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Every year, some of the most exciting cards printed across numerous sets are the Gold - or Multicolored - cards. Thanks to requiring multiple colors at once, they're often considerably stronger. As such, these cards offer players opportunities to do powerful and interesting things that might not be so possible with just a mono-colored card. Commanders, competitive powerhouses, and more are bound to show up in a category like this, so as 2024 winds down, I'd like to look back and cover my picks for the top five Gold cards of the year.
Ready? Let's jump right on in!
Few cards this year proved as contentious as Voja, Jaws of the Conclave. Commander players everywhere either loved the card or loathed it with very little middle ground in between. The reason for this is just how much the card's ability snowballs but also how powerful the ward was on the card. In fact, the ward aspect was such a major talking point, it compelled Magic senior game designer Gavin Verhey to put out a video discussing ward as a mechanic and how debatably problematic it's become. Love it or hate it, Voja is absolutely one of the most potent commander cards of the year, currently ranked 58 on EDHREC.com's top commanders list, and has certainly been one of the most heavily discussed in the process.
It seems almost funny to think about now, but for a large chunk of the first half of the year, many players saw Leyline of the Guildpact to be such a problem in Modern they wanted it banned. The card enabled tremendous starts from Domain decks thanks to the way the card easily paired with the likes of Scion of Draco. This not only created an incredibly hard to deal with threat, but also buffed all your other creatures in the process. To prove just how strong it was, grinders began shoving the package into just about any deck you could think of until Modern Horizons 3 came around. Oh, yeah, and it also single-handedly reinvigorated Nykthos Ramp (aka Mono-Green Devotion) in Pioneer following the ban of Karn, the Great Creator as well.
3. Phlage, Titan of Fire's Fury
Phlage kind of took everyone a little bit by surprise. Basically everyone knew how good Uro, Titan of Nature's Wrath and Kroxa, Titan of Death's Hunger were, so it stood to reason that this would be decent as well. Many perceived it to be tamer, though, particularly as Lightning Helix wasn't as much of a player in the Modern meta these days outside of Boros Burn. Once Modern Horizons 3 released and got into players' hands, though, it was clear just how strong the card was.
Boros Energy, Mardu Energy, and Jeskai Energy all rose as some of the new format's best decks, with each playing somewhat long and grindy games. As a result, this usually filled up the graveyard enough that it was almost trivial to get Phlage back out of your graveyard. It also didn't take players long to realize that the newly printed Arena of Glory pushed Phlage even further, allowing you to give it haste and strike for major damage the same turn it comes into play. This led to Phlage being a monster of the new Modern meta game, bringing with it so much raw power that many players considered it a strong contender for a ban in the near future.
2. Psychic Frog
When Psychic Frog was first previewed at MagicCon Chicago, players thought it was more cute than anything serious. This was mainly because it was clearly a nod to Psychatog, but it was notably different in that you couldn't pump this card up by dumping your graveyard into it as well as discarding. Turns out, though, that Psychic Frog was actually the real deal and was extremely powerful.
The ol' Doctor Teeth from Odyssey was a powerful card, to be sure, but its buffs were only temporary. Psychic Frog, on the other hand, got permanent +1/+1 counters, meaning it was entirely possible to just go all-in on the card and get there without anything else. Couple this with the access to flying, the card draw, and synergy with cards like Murktide Regent, Abhorrent Oculus, and Reanimate and you've got one of the most powerful cards of the year. It proved so good, it was just recently banned in Legacy and is often seen as on the watchlist for Modern as well.
It's really hard to imagine anything else coming close to the top spot for this particular list. Love it or hate it, Nadu, Winged Wisdom dominated both discussions and games of Magic in virtually any format you played it in. It was banned relatively swiftly in both Modern and in Commander not only as a result of how dominant the Nadu deck was, but also because of how miserable its play patterns were. The card is also a house in Legacy, with several Legacy players calling for it to be banned there for much the same reasons as it was banned in the other formats. It's even proven strong in Vintage Cube on MTGO, which is how you know just how busted it truly is. Nadu is the number one Gold card of the year by a country mile, for better or worse.
Paige Smith
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