Top 8 Cards that Won’t be Missed Upon Rotation

Is it a little bit early to start talking about rotation? With rotation approximately six weeks away, it usually might feel that way. However, the PPTQ season is Modern and there’s only one more set of Standard GP’s and RPTQ’s in that timeframe. Additionally, I don’t think I’m alone in looking forward to bidding Kaladesh and Amonkhet goodbye (the former more than the latter). As such, let’s take a look at the eight cards that can’t leave soon enough.

8. Walking Ballista

Ah, I remember the good old days when Walking Ballista was the reason that one-toughness creatures were considered to be unplayable. This card certainly ebbed and flowed in power level, but it was always present, particularly in the BG Constrictor deck. Walking Ballista is in eighth because I can’t quite decide whether I’m happy or sad to see it go; I’ll miss using it out of the sideboard of UW Control or as a win condition in Bant Nexus, but I won’t miss Verdurous Gearhulk dumping a pile of counters on it and mowing down my entire board. This is one to hold onto, as it’s demonstrated that it’s playable in older formats.

7. Abrade

The safety valve for artifacts that came too late. Had Abrade been in Kaladesh block, we may not have needed at least some of the bans that took place. Unfortunately, with red being the best deck since… uh… forever, Abrade has been incredibly prevalent, completely shutting down any deck that wants to play more expensive artifacts. A recurring theme in many of the cards I’m glad to see go is that they warp the format around themselves, highly restricting what can be played. In a format where Red was not the best deck or there were so many high-powered, maindeckable artifacts, Abrade might not have warped the format to the degree that it did. But as it stands, this card is the reason why the only artifacts that see play are two or less mana (Heart, Scrounger, Bomat), have powerful enter-the-battlefield triggers (Gearhulks), or often win the game on the spot (God-Pharaoh’s Gift).

6. God-Pharaoh’s Gift

God-Pharaoh’s Gift is a reasonable take on a combo deck in Standard. In order to make use of it, it requires being built around. The hate for the deck exists and is not too strong or too weak. The combo is somewhat resilient, can sometimes slog through a normal game, and is powerful enough to merit playing, but does not necessarily just win on the spot against a prepared opponent. All of that said, there is no deck I disliked playing against more in the current Standard than God-Pharaoh’s Gift. Every turn feels like a lottery; did they find Gift? Did they find Angel? Did they find Refurbish? Did they find a sweeper? Many of the matches I played against this deck either felt completely unwinnable or a complete joke as they stumble around with bad cantrips looking for something to do. It felt high-variance and I didn’t often feel as though there were many decisions to make playing against the deck. While I recognize that the deck is reasonable to have in Standard, and many players enjoy this style of play, I will personally be happy to see the deck rotate.

5. Hazoret the Fervent

Hazoret was a strange design because, alongside Ramunap Ruins, it clearly belonged in a highly aggressive Red deck while requiring answers completely opposite of the rest of the deck. Until Vraska’s Contempt, the cards that were good against the entire Red deck sans Hazoret were actively awful against Hazoret, and the cards that were good against Hazoret were terrible against the rest of the deck. This is fundamentally why the pre-ban Red deck was one of the strongest aggressive decks we’ve ever seen. It lacked all the traditional weaknesses of aggressive decks: it had great card advantage, incredible resilience and recursive threats, and an extremely powerful late game. Hazoret has taken many, many lives during her time in Standard, and it’s time for her to go back to Amonkhet.

4. Scrapheap Scrounger

Scrapheap Scrounger checks all the boxes. Three power for two mana. Crews Heart of Kiran and turns on Toolcraft Exemplar. More than one toughness. Artifact in a format that very much cares about artifacts. Basically never dies. There was a time when control decks literally couldn’t answer this card mainboard outside of Gearhulk and were forced to run awkward, terrible answers in the board just for this 3/2. In its brief existence, Screapheap Scrounger is among the top 50 cards that have put the most copies into Pro Tour Top 8 appearances throughout Magic’s entire history. Additionally, Scrapheap Scrounger is tied with Cursed Scroll for the most copies in a single Pro Tour’s Top 8 in Magic’s entire history (31 copies). While other cards in Standard have been more loudly powerful, Scrapheap Scrounger has been obscenely good, appearing as a four-of in virtually every aggressive deck during its time in Standard.

