I dunno, 2/2 first strike for 3 is of course not very good especially by modern standards, but "most useless" that card is not. It's still a 2/2 first strike creature after all. Wood elemental, which is lower on the list is far worse, and so is Egotist (which is at its best 2/2 for 3 without first strike). The fact that it has an ability that it's kinda irrelevant most of the time doesn't really make it most useless, there's worse creatures than that.

Master of Arms is still a 3 mana 2/2 with first strike, strictly better than any 3 mana vanilla 2/2

Scornful Egotist is definitely the best card on the list. The reason it has such high CMC is because Scourge (The block it originated from) had a mechanic where CMC matters (Such as the card "Torment of Fire") so being able to "cheat out" an 8 CMC card for 4 mana was actually somewhat useful. The card is still terrible, but does have some niche use with cards that care about CMC

Gonna agree with the chorus here. Master of Arms is definitely not useless. There's a difference in saying its ABILITY is useless vs the whole card being useless. A 3 mana 2/2 with First Strike may not be amazing, but that baseline alone puts it leagues above everything else on this list. Genuinely no reason to include it, especially since the useless ability happened due to a rules change, which means the card isn't even being judged fairly for the intended design space it originally had.

Aw face it guys, it's just a 1/1 for 8 mana! Not only that, bu-ALL HAIL THE GREAT LORD EGOTIST!!!

How is Master at Arms the worst of all of these? Even if its ability does nothing these days, it's still a 2/2 with first strike for 3 mana. Not great by any stretch of the imagination by today's standards, but at least it's something. Even without its ability, a first striker with that power and toughness for that CMC wasn't terrible for the time it was printed in. It is terrible now, but so are many other (very similarly statted) cards from back then. Bad card, but not nearly as bad as most of the others on this list. Surely not deserving of the top spot in a top 10 list of useless cards.

Nine-Ringed Bo is meant to interact with the Soulshift mechanic from original Kamigawa block to prevent it from triggering and getting your opponent a spirit back when a creature with Soulshift dies. Mudhole was meant to turn off Threshold which was in Odyssey block.

Like, which would you rather have in your deck, Great Wall or Master of Arms? An actively useless Enchantment or a 2/2 First Strike?

I think the more accurate title of the video would be "Top 10 Most WORTHLESS Effects and Abilities of Magic Cards." That way, I can see why Master of Arms is number 1. Regarding Scornful Egotist, it's meant to synergize with cards that work better with higher mana values, like Rush of Knowledge and Calibrated Blast. But considering cards with higher yet self-reducing costs exist that have strong abilities, like Earthquake Dragon and Shadow of Mortality, it does become useless in hindsight.

Scornful Egotist DOES have a use. In the set it was printed (Scourge), several cards cared about mana cost, and this got you an 8 cost for 3 mana. For example, with SE on the board, Torrent of Fire would deal 8 damage to any target, or Rush of Knowledge would let you draw 8 cards. It still wasn't that good (Both of those cards cost 5 mana, meaning it's a total of 9 mana for either effect, even if you can play it turn 5 with no acceleration), but it did do the thing it was meant to do.

That #1 is... contentious. The card as a whole is ok, it's just the activated ability that serves no purpose. Certainly better than the #2 that actively hinders you.

I do not understand how master of arms is "useless". Sure, it's ability is bad nowadays, but it's still a 2/2 body with First Strike for a reasonable cost. It actually adds to the board. Would you play it? Of course not. But it's still so much better than so many other cards that do nothing for your board state (like Fasting)

I think the point of Break Open is to mess with morph creatures that have a triggered ability when turned face up that is only useful when used at the right moment. Not much use for a Voidmage Apprentice if it's flipped when the stack is empty. Of course, they'd get even less use out of it if you just Shock it instead. Costs a mana less too.

Mudhole is good in izzet delver decks against lands decks trying to put together Marit Lage with Life from the Loam, Dark Depths & Thespian Stage, and other dredge decks that mill themselves then use Splendid Reclamation to put themselves way ahead in the curve. I'm surprised One With Nothing wasn't on this list.

