Magic: The Gathering - The Anti-Power-9

[Khay]

What is the worst Magic: The Gathering card of all time? There's no shortage of threads, blog posts and such about this topic - it's one of those evergreen questions. I had a conversation like that with a few friends recently - I'm trying to get back into the game, and casual play is a good way to do that. That got me thinking. Not all bad cards are bad in the same way. Some are actively harmful, some are just overcosted, some go to elaborate lengths to do absolutely nothing, and so on. Some bad cards are fascinating, but some that show up on "worst cards ever" lists are just plain boring, like Scorching Spear. So here's a slightly different idea: Finding interesting, fascinating, amazing terrible cards. For flavour, call those the Anti Power 9. I'm not as knowledgeable about this game as I'd like to be, so I thought I'd reach out to the hivemind for help. (I hope it's okay to put this into its own topic, I didn't want to derail the main MtG thread.)

What I'm not looking for is cards that are bad but boring. Sure, Storm Crow isn't great. But that's because it's inefficient. It can still be a perfectly reasonable card to play in certain less competitive environments. Throw a Bonesplitter on there and you've got a threat.

I'm also not looking for cards that have decent niche uses, or become much less bad if you place them in context. One with Nothing saw sideboard play in its day. Scornful Egotist is really a 2/2 for 3 colourless mana, which is okay, and Scourge had a "combined mana cost matters" theme with which it fits nicely. As a counter-example, what Great Wall does was never relevant. Even its niche uses are terrible. You can animate it with an Opalescence or you can have it remove a different ability with a Crystal Spray - if you're playing Blue/White and your opponent relies on Islandwalk, or something - but why bother? There are much better options. The cards on this list needn't be the Worst Cards Ever Printed (TM); what I'm looking for is cards that are interesting-but-unplayable, rather than just bad. A 1/2 creature for two green mana would be bad, but it wouldn't belong on this list.

What I am looking for cards that are actively harmful, or staggeringly useless even as Donate fodder. Bonus points for terrible art and confusing wording. Here's my highly biased personal list:

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I kinda cheated with #4 and #3. How could one pick just one of those little gems?

Honorary #10 position: Razor Boomerang, included mostly so something with a modern frame gets to be on the list. If you have a creature, and you have five mana available, you can deal a single point of damage!

#9 - Dwarven Pony. I really don't like to include creatures on this sort of list, especially not ones that are sort of efficiently costed. But the ability on it is the most Homelands thing of all time, and you've got to respect that.
#8 - Armistice. Sure, White has difficulty drawing cards. And sure, card advantage is pretty great. But are you ever going to be so desparate for card advantage that you'd be willing to pay 8WWWWW and have an opponent gain 6 life, but not quite desparate enough to just splice Blue into your deck? As an added insult, it's a rare.
#7 - Carnival of Souls. I love this card. I love it so much. It feels like it should be broken, a combo enabler, something that lets you go infinite somehow - heck, it's from the Urza block! Except it doesn't, really. I guess it lets you kill someone on turn four if you have Carnival of Souls, a Cloudstone Curio, two Kobolds of Kher Keep and a Drain Life? It's a shame that mana burn no longer exists; taking two damage whenever an opponent played a creature really was the icing on the cake.
#6 - Wall of Caltrops. Okay, I lied, there are two creatures on this list. This card doesn't usually seem to show up on these lists, but it occupies a very special place in my heart. It has it all, really. It's a wall with one point of toughness. It has a long-winded, confusing text that describes what turns out to be an extremely marginal effect. It even mentions banding. The art that makes you feel off-balance, and vaguely uncomfortable. Fun flavour text, though!
#5 - Great Wall as hinted above. This is what we call foreshadowing in the business.
#4 - The Lace cycle, which is rightly famous. These spells do, uh, well, pretty much nothing. They're sort of nice in a deck entirely about colour hosing, I guess - but even then, there are better options.
#3 - The Bands with Other lands. The ability does, uh, very little. Very, very, very... little. And it sets you back a turn because the lands don't even tap for mana. Not even colourless mana.
#2 - Aysen Highway. If you're playing against the right deck, all your creatures become unblockable! That's not bad, right? And then you notice that it costs you six mana, three of which are white, and it only works for white creatures, anyway - so you're pretty much guaranteed to have plains as well, which means your opponent's creatures also become unblockable. That's what makes this card so amazing: The only situation in which it might be slightly useful, a White Weenie standoff, is one in which it also has a really high chance of backfiring. White has better finishers than this.
#1 - Sorrow's Path. This card is so famous, there's no way it can get anything but the #1 slot.

