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I haven't written many top 10 lists, but I've been meaning to do it more often. Today in place of my usual look back at the past year, I'm going to share a baker's dozen of my top cards from 2024.
It's been quite a year. I've added a second game store to my week of EDH, along with my usual online Thursday night games. Moving one of my days of gaming to a new store has been a fantastic experience and I've really enjoyed it. I've had a bit of a challenge adjusting in power levels, but I've also had plenty of days of getting my butt kicked at both stores, along with my fair share of success.
I've struggled a bit with my ability to stay excited about Magic and EDH in the past year, but I've been playing for a long time now. The chance to play with a whole new set of awesome people has been one of the highlights of the year for sure.
As for Magic cards, they are the cobblestones of the old road we've been traveling for the past year, and it's worth looking back at some of our favorites.
By the Numbers
It would be easy to just look at the top cards by dollar value, but would that really represent our journey through the year, much less the year in EDH?
A quick query on Scryfall showed me the following cards first printed in 2024.
Top 10 by USD in Scryfall (12/26/2024)
- Delney, Streetwise Lookout
- Bloodthirsty Conqueror
- Wolverine, Best There Is
- Rev, Tithe Extractor
- Vaultborn Tyrant
- Ocelot Pride
- Captain America, First Avenger
- Bristly Bill, Spine Sower
- Tamiyo, Inquisitive Student
- Storm, Force of Nature
I'd bet the dollar value of the Marvel cards is high largely due to scarcity, but this list is also from Scryfall, which has little relation to how much a card is played in EDH. Even if we were able to set up a list that looked at just EDH, it likely wouldn't reflect my experience of 2024, or your experience of 2024. I had a lot of great games this year, and have a lot of great memories. My top 10 won't match yours, and yours won't match those of the guys you played with in your last game. I can't pretend my own top cards of the year make sense to anyone but me, this is what I came up with.
Honorable Mentions
Any top 10 list worth its salt will have honorable mentions.
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My first honorable mention goes to a replacement combo piece for Deadeye Navigator! Lilysplash Mentor when combined with Peregrine Drake, Palinchron, or Great Whale just wins games, if your deck is built right.
My second is a card that made me incredibly happy when I played a turn 2 Sakura-Tribe Elder and then was able to play Ygra, Eater of All. I was able to play Hazel's Brewmaster, exile "Steve" from my graveyard, and use all of my creature tokens as if they were copies of the Elder.
I got to see a degenerate tablemate make a token copy of Ocelot Pride and then gain life to start making exponentially more copies of Ocelot Pride each turn. I don't remember how far he got or if he was able to win, but that left an impression. I don't expect everyone is trying to use Ocelot this way, but I'm a cat person and I couldn't bear to not have a kitty in the mix.
My 10 cards of 2024
With that out of the way, let's get on to my top 10 cards from 2024!
10. Valgavoth, Harrower of Souls
One of the most impressive precon decks I've seen came out this year in the form of the Rakdos deck from Duskmourn: House of Horror. Valgavoth pairs damage your opponents with card draw and the result is a deck that is very powerful and very fun (for you). I think I won at least half my games when playing this deck, though I only played it a few times.
9. Three Dog, Galaxy News DJ
Drawing cards in Boros feels every bit as good as it does in Black and Red. Playing an aura that enters the battlefield and draws you a card feels good, and sacrificing that aura to make a half dozen or more copies and draw a mess of cards feels amazing. Sacrificing and making nearly a dozen copies of All is Dust not only feels good, it wins games. I got to do that this year, though the deck also had its share of underwhelming games.
8. Anzrag, the Quake-Mole
Winning in Gruul nearly always seems to involve combat, and Anzrag can let you clear tables with something as meager as it and a 1 power creature. You just force everyone else's creatures to block Anzrag and you prevent Anzrag from taking damage. From there, with all of the blockers out of the way and extra combats whenever you attack, you send your other creatures in unblocked. It's a challenge to pull this off and win, and it feels kind of like a combo, but it works and it's weird enough to find its way onto this list.
7. Obeka, Splitter of Seconds
The younger brother of a friend I play with on Thursday nights was able to show me the utter insanity that is a well-built Obeka deck on a good game. I don't recall the specifics, but at least a couple of times he played this deck and got some amazing value out of getting extra upkeeps after combat. It's a really neat commander that can do some crazy things, though I don't think I got my own brew to "pop off" when I played it in an online game.
6. Pollywog Prodigy
Prodigy has been talked about in cEDH circles. Any deck that can make him bigger and is in Blue should at least consider running him alongside creatures like Faerie Mastermind and Ledger Shredder. I've played him in a few of my Frog decks this year and he's quite good - especially in a meta where players are playing low mana spells.
5. Flubs, the Fool
I never expected to love a commander that wants you to play with no cards in your hand, but that's Flubs in a nutshell, and he's the real deal. I may even paint a tarot card alter for Command Tower and Sol Ring just for this deck. With Flubs, landfall triggers can get really out of hand, and when your concerns about making enough mana are out of the way, it's fun to see how much nonsense you can get up to.
4. Rendmaw, Creaking Next
Goading an opponent's creatures can have a huge impact on a game of EDH. Just ask anyone who has played with or against Kardur, Doomscourge. Rendmaw fills the skies with flying, goaded, Black bird tokens. I both played against and played with Rendmaw, Creaking nest this past year. I managed to win with it, I managed to beat it, and I never got tired of how much it alters the game when you suddenly have extra creatures to play and attack with.
3. Gev, Scaled Scorch
Persist combo was fun in Gruul with Grumgully, the Generous and it's even more fun in Radkos with Gev. He's been looked at in cEDH circles, though I don't think he'll ever be a top tier cEDH deck. I was able to nail down a win with Gev and a Mayhem Devil and I'm looking forward to playing the list again.
2. Ygra, Eater of All
I love when I get to play a weird card that is incredibly synergistic and genuinely powerful in the right context. With Ygra, Eater of All, I got to play Curious Herd to make a 3/3 Beast token for each artifact target opponent has, after using Ygra to make all of their creatures into food artifacts. Someone had a bunch of 1/1 creature tokens out, so it worked pretty nicely for me. I also lucked into a few more artifact boardwipes this year than I expected and they always helped a lot when trying to close out a game.
1. Helga, Skittish Seer
I have a Chulane deck that is pretty good at giving me lots of lands and lots of cards. Helga, Skittish Seer gives me lots of mana and lots of cards, and I've really enjoyed playing her this year. My list has only seen a few games but they've been fun and the deck always felt like it was able to do its thing. Using Chakram Retriever to untap Helga always felt great, and getting Chulane into play when Helga was out always felt like cheating.
Final Thoughts
I'd be curious if any of my own list would have made it onto your top 10 cards for 2024 in EDH, I bet a handful did, but I also have glaring omissions. I'm still not that excited by Universes Beyond cards and didn't include a single Marvel commander. Some of you might have three or four spots filled with superheroes.
It was interesting to do a little research and see other cards I might have missed out on. That flip Tamiyo near the top of that $ value top 10 list looks like a ton of Simic value fun, and I'm sure there are other legendary creatures I missed out on this year.
If you've been following my columns, you'll know that my 2024 started with Dragon decks, as this was the year of the dragon in the Chinese zodiac. I ended my year with more Frog decks than I ever expected to build or play. 2025 is the year of the Snake, but I don't know how excited I am to build a bunch of snake decks, so this may not become a tradition.
That's all I've got for today. Thanks for reading and I hope you have a fantastic New Year's Eve and an amazing 2025!
