If you don’t think your choice is on there, select “other” and post your choice as the most underrated rare in standard.

My vote? Disrupting Shoal. The bluff card of standard. Tapping out to play Niv-Mizzet never felt so good with this card and any three drop in hand. Mortify? Putrefy? Rend Flesh? Dark Banishing? Pillory of the Sleepless? *cough*force of will*cough*. I love this card more and more each time its in my opening hand and I’m on the draw. Playing counters, its almost gauranteed that your opponent will try to curve out to stay ahead if they see you tap out. I’ve intentionally tapped all but one on turn 4 to cast Compulsive research, only to let my opponent untap, go all in and play rumbling slum which met a Gifts Ungiven wearing a Shoal. It was beautiful.

So go ahead, tell us your choice for the most underrated rare in standard. Be sure to say why, too.

Love,
Matt

Standard: Ideal 31-7-8

Mimeofacture has to be good. it HAS to be.

I’ll make it work, one of these days.

Kevin

“Wasn’t our plan just to get to 900 life and f***’em?”

Coldsnap Sealed: who cares
Coldsnap Draft: who cares

I voted for Jester’s Cap, though it’s not my favorite card on the list.  I think in terms of what the best card is on the poll, the answer is hands-down Phyrexian Arena, since it just wins you games when you resolve it.  Giant Solifuge is also very very good, and Blood Moon is an excellent way to hose complex mana bases. 

However, those cards all show up in decks, and are hardly what I would call underrated.  Jester’s Cap is sort of though of like a (more expensive) colorless Cranial Extraction, and it certainly can be used that way.  The real trick with this card, though, lies in the fact that it can hit three DIFFERENT cards.  Against Heartbeat, they better hope to have either Maga or Invoke in hand when you bust the Cap, because otherwise you win.  It also fetches 1-of House Guard tutor targets or other single or double utility cards.  Arguably the best reason to use the Cap is the abilty to see your opponent’s deck before you choose your card, so you don’t have to worry about whiffing (like I always seem to do with Extraction).

And speaking of Jester’s Cap, if anyone has Caps for trade, my WhiteyTron deck really needs them for the sideboard.

Honorable mentions for underrated card go to Culling Sun, Moratorium Stone, Skeletal Vampire (a.k.a. Ozzy), Golgari Grave-Troll, Blood Funnel, and Grave-Shell Scarab.

I’m sorry, you were all incorrect.  The correct answer was “Plague Boiler”.  Plague Boiler is actually the most underrated rare in the format.  Personally, I think it may be the third best rare in Guildpact following the Tree-hating Shaman and the Orzhova PTA. 

Matt, did you actually grant Blood Funnel an honorable mention?!  If the title of this thread were “Rares so bad that nobody has ever even considered using them” it would definitely make the cut, but I’m not sure it belongs here.  I would say that Seize the Soul, Razia’s Purification, and Ulasht all deserve some consideration, though.

EDIT:  Kitties are smarter than Christian.  Plague Boiler is in Ravnica.  I still think it’s at least as good as all but two Guildpact cards!

Yeah, Ulasht rocks. My current deck (Weed Eater) is based on him and chord of calling.. turn 3 9/9 Ulasht that pops out on YOUR turn? NICE!.. just sucks that gateway doesnt work.. anyone have an idea to protect my saprolings from Wrath/Wrathlike effects?

Haha, no i will never give blood funnel respect, the card in the poll is Blood Moon, a card that wrecks a good majority of decks. Plague Boiler was in Ravnica, right? Either way you’re probably right about it being among the best cards in guildpact as far as power level. And i really agree with Sieze the Soul, its a great card.

Love,
Matt

Standard: Ideal 31-7-8

people have been trying to protect their creatures from wrath for a very very long time. My opinion is to not drop all your threats at once. Dont Scatter The Seeds if you already have 6 saprolings, thats overkill. scatter after the wrath to reload and put more pressure on the opponent, and hopeuflly you saved a guildmage or a ulasht in your hand too as finishers.

verdict: Wrath = good.

Love,
Matt

Standard: Ideal 31-7-8

Christian - 06 April 2006 08:22 AM

Matt, did you actually grant Blood Funnel an honorable mention?!  If the title of this thread were “Rares so bad that nobody has ever even considered using them” it would definitely make the cut, but I’m not sure it belongs here.

I just did that to see if anyone was paying attention, which I’m glad Christian was.  For the record, Blood Funnel is terrible, unless you have something stuck in your teeth, in which case it works fine.

Orzhova PTA = brilliant.

And I agree that Plague Boiler is quite good right now, especially in a deck like Christian’s.  I keep trying to make them work, but I haven’t found a deck that really wants them yet.  Seize the Soul is very good, but only against Elf-Cloak and Gruul, Razia’s Purification is decent but risky (and interacts terribly with Faith’s Fetters), and I’m still not convinced Ulasht is that good outside of Limited.