Of course, there are some picks in there I'm not perfectly happy with; that's part why I'm posting this. Debate is part of the fun, after all! Everyone has their own list of cards they love to hate, and I'd love to see yours.

[Fjolnir]

Your list has a distinct lack of Mudhole

[Khay]

Ah, Mudhole. That one's amazing. Would it really have killed R&D to make that one a cantrip? Then it'd do something, at least.

Mudhole and Wood Elemental are probably the two most famous cards not on that list. I wasn't sure about leaving them off, but I find Armistice and Aysen Highway just don't get enough, err, love. Dwarven Pony can probably go, though.

[Ebon_Drake]

Divine Intervention is a favourite of mine. It's a card to turn a losing situation into a not-winning situation, unless you're losing so badly that you still lose anyway. The only thing the card can do is stop you winning the game. You know what would be a better tactical play than that? Anything!

Shaman's Trance is another good one. The idea is to take advantage of any flashback cards (or similar) your opponent might have in their graveyard, which is kind of a cool concept but so ridiculously narrow that there's no way you could ever build a functional deck around it. What I love about it though is that the first time anyone reads it, they'l always get really excited because they think it's going to be Yawgmoth's Will on your opponent's 'yard. It's only once they hit the last word that they realise it says you may play the cards as though they were in your graveyard. Not your hand, your graveyard. At that point, they'll go from thinking it's an awesome "build around me" combo card to marvelling at what an utter piece of garbage it is.

[Fjolnir]

I honestly want to say that Shaman's Trance was a relevant card in Odyssey Block Constructed though...

[Cogwheel]

I just want to say that I have a Sorrow's Path deck, and people have actually banned it in my playgroup.

[Ebon_Drake]

I honestly want to say that Shaman's Trance was a relevant card in Odyssey Block Constructed though...

The trouble is it's one of those cards that relies on too many things your opponent might do. Maybe if they're running a load of flashback cards and maybe if they're on-colour and maybe if they're situationally useful and maybe...

That said, I have to admit it does have awesome potential as response to your opponent playing YawgWin by stopping them from being able to play cards from their graveyard. It'll never actually happen, but the idea of countering someone's $20 rare with your $0.50 rare is amazing.

[Cogwheel]

I feel like Innistrad, being essentially Odyssey 2.0 in many ways, would open up some non-flashback uses for it too.

[Khay]

Divine Intervention! How could I forget about that card? The combined mana cost of eight combined with the delayed effect is what really sells it. I kept meaning to build some utterly, utterly ridiculous casual deck around that and Shahrazad, but I value what friends I still have.

That said, I have to admit it does have awesome potential as response to your opponent playing YawgWin by stopping them from being able to play cards from their graveyard. It'll never actually happen, but the idea of countering someone's $20 rare with your $0.50 rare is amazing.

I do have a soft spot for all those incredibly situational hosers Wizards have printed over the years. "Punching up" with trashy budget decks is always fun, but a $0.25 uncommon is probably a better option here...

[Brother Oni]

I do have a soft spot for all those incredibly situational hosers Wizards have printed over the years. "Punching up" with trashy budget decks is always fun, but a $0.25 uncommon is probably a better option here...

I think the most ridiculously situational card I know of, is Proposal.

That said, Jangling Automaton is another very situational card, needing Lure to make it functional. I had one in a casual Lure deck (I had to do something with those Craw Giants and AErathi Berserkers...).

Giant Slug would be quite useful if its ability wasn't completely overcosted.

I would add Helix Pinnacle to the list, but Doubling Season or any infinite mana combo makes it semi viable.