Coming hot off the heels of one of the best Core Sets of all time comes one that's fairly middle of the road. Magic 2014 came out and landed with a bit of a thud, featuring only a handful of notable chase cards and the controversial return of slivers to the game. The Limited format wasn't very well liked and there were a lot of cards that just didn't feel all that exciting - even for a Core Set. Despite this, the set brought with it a whole host of interesting new mythics - for better or worse - and today we're going to be talking all about them and ranking them all!

Ready? Let's dive in and get to ranking!

Number Fifteen

This is one of those times where I think time may have been a little kind to this card, as it's not quite as bulky of a mythic as it once was. However, there's no denying that Devout Invocation was absolutely lambasted when it came out, with many players comparing it to the famously bad Archangel's Light. It's too expensive on its face and requires utilizing too many creatures already on the board to take advantage of it.

Number Fourteen

Commander players love a good tutor effect, so getting three on one card seems pretty great, right? Well, it's not that great when it basically costs 10 mana to get the first card. That's far too high even taking colorless activation into account here, and made it completely undesirable even though the core effect was something people wanted. The artwork was also considered to be rather poor by many players at the time, which didn't help its reception all that much.

Number Thirteen

Everyone immediately loved Shadowborn Apostle and sought to find outlandish things that you could do with it. It just so happened that in Magic 2014, the one thing you could do was Shadowborn Demon. It was tremendously unappealing and despite being a flavor win feels like such a letdown when you have so many other cool demonic options at your disposal. To this day, players continue to adore the Apostle, but no one remembers this Demon.

Number Twelve

Scourge of Valkas was, for a while, one of those cards that kept getting reprinted with players not being sure why. Dragons prove fairly popular, but a one-shot burn hit on a big dragon isn't exactly exciting. The card saw basically zero Standard play and despite being a respectable Commander card for dragon typal decks, it's just not all that great for what you get out of it.

Number Eleven

Oh look, this Jace is back...again. For a third time. There may have been decent hype behind this card when it first came out, but by now, players were savvy to the fact that it wasn't that good. The fact that it was the third printing of this Jace made people groan as well, as players were hoping to see something new - such as how Chandra got a fantastic new card over the middling Chandra, the Firebrand we'd gotten previously.

Number Ten

Windreader Sphinx isn't exactly a great card. It's too expensive and doesn't necessarily do a ton on its own. When it works, though, it dominates the game in tremendous fashion. It's a great casual card and even had a small stint in Standard thanks to a dedicated flyers deck existing when it was reprinted in Core Set 2019. It may be bulk, but this is good as the bulk rares/mythics get.

Number Nine

This iteration of Garruk had plenty of general appeal, but had a number of issues as well compared to previous versions. The big showstopper effect was the ability to put any Green creature onto the battlefield for free. That sounds awesome - especially when you can slam a card like Progenitus - but in many cases it's somewhat win-more as instead of paying the six mana for Garruk you could probably just play the creature outright. There are still more additional value shots, like how you can pull more creatures from your deck, but it's not as impactful as Garruk Wildspeaker or Garruk, Primal Hunter were.

Number Eight

Liliana of the Dark Realms returns once again for a second outing and still largely ends up performing the same functions. While today she's a pricey Commander staple for Black decks, at the time she was more of a neat inclusion for those decks. She didn't command too high of a price tag and she didn't see too much play in Standard barring some fringe inclusions in Mono-Black Devotion lists of the era. Time has been kind to this version of Liliana, but at the time she was just okay.

Number Seven

There's not too much to say about Ajani, Caller of the Pride that I didn't say in my Magic 2013 rankings. The card was great at benefitting aggressive creature decks and continued to do so with this printing. It wasn't quite as much of a chase mythic on its second outing, but still was a potent role player that was great in its era.

Number Six

At the time, Darksteel Forge was really getting up there in price and had tremendous demand on the back of Commander's recent growth at the time. This was particularly notable in an era with minimal reprints (remember Modern Masters 2013 had only just been released) so no one knew when they could expect a reprint. Then, with Magic 2014, Wizards decided to keyword Indestructible and wanted to add a few cards with it to this set to highlight that. Enter Darksteel Forge, which was a huge reprint in this set. It saw no Constructed play, no Limited play, and was immediately one of the chase cards of the set, and was extremely welcomed by many players.

Number Five

I'm swallowing my pride for this one and conceding to the immense popularity of this card. I talk a lot about how I dislike most hydras and this is basically the king of hydras I don't like. For a long time this was the major chase card out of the set, despite the fact that it's little more than a super vanilla creature. If you can give it some evasion, it's absolutely going to take people out, which is why it's so appealing to many casual players and commands an $11 price tag despite multiple reprints. I've never understood the appeal myself, but plenty of players adore it, and that alone is worth a solid placement here.

Number Four

Liliana Vess was always a cool Commander card, but mostly in the sense that it allowed you to usually get two instances of Vampiric Tutor out of it. Most people didn't even bother trying for that ultimate (unless you were on Doubling Season) despite the impossible allure of it. Then Wizards did something tremendously surprising and just printed that ultimate as an actual spell. The card immediately had a wow factor among Commander players, but wasn't worth a lot for many years. As the format grew, though, its popularity absolutely snowballed, making it a major player in Magic's premier casual format.

Number Three

While Rise of the Dark Realms had a slow rise to being a popular staple as it is today, Primeval Bounty was somewhat the opposite. It came out of the gate swinging, representing everything just about any Magic player wanted to do. The card rewarded you for playing all kinds of cards, and while it had clear and immediate Commander appeal, it even made a small showing in Standard as well. Its popularity has gone down quite a bit with time, but when it first showed up, its wow factor was unmatched.

Number Two

Up until now, Chandra was a punching bag and a joke. Every one of her cards was pretty awful, despite the clear appeal her character design brought with it. Here, Wizards sought to change that by not only making Chandra the face of Magic 2014, but also making her have a truly awesome card. Chandra, Pyromaster is little more than a bulk mythic now, but at the time she was an absolute powerhouse in Standard and it was unbelievably refreshing to see her get an extremely playable planeswalker card at long last.

Number One

Despite the fact that Chandra was the face of the set and had one heck of a showing, there's one card that clearly surpassed it. Archangel of Thune quickly became an absolute house in both Commander decks and in Modern thanks to the fact that you could combo it with Spike Feeder. Utilizing this combo would both grant you infinite life as well as infinite +1/+1 counters distributed among your creatures, ensuring easy wins on multiple fronts. While its long-term legacy was mainly in Modern, it also saw modest Standard play as well, making it a veritable all-star of the game and a clear winner among mythics in this set.

Paige Smith

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