Last time I promised you two personal Top10 lists of cads that are over-/underrated in multiplayer-EDH, but in the last days I figured since we're talking about Magic, Top8 lists would probably fit the theme better much like the ones on channelfireball.com.
Without further ado, here they are:
Top8 List of cards that I think are overvalued by the majority of players:
8. Roon of the Hidden Realm
He basically suffers from the same illness that Momir Vig does: He doesn't do anything alone and needs to stay in play until your next turn to be really effective. The main problem is that he would provide too much value if he were to stay in play and the way he works is too fragile. You can kill him before he looses summoning sickness or you can kill the creatures he might want to blink even if he were to get haste.
7. Burgeoning
While of course making some amazing starts happen the card can go two ways: Either you kept a grip full of lands, in which case you will have a bunch of lands in play with no good follow up except maybe your commander and those two cards you have in hand