I feel somewhat inspired by thinking of Razia’s Purification, though.  Maybe I can try to break it . 

Oh, and James?  You might want to try Otherworldy Journey in your Weed Whacker deck.  It saves Guildmages and Ulasht from Wrath as well as spot removal, reloads Ulasht with counters (and gives him an extra to boot), and removes pesky blockers for a turn.  Worth considering, I think.

My vote has to go out to Plague Boiler… It has to be the only card in Ravnica to only hold 1/4 of it’s value since the set’s release. It has a very powerful effect(and even with a card like oblivion stone, it took a while for people to catch on to how powerful it could be), and as long as your deck can take advantage of that, it’s a very effective card. And it can’t even be needled.

My honorable mention has to go out to Mindslicer and Thoughts of Ruin.  I haven’t seen either of these cards in more than a sideboard since the release of Betrayers; when controlled, these can be very powerful also. Even when players netdeck Olivier Ruel’s Husk-Drain Deck(deck based off of Promise of Bunrei, Nantuko Husk, Mindslicer, and Orzhov Pontiff), when they decide to tweak it to their style, they TAKE OUT the Mindslicers… it just seems that people see the card on the decklist, and don’t even try it out before they disclude it from the deck. That’s the sort of thing I look for when I think of underrated…

...Disrupting Shoal and Blood Moon didn’t make it on my list, mainly because players have been starting to catch on to their usefulness. And Blood Moon will be one of the most-used cards at regionals, IMO. It’s a dream card for aggro decks in this format(namely gruul ), and more and more people will be using it as time goes on, as decks get more colorful.

---

Current Decks:
UG Aggro
Mono-Green Turbo-Allosaurus!
Mono-Red BURN

RGD Draft: 25-7-2
RGD Sealed: ***Censored***

Ghostway! With so many sick CIP cards in ravnica, it is going to be an amazing card to play in block. Just have to actually work on the deck but not much intrest to do so till block season comes.

"Some have said there is no subtlety to destruction. You know what? They’re dead.” -Jaya Ballard, task mage

Good call on both Mindslicer and Thoughts of Ruin.  I have had a playset of both of those since the respective sets came out, and I haven’t managed to do much with either card.  I keep trying to put Mindslicer into a deck, but he never seems to stay long.  Oh well.  However, Ninja Stompy (R/G/U) did ok in Hawaii, and I played against Chris Hidalgo wielding it for testing last Saturday.  I think Tristan played it to a Top 8 a couple FNMs ago, too.  Thoughts is one of the key cards in the deck, and practically guarantees a scoop if it resolves.  It’s not too great against a dedicated aggro deck like Gruul, but it’s really good against anything slower than that (which is just about everything else).  I tried to make a deck like this before Honolulu, but I don’t have the mana base to pull it off (no Coasts, no Vents, no Reefs), so I gave up.

Thoughts of Ruin, yeah that card is awesome. I’ve had a playset too since Saviors but I haven’t been able to use it either. Mindslicer will get his day, soon, trust me Kudos to the guy behind Sea Stompy.

Grave shell scarab isn’t underrated - he’s rated right where he belongs. People know it’s a powerful card. I’d add Bottled Cloister to that list.

Cards I’d like to play put to use someday are Followed Footsteps, Quicken, Razia’s Purification, Necroplasm…

I hope it’s true that every snowflake is unique, because I never want to see one like this again.

I have to agree with christian on Plague Boiler. I think I would vote on Kira the Great Glass Spinner though, it doesn’t matter how much attention that card gets, id give it more.

Borrow money from pessimists - they don’t expect it back

We need to do a thread like this more often, as it really gets my head turning with all kinds of cool new ideas for decks.  And I have sets of almost all of these cards we’ve mentioned, which makes me more likely to want to make decks around them.  Now I have to add Necroplasm and his big brother Woebringer Demon to the list.

I know I’m sort of necroing AND double-posting, but I’ll be playing three underrated rares in the same deck at FNM tomorrow.  See what I’m willing to do for you people?

I didn’t really feel the need to make a new thread, but I had an interesting observation that sort of goes along with the “uderrated rare” idea.  Are there any cards that you have played that you consider to be good in spite of never having done anything?  i.e. it always gets killed by removal or countered or whatever, but you still play with it?  What about something with an ability so vicious, people never make it trigger?  Like Standstill.

For me, that card would be Souls of the Faultless in limited.  I’ve gotten it a couple of times, but I don’t know whether it’s actually any good because it always dies before it ever triggers.  I think I’ve had it trigger once, but it was only for a couple life.  Can anyone relate?