Master of arms at the very least allows you to tap a creature you need tapped for you to use an spells that interact with tapped creatures. You could have a scenario where you need to tap Atraxa who has vigilance so you can flash in wandering emperor so you can exile them. It might be niche but it has an actual USE.

eldraine and the modern horizons block need their own apocalypse chimes

It's kinda disappointing that Wizards didn't errata Master of Arms to make its ability prevent the creature it tapped from dealing combat damage this turn, since that's clearly what it was meant to do.

I should note why Egotist exists - Scourge had a “high CMC matters”, with cards like Ancient Ooze, Dispersal Shield, Rush of Knowledge, Kurgadon, and the Dragon aura cycle all benefiting from playing creatures with CMC 6 or more (or “mana value” in today’s parlance I guess, still not gonna get used to that), so Egotist actually had a purpose in the Limited environment as an enabler for those cards you could cheat in with Morph. Also can’t see why Master of Arms, a 2/2 first strike for 3, is ahead of something like Wood Elemental which is perhaps the worst Magic card of all time.

I'm surprised that One With Nothing isn't on this list. It's not a mistake but that's usually the go to "useless" Magic card.

Mudhole was printed back when Block Constructed was still a thing, and when one of the stronger lands in the block -- Riftstone Portal -- only did something if it got itself into the graveyard somehow. There was also a cycle of lands that sacked themselves for effect when you hit threshold (Cabal Pit, Cephalid Coliseum) and could be recurred by the reprinted Cartographer. Mudhole didn't need to cost that much mana and didn't need to be a rare, but it wasn't an unreasonable card at the time it was printed.

Scornful egotist is an 8 cost card for 4 mana to sacrifice to a pod effect. That is a useful skill in itself.

Scornful Egotist was probably meant to be played with Dispersal Shield as a cheeky counter or with the other 5 cards printed in Scourge that had the "highest mana value among permanents you control" text. It certainly won't see play in any format these days but that probably why it was printed as it was.

Power Surge actually sees play in Yurlok of Scorch Thrash decks, where mana burn is essentially brought back.

Scornful egotist is one of the best 8 cmc cards to run in a birthing pod deck, you don't need to flip it to sac it to pos to get a 9 cmc creature and you put it out for just 3 mana means you can often put it out the turn before you play pod as pod cost 4 mana total to use. 3 and 2 life to cast then 1 and 2 life to use. It simply is not a bad card there are much better examples of bad cards. Edit: I was wrong you do need to flip the morph first but even then it's still 4 mana for a 9 mana creature in any pod deck.

Apocalypse Chime, you mention sideboard. It DID find its way into a few Standard sideboards in its day. Autumn Willow was really hard to get rid of in her day and she was the backbone of a reasonably popular deck (Willowgeddon, the successor to the more successful Erhnageddon, which used Erhnam Djinn). If you weren't in white and didn't have access to Wrath, this was one of the only ways to get her off the board. And frankly, it's not bad for that purpose. Colorless and 2+2 mana (easily usable after an Armageddon wiped your lands) to kill a Shroud creature at (presumably) no cost to yourself since you weren't playing any Homelands cards.

Egotist was in a cmc matters set

If Scornful Egotist was green it would be amazing for any of the sac to summon cmc+1 effects like birthing pod or vivian

Scornful Egotist was designed for a series of cards that allow you to draw, counter spells, deal damage, and even make mana. Energy Tap, Living Armor, Mercurial Chemister, Neoform, Birthing Pod, and Rush of Knowledge are some cards off the top of my head that work with Scornful Egotist

In casual commander, my favorite deck is Yurlok of Scorch Thrash. Since he essentially puts mana burn back into play, I do get to use Power Surge on occasion. It's fun when you also have Helix Pinnacle or Horizon Stone out so that you can still tap out and not get burned but your opponent can't.

Video Ideas: * The Dredge Engine Explained * The History of Time Vault (a.k.a. the reason Wizards doesn't do Konami-style power level errata) * Cards made better or worse by rules changes (e.g. Sunforger and split cards, or Captain Sisay and planeswalkers becoming legendary.) * Best double-faced cards * Most powerful tribal lords (creatures designed to assist one or more creature types) * Best/Worst Legendary Creatures * Best cumulative upkeep cards * Best/Worst mana dorks * Ten cards that fulfill a weird niche that are incredibly good in the right deck. (e.g. there's a 2 mana white wall that makes your green and blue spells cost 1 less)

Seriously? Not even a nod to One With Nothing? One of the lost iconic "useless" cards ever.