3. The Scarab God

If you were playing a midrange deck, you were playing The Scarab God. The Scarab God outclassed every other threat in the format to a degree where, if you untapped with this card, you were a significant favorite to win the game. Even at Temur Energy’s peak, the deck splashed black for this card, and then the deck began to run multiple copies of Confiscation Coup just to deal with opposing Scarabs (and Hazorets). Usually, you want your mana investments to do something when they come down, which The Scarab God does not. However, TSG has three paragraphs of text, all of which are incredibly powerful. The most powerful is certainly its ability to return dead stuff to the battlefield, but then it also drains out your opponent and doesn’t permanently die. Hazoret, The Scarab God, and Scrapheap Scrounger have mandated that you run exile-based removal in your decks if you can. The Scarab God is the definition of a pushed card, and, like many other cards on this list, it warped the format around itself.

2. Bomat Courier

While there were times that I think The Scarab God had it beat, Bomat Courier was the most powerful card in Standard for nearly its entire lifetime. In the beginning, many players didn’t prioritize killing this little construct. It didn’t take long to see that in any game where Bomat is not killed ASAP, it will completely dominate the game, dealing multiple points of damage for a single mana and then, more relevantly, drawing a fresh new hand. Multiple Bomats would draw nearly twice as many cards. Once again, this card reverses the narrative of highly aggressive decks having weak late games; instead, this card ensured aggro decks were drawing more cards than control decks were. I cannot wait until I don’t have to worry about my Monored opponents outdrawing me.

1. Goblin Chainwhirler

I know, I know, Goblin Chainwhirler isn’t really rotating. However, its home of Soulscar/Khenra/Ahn-Crop/Abrade/Hazoret/Bomat/Scrapheap Scrounger/Glorybringer/etc is gone. I really, really hope that this card ends up being played only in one or two decks after we lose the red shell. It’s mind-boggling that Wizards printed a pushed, maindeckable card that completely negates entire archetypes. Chainwhirler single-handedly kills Stockpile/Procession token decks, Saproling decks, Mardu Vehicles, weakens UB Midrange, and hyper-aggro/go-wide/Ascend-style decks. Red decks have been on top for too long, and I am looking forward to the pendulum swinging in another direction.

The last couple of years have given us Standard formats where a select set of cards were pushed to absurdly high power levels, making it foolish to play anything else. Aside from the banworthy mistakes of Emrakul, the Promised End, Aetherworks Marvel, Smuggler’s Copter, Energy, Collected Company, Ramunap Ruins, and Cat Combo, we’ve had Archangel Avacyn, Hazoret the Fervent, The Scarab God, Bomat Courier, Goblin Chainwhirler, and Teferi, Hero of Dominaria. Every format has best cards, but these recent formats have felt different in that the best cards are so oppressively good, they warp the entire format around themselves and negate large swaths of the available card pool. Other than Teferi, the worst format-warping offenders will be gone. Hopefully, Ravnica can return us to a more balanced format with a more even power level.

Be sure to check back in two weeks when I talk about the Top 8 cards that will be missed the most upon rotation!

Ryan Normandin is a grinder from Boston who has lost at the Pro Tour, in GP & SCG Top 8's, and to 7-year-olds at FNM. Despite being described as "not funny" by his best friend and "the worst Magic player ever" by Twitch chat, he cheerfully decided to blend his lack of talents together to write funny articles about Magic. Make fun of him online through Twitter (@RyanNormandin) and Twitch (norm_the_ryno).