.

Aren't they pretty? I think so! We only had one format, the format that would later be called Vintage. If a card was banned here, then it was banned everywhere. Time Vault was the first card banned for power reasons in early 1994. I started college in Fall of 1995 at WVU, and Chaos Orb was banned right around then, so when I went to pick up cards or gaming books at my local store there in Morgantown, WV, Chaos Orb was also suitably priced as it was banned and was pretty much a non-starter anywhere else as well, just like ante cards and Time Vault.

So, they were cheap.

Shoot, these five cards, beat up and used heavily, would still be worth around $9000 today, and I had picked up around 15-20 cards over a year from the set as I had money here and there for cards I liked.

Anyways, Sol Ring is a strong card and defines Commander. You should play it lots. There wasn't really much I could say about Sol Ring that you wouldn't already know, so I figured I'd give you a fun story and some pictures instead!

1. Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir

Despite the fact that I named Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir the 15th best card for multiplayer that was ever printed, and the 2nd best creature, I've never actually included him on one of my Top Ten lists. How is that possible? Where did I go wrong? I am sorry Teferi!

So today is my penance for Teferi!

Teferi is awesome. He has flash!

Teferi is awesome. He gives your creatures flash!

Teferi is awesome. Your foes can't counter your stuff (because their instants are played at sorcery speed)!

Teferi is awesome. No one is casting crap on your turn!

Teferi is awesome. Only you can mess around on other peoples' turns!

How awesome is Teferi? QUITE AWESOME

(please forgive me Teferi).

And there we go! I hope that you enjoyed this little trek through all things unheralded by myself in a previous Top Ten List. Did you see anything in here you liked? Anything you wanted to add to your decks? Thanks for reading!