I could see Common Cause getting use when you know your opponent is playing with only artifact creatures. In that case it is a single-sided ability so long as all of yours share a color.

Next year there will be "Tarv who risks everything", a legendary dwarf shaman for 1rb with "whenever a land leaves a players graveyard deal one damage to every opponent". The idea is that you make a mill/spell slinger deck where Mudhole is your wincon

Scornful always makes these list yet nobody ever references what the initial intention was in the Scourge set.

Scornful Egotist's selling point is its CMC. It came in a set where CMC mattered, so getting it out cheap then morphing it was a big deal in limited.

The point of Scornful Egotist is to synergize with MV-matters cards

Great topic! Thank you for making this video 😁

If anyone is wondering why scornful egotist is like that, scourge, the set it’s from, had a theme with wanting you to have creatures with high mana costs so scornful egotist was a cheap way to get an 8 mana creature. This didn’t mean it was ever good however as it has always been a joke, and was likely designed as such even if it technically had a role.

Maybe the egotist can work for something that depends on converted mana cost… idk

I think if the video was titled "Most Useless Abilities" it would cover all the points while being slightly more accurate.

Citadel of Pain should have gotten a mention here. It still has a slight amount of utility, but it was largely rendered useless in the same way Power Surge was by removing mana burn.

Chaos Lace, Life Lace, Death Lace and two more whose names I don’t recall were a cycle of five cards which changed the color of a spell as it was being cast. Yes, your fireball could be a black spell by interrupting it with Death Lace. And such. All five of these should be on the list. But they aren’t. Edit : PureLace. ThoughtLace. Were the two others in the color cycle. Later they added Prismatic Lace and Moon Lace to cover the ability to change spells into multiple colors and into colorless spells. All seven are nearly useless.

With Apokolips Chime: you forgot it also hits Serrated Arrows

Does break open work on double sided card? Becuase if a format has alot of them then it s good counter ig

Master of Arms is actually a build-around. There are numerous cards that want your opponents to have tapped creatures. Two examples I could mention: Enthralling Hold is a blue enchantment that lets you gain control of a tapped creature an opponent controls, for as long as that creature is enchanted by Enthralling Hold. Sleeper Dart is a two mana artifact that draws a card when it enters play. You can tap and sacrifice it to keep a creature tapped for longer. There are uses for many "bad" cards. You need only explore the library for answers.

I stopped playing more than 20 years ago, so your video was informative in bringing me up to speed on some of the rules changes. I am not sure if it’s fair to single out cards that were designed to work under the older rules though. I still don’t get why scornful egotist was designed the way it was. Is there a reason a 8-cost creature was ever useful at the time?

Doesn’t break open work on night/day creatures and transformed creatures from the newest set?

It was a smart move leaving One With Nothing off this list. It's a terrible card, but people would have lost their minds if you called it useless

A 2/2 first strike isn't useless Scornful Egotist had set design that it was intentionally breaking. I got blown out by this card when I learned to play magic by a wizards deck. Even mudhole has set design going for it - a red way to turn off threshold. You can still say those are useless, but at least give context. I'm shook that Force of savagery - a 3 mana 8/0 isn't on this list.

Wouldn’t Power surge still work as upkeep is after the untap step, meaning they would have to tap out on the upkeep?

The Egotist reason to exist was that it was a way to put a (very) high converted mana cost creature into play relatively easy. And since Scourge had a "converted mana cost matters" theme, it made some sense. Maybe in Scourge limited it had some play somehow, I don't know. But still... Nine-Ringed bow (which I didn't even knew existed until now) was somewhat relevant in the set it came out (and the whole block actually) which was very spirit heavy and had a very common ability called soulshift which returned spirits from the graveyard to the hand. Cards that prevents specific landwalk are all historically pretty useless but I see common cause (which is another card which I didn't knew existed) being actually very good and being played in a lot of decks. Power surge (and citadel of pain) have some relevance even now because you can force your opponents to tap all their lands and don't have mana for counters and stuff.

the funny thing is, nowadays white can be excused to have card that can block any creature with "cannot be blocked" ability

Even today, I would happily play a 3 mana 2/2 with first strike in a sealed or draft deck. The evergreen ability interacts favorably with burn spells, pump spells, aura and equipment, deathtouch, infect and wither, and a number of other on-damage triggers. Human and soldier are also both very popular tribes with substantial support in white.

1) Scornful Egotist's usage is linked with being able to get a high CMC card into play for a low mana investment. "CMC matters" is a thing to keep in mind, especially in its particular set block - being an 8 mana card that you *can* use for only 3 mana is actually pretty okay in scourge block. 2) Common Cause is *really* niche in how you'd have to eke out usage. If you play Darknest Night, all creatures will share a color (black) and if you have more creatures (or, if your opponent uses Artifact Creatures) you'll get more benefit than your opponent. 3) Master of Arms is, baseline, a reasonable creature. 2/2 with first strike for 3 is not the best rate, but it is a good baseline for a creature - just look at Paladin en-Vec, Phyrexian Crusader, or Danitha Capashen.

Master of Arms at number 1 on this list (or even being on it at all, tbh) is literally just incorrect. Lots of creatures are worse than a 3 mana 2/2 with first strike, especially from old magic before creatures were allowed to be good. I think you got super hung up on the vestigial activated ability and ignored the fact that it's a strictly better creature than a ton of creatures that never would have made this list. Break open is worse by a wide, WIIIIDE margin.

Scornful Egotist is not that bad for one specific use case - using its converted mana cost for something. While it's face down converted cost is zero, but if you face-up it becomes 8 mana creature for 4 mana.

Scornful Egotist had a use as it was part of a cycle with "check the top card of your deck and do X where X is its converted mana cost" cards

Now that we had Praetors without titles, what about top 10 legendary creatures/planeswalkers with the best titles in their name? At the very least it has to be better than Jin-Gitaxias, Progress Tyrant.

No way Scornful Egotist is useless, that's the kind of card that has to be useful just because of his cost

Break open comes from the same set as Blistering Firecat so could use it at the end of their turn to force sacrifice it. I'm assuming that may have been the main target

I forgot which cards they were, but I used to use effects that scaled bases on a creatures casting cost with Scornful Egoist. The deck surely wasn't competitive but it had a use.

Does apocalypse chime hit basic lands?

3:45 Egotist is terrible, but it was a design gamble around Morph. There were a lot of CMC and Highest CMC dependent cards introduced in Scourge where Scornful Egotist was maybe meant as a "gotcha" flip on the table. It never ended up working that way, but there are interesting ways to use it with a bit of imagination and a willingness to lose.

Entertaining video thank you

I'm surprised one with nothing didn't even make the list😮

Scornful Egotist was actually really good, when it came out. There were a lot of CMC matters cards.

Would Break Open be useful against cards in MoM that transform into stronger cards and battle cards?

I made a pauper deck with egotist and I win several matches. Of course it's an weird deck but playable. It was a top of library manipulation deck with erratic explosion and miracle cards.

I disagree with your take on the Egotist. It's ment to manipulate CMC with cards like Eldritch Evolution. You get a turn 3 CMC 8 creature and turn 4 or sooner get a CMC 10 creature. It's not useless, just not used much.

I was going to provide the obligatory reminder that Scornful Egotist's value lies in its printed mana cost enabling mana-cost-matters strategies (beyond just Scourge's), but instead, let me remind you folks that there are plenty of cards that cost more than they otherwise might if they didn't provide flexibility. All the charms would suck at their mana costs if they only had one of their modes. Reckoner Bankbuster is effectively "pay 4: draw a card" if you get nothing else out of it. Every card with cycling is underpowered. My point is that putting SE on the battlefield (either face-up OR face-down) is the BACKUP PLAN. It's probably still the best way to get that much mana value on the table early. It's almost too bad there aren't more blue mana symbols on it to trigger devotion/chroma.

There's a theoretical called Busy Work that's fun to think about. The whole point is to put as many irrelevant things as possible without doing anything more than. drawing a card. Example: Busy Work U Instant Choose a color. Choose a number. Choose a card type. Choose a creature type. Look at the top card of your library. Look at all face down cards you control. Flip a coin. Roll a Die. Creatures you control get +0/+0 until end of turn. Exile all exiled cards....etc. Draw a card.

I believe there is a card that says, when creature enters the battlefield it deals damage equal to its mana cost. This would make scornfull egotist pretty strong.

In all honesty, Master of Arms doesn't even belong on this list. You could have just put ten different versions of the old "Vanilla 2/2" on the list. He shouldn't even be on the list at all.

Cards from Legends (or other similar early sets) could never have anticipated where the game would grow to. That’s why so many of the early cards are either banned, worthless, or too expensive mana wise to be used. Coming from a person who played during Beta, Revised, Legends, and Arabian Nights, it’s truly a bummer, but understandable for the growth of the game.

I can see Scorful Egotists as a good inclusion in a deck that was centered around morph, but in a format that has some kind of deckbuilding limits about how many good cards you can use. Like Canadian Highlander's points list.

Scourful egotist gets better in a scenario based off high mana values like the limited it was in an early game 8 mana creature is good if you have spells based on your highest mana cost or things that you reveal or exile it based on it's mana cost

30 years ago, land walk was way too powerful, so they abandoned it. Remember, there was Terror, Lightning Bolt, and Swords to Plowshares. No one wanted to give an opponent life gain, black creatures were out to terror, and the fatties didn't die to Bolt. Now, there's a myriad of ways to kill something. Try to play against a Sol'Kanar deck with only cards from Legends or earlier while running swamps. It was nearly impossible to remove without double lightning bolt.

Kinda crazy that Wrenn and Six is such an absolute powerhouse, everyone knows how insanely strong it is and how it does what it does, and here the first card is essentially stopping exactly what W&6 does, but it's entirely useless? You got me, dawg

Break Open can be useful on some (quite niche, that's true) occasions though... Ascending Aven, Bane of the Living, Blistering Firecat, Charging Slateback, Foothill Guide, Hidden Dragonslayer Jeering Instigator, Karona's Zealot, Kolaghan Stormsinger, can be thrown off balance quite easily when prematurely opened, but none worse than Unstable Hulk, which then makes its controller skip his next turn... Which, if opened after the combat phase, means a second nearly free turn for the opponent

Did you check that set and compare it to what it fights about in it's set and year

I have found a niche use for scornful egotist, i run it in my ninja commander deck as a potential target for Yuriko which nets a nice bit of damage and worse case i can use it as a 2/2 blocker, mind an over costed one.

Anyone who includes Scornful Egotist on these list is unaware of the context of the creature in Magic History. The set it was in included a "high cmc matters" mechanic. Getting an 8 cmc on turn 4 was pretty good for the strategy

Common Cause could give you some advantage if you keep up on removing your opponents creatures. Still unplayable, but I could see some sort of removal tribal getting some value out of it.

what I wonder about Morph cards is how do you know the other player is not just playing a land card facedown claiming it has Morph if they game ends are all cards then turned face up ?

Scornful Egotist has to be considered in the context of its block, where Wizard tribal was a thing, highest CMC mattered, and to a lesser extent morph was popular enough that having extra bait was also valuable. It wasn't anything incredible by any means but it was a draft/sealed card through and through.

Egotist saw play in standard in a deck I think was known as "cost's more". There were several card effects that counted the highest converted mana cost and Scornful Egotist was one of the easiest ways to get a super high casting cost card into play early. You forgot the "Bands with other Legends" lands from Legends, considered by most to be the 5 most useless and worst cards ever printed in Magic.

Scornful egotist came in a red/blue starter deck that had some other card that dealt burn damage or did something else based on "converted mana cost". I'm pretty sure. It wasn't a good combo but that's what it was for.

I just want to point out that when Great Wall was printed, there was only ONE other Plainswalk creature in the game, Righteous Avengers, a 3/1 Plainswalk for 5. The only other way you could encounter Plainswalk is if someone used Magical Hack to change a different "walk" creature to plainswalk. So the card was basically printed as a 3 mana counter for a single card that was terrible and no sane person would ever play. Putting Common Cause ahead of it is kind of insulting. At least you can force Common Cause to work with a control deck.

Master of Arms is a perfect flavor addition to an Equipment deck!

There was a say during draft Carnage games that Break Open was an effective counter to Blistering Firecat, which was the most powerful red morph card at the time... But the window to use it was very narrow and risky overall. Just sayin'

I use Revka, Wizard Savant from Homelands, in a deck designed to tap and untapped Deathtouch enabled 'Tim' cards.

I can think of a fun build around with Wood Elemental + Awaken the Wood + a sac payoff, but that is a LOT of build around. It's not compleely useless with Awaken the Woods being a thing tho, if you absolutely positively want to build a sac deck in green for...reasons.

I'm assuming the point of Common Cause as seen in the flavor text is all your creatures share a color and your opponents have no creatures which is a little better but still pretty useless especially in Commander and there are much better ways of getting +2/+2

Imagine you had 6 open mana (3 of which is white) and the opponent blocks the Master of Arms with a Sheoldred, the Apocalypse (or any other annoying, high value creature - Atraxa, Grand Unifier comes to mind). You could spend two of the mana to tap the creature and then flash out Wandering Emperor to exile it. An interesting, potentially reusable and hardly useless combat trick. In fact, if this card were standard legal, I imagine some mono white decks would play it. With 6 open mana, blocking it with a high value card would be risky. It would fit into a Soldier deck nicely.

This is why I love Magic... No matter the weird or narrow the situation, there's always some card out there... even if it's limited to countering Plainswalk or Horsemanship 😂

it would actually be really cool if there was like a series doing "top ten useless/bad cards" of each set and would be cool if that series started at the first set WotC can reprint cards from. If i'm right then that means starting at Mercadian Masques is the first set after the reserved list WotC can freely reprint cards. From doing some research it seems as long as it's not a rare or mythic from what would be the "reserved list sets" WotC can freely reprint those cards. And what i'm looking for is if someone is willing to do "top ten useless/bad reprintable cards."

Scornful Egogist was great for limited, because of Rush of Knowledge. I only played tournaments locally, and only during three "sets" which were blocks then. You comparison for Mudhole isn't going back far enough, you need to go pre-mirrodin. I played when Masques was available but out of print. Invasion block was just finished that month. I had 7e starter that had Masques cards to support it. I stopped after I busted open Mirrodin and didn't like the new direction. I came back, once, and only once for original Innastrad. I loved it, but not like I ever first loved MTG. I was fairly casual, but my casual was LGS events and FNM; not "rules optional" table-top only. I did that too, but I played more games in an afternoon at my LGS than a week at a friend's table. Rush of Knowledge in type 2, what is now "standard" was viable. Great? no, but only because net decks were at full soar. Enough people knew about them, while enough also didn't. Rush of Knowledge and Scornful Egotist were built into each other. There were other reasons too. That's just the one I know was strongest. This was type 2 suboptimal, but if you played type 2, at least like I did, drafting was more economic as it let you play quickly and build for FNM and local semi-sanctioned events.

Funny enough Wood Elemental would be a side board in my elementals deck, mainly for the lol value though. Its a fast paced landfall deck that by the time I played him I’d usually have 10-15 elementals on the field and most of my lands (essentially played through most of my deck in 5 turns) then I either just buff them all super high or play Sylvan Awakening on like 20 lands. So now I wanna drop Wood Elemental as a finisher.

I want to say Scornful Egotist was in an environment that had some casting cost significance, though that was a LONG while back

Just my opinion. i dont get why master at arms is number one, Chime and break open literally do nothing 99.99999% of the time. At least master at arms is a 2/2 first strike for 3 with a 2 relevant creature types (human and soldier) that can see some neich usage with things like odric and other things that can force blockers and tap them down for whatever reason. Thats certainly alot better than most cards on this list, certainly break open, chime, and the planeswalk card.