Hello folks! I hope your day is going well!

I have been playing this game for my entire adult life, since I was 17 back in 1995. I've played a lot. If you assume that I have played an average of 20 games/week, (including Arena, Apprentice, MTGO, etc.) then I have played roughly 24,960 games! Like I said before, that's a lot of games!

During that time, my favorite two types of Magic that I prefer are any form of Limited, and casual multiplayer kitchen table games. I have had runs in tournament Constructed games where I would do well, but that was not to be. Back when we had DCI ratings, my Limited one would vary, but be in the high 1700s typically. I still carry my DCI card in my wallet from the mid-90s.

The game has changed. We've had an epic number of cards, and the latest generation of players have been unlikely to crack and draft cards like Living Airship, Rootwater Alligator, Waterfront Bouncer, or Sparksmith. They probably don't even know about those cards, and likely, you either forgot about them or never knew either. As I mentioned last week, we are almost at 20,0000 unique cards. No game has that many unique pieces. The only way I suspect a new player can play the game is by ignoring older cards that aren't immediately relevant.

Casual multiple has morphed from 60 card decks, or things like Emperor, Secret Alliances, and Five Color to "Everyone plays Commander." I think the main appeal of that is since there are so many different cards to keep track of, that's it's just easier and simpler to have one unifying format for casual play. It's satisficing at its most obvious.

Satisficing is the decision-making process where, bombarded with options, we only choose something that works rather than investing the time to find the best option. For example, suppose I want to order lunch today from DoorDash. Let me pull up my app. There are 183 restaurants that deliver on DoorDash to my work address for lunch. (I work at UMBC's campus in Baltimore County) I could look at all 183 menus, see what's available, and then order what I want the most and thus make the best choice. Or I could grab one or two menus from places I like, and then just order the first thing I come across that works, and then I move on. My decision to choose something that's fine rather than a full-on cost benefit analysis of every lunch option on DoorDash is satisficing in action. As we have almost 20k cards in print, we do the same thing in our casual kitchen tables formats. (You can read more about Satisficing here. I've also written about Satisficing in Magic too, I also discuss it to a lesser degree here).

What I want to do today is to give you ten cards that used to be incredibly powerful in multiplayer but fell out of favor. That's unfortunate because they are still incredibly good for school. Let's take a look.

Now let me show you the direction I am going with Bribery. Bribery was amazing in older multiplayer and casual formats as you could find your foe's best dork and toss onto the battlefield under your control. If you need a perfect answer, Bribery has you covered. If you need a perfect question, Bribery also has your covered too. Most players of Commander will know that Bribery remains played. It's not forgotten; it's a good example of an old school card that remains new school.

Ready?

I hope so!

Honorable Mention - Slow Motion

Take another look at this card, and you may see why it's here. First, note that it's like Rancor and a few other auras out there. You can bring it back any time it heads to the graveyard from the battlefield. That's useful. Secondly, note that it will force your foe to spend a Sol Ring amount of mana to keep their enchanted dork alive, which is useful. They may not want to, and may just want to kill it, but if they have something else you can enchant, they aren't likely to do so. They'll just grab a pair of lands, set them aside, and then never use them for anything else. It's very powerful as basically two Stone Rain effects or one Shatter for a Sol Ring for Blue in one card. The fact it can come back and be use on other players too is really strong. In today's Commander's fast, tempo-tastic environment, it's better than ever before.

10. Knowledge Exploitation

Take a look at this fun sorcery! This is Blue's Bribery/Acquire effect for a sorcery or instant. It lets you go through a foe's deck and grab an amazing card for most situations. I love to use this for a Wrath of God or Damnation effect to clear out the board. Even if you can't grab a game-changing sorcery or instant, there's always a nice card drawing one that'll net you a passel of cards instead. But I find it best to give me non-Blue effects that I want, like mass mana ramping. The seven-mana cost drops it down to the last spot in my countdown, although you could cast it earlier off a Prowl if able. There are 23 legendary Rogues in the game, 7 of which are Blue, and many of those are very good as a leader, like Sygg, River Cutthroat, Edric, Spymaster of Trest, and Tetsuko Umezawa, Fugitive. That last one is a 2-drop that's unblockable, cough cough.

This card doesn't suck!

9. Memory Jar

When I tell you that Memory Jar is in 3,442 decks over at EDHRECcom, would you consider that high or low? About right?

What do these cards have in common?

• Jet Medallion and the rest of the cycle.
• Ornithopter
• Throne of the God Pharaoh
• Bane of Bela Ged
• Endbringer

All five of these are colorless cards that are included in more decks than Memory Jar. I don't get it. Jar is an awesome, mass, card drawing ability. For context, 288,836 decks are registered as of this article. Since it's legal in them all, why isn't it in more decks? No idea.

The only reason it hits back here is that some of you are still running it! It's better than so many cards that get played tons more, and I just don't get it!

8. Loxodon Hierarch

4/4 for four mana, with two pertinent abilities. It's enters-the-battlefield ability to gain life is great and the sacrifice to save the team really helps out a lot in traditional Selesnya strategies. When you go wide, you risk dying to mass removal like Day of Judgment. Well no worries, you can save the team, make some life, and beat on-curve. There is no reason not to do so!

7. Tradewind Rider

How are there fewer than 200 of these in decks registered on EDHREC.com? How come it's been forever since I've run into one in real life not being played by, well, me? This is a very strong card. It doesn't require you to invest any mana, just tap some dorks. You can tap and then keep on doing things. You can bounce lands too, and thus put a brake on someone who has a nasty land out there. It's also great to bounce something key of your own to save it from targeted removal or to bounce an attacker that dared to look your way (or you can bounce a chump blocker if you cannot target the attacker) or just to reuse an enters-the-battlefield trigger. You can reset it's +1/+1 counters or remove a negative aura from it. It's so awesome! And it's so much better in today's faster Spikier Commander metagame.

6. Spirit of the Night

Now, before I talk about my #6 choice for this article, whenever I see this card or its name in print, I sing it to the tune of "Rhythm of the Night" by Corona. I have her single with a ton of remixes. This is the Spirit of the Night. The Night. Whoa oh. The Spirit of the Night. This is the Spirit of the Niiiiiiiiiiiight.

Anyways, let's review EDHREC.com, because wow. 235 decks. That's it. Watchwolf is in more decks! That's not even popular with old schoolers. Wow.

Let's review why it's really good! It has haste! It first strikes! It flies and tramples! It's as a protection from Black. In a very real way, it's an early Akroma, Angel of Wrath. Both have a similar powerful slate of abilities, protections and cost three of their respective color. Now, Spirit of the Night has 1 fewer toughness, and costs another mana, but it's in the perfect color to cheat it out (cough, reanimation cough). You could easily have it out on turn four with a Zombify or earlier with other effects. There are many other ways to recur it! Note that the protection from Black is here in order to keep it from being reanimated, as reanimation during this day was aura based with cards like Animate Dead and Necromancy. But modern reanimation only targets the card in the graveyard. The fact that this bad boy has that chain of abilities and yet gets little play confuzzles me. (I made up that word as a portmanteau of confuses and puzzles. That's how off this is. I need to make up a word to show you!).

Oh, and as a total, fyi, I also always have the song "Zoot Suit Riot" whenever I see or cast or use Tradewind Rider.

5. Darksteel Colossus

There was a time when Darksteel Colossus and Akroma, Angel of Wrath were so heavily played at the kitchen table, particularly in multiplayer, that I called them the Fundamental Enemies of Multiplayer as far back as 2008 for you and gave you ways to answer them. You had to have an answer that could pop off ether one, or else you were dying.

Now I understand that for Commander where you have 40 life and the fact that it's brother Blightsteel Colossus can kill in one hit with its infect brake its usefulness. I get that! But still!

There are a massive number of ways to fetch it out from your library to the battlefield for free or to drop it from your hand onto the battlefield!

Here are a few:

There are tons of ways to interact with artifacts or creatures that are running around. And yet, we have such a small number of Darksteel's being run. And that folks? That's pretty sad to me. An 11/11 trample, indestructible monster is something you can toss at people's faces and feel pretty save with. It has strong value at the kitchen table.

4. Thada Adel, Acquisitor

I haven't run into someone (else) playing her in years. After she was printed around 10 years ago or so, she was played a lot in multiplayer formats and dominated the kitchen table for a few years. Today? Not really. That's...just...wow. All right, well, for those who forgot, here she is!

What does she do?

1. Her creature types both matter. As you saw above, Rogues are cool with their Prowl and other places. Merfolk were one of the first two supported tribes in the game going back to the first set's Lord of Atlantis, and are beloved the world around.
2. She's cheap at three mana for a 2/2. The fact that she can be dropped early enough to matter is useful.
3. She's slippery. As long as your chosen target has Islands, she can slip through the channels. You can run effects to ensure they have Islands, like Spreading Seas, or you could add in other effects like Rogue's Passage for her to get in a hit.
4. Once she hits a player, she can fetch out an artifact for you to cast. Now you still have to play it. Sure. But you can easily grab a Sol Ring, Solemn Simulacrum (note she's a 3-drop and thus could attack on the turn you would be able to cast the Simulacrum), Mana Crypt, Lighting Greaves, Swiftfoot Boots, and many other choices. And since she's getting them early enough to matter, mana rocks have value.

Thada Adel, Acquisitor doesn't suck. Cast her, live by her, and love her.

3. Tortured Existence

This common is so fun! It dominated casual tables during its day. It lets you discard a fat dork for a cheap one early in the game. It lets you discard a cheap dork for a fat dork later in the game. You can discard a creature to get a valuable enters-the-battlefield trigger out of your graveyard and into your hand - like Solemn Simulacrum or Nekrataal. You can rearrange your graveyard's creature order for older cards like Ashen Ghoul that care. If you don't like a creature you drew, you can exchange it for one that cycles, and then cycle to draw another card. You can toss a dork that self-recurs into your graveyard like Bloodghast for something that won't. You can toss a key reanimation target to the bin for coming back. It's has so much value!

My final duet does something very, very powerful, but have a cost that some casual players won't be super happy with.

2. Holistic Wisdom

Holistic Wisdom is a cheap enchantment you can drop early. For two colorless mana, you can turn any card in your hand into a Regrowth with just two exceptions - the card you use is exiled, and it must share a type with the card you want. However, as most decks have themes of various sorts like artifact or lands or instants/sorceries matter, this plays into them. Something in your hand like an artifact creature or a land creature like Dryad Arbor can be exiled to bring back multiple options. Again, the self-exile may not make folks happy, sure. But the reliable, cheap, recursive engine will be enough to push you over the top. In any environment where you only have a copy each of your cards, you can bring back your best stuff over and over again with this.

1. Phyrexian Portal

The only thing that keeps people from running this card ad nauseam is the fact that you typically exile around 4-5 cards each iteration. But for the ability to Impulse down 5 cards each time. To do so as many times as you have three colorless mana? This thing is strong in formats with larger decks. This card is better in modern Commander where Spikes are trying to win the game very quickly. A longer grindier game might care more about exiling a few cards from their library, but not the rest of us.

And there we are! Anything in here inspire you? Anything you either forgot about or never knew existed? Great! Let me know what you thought of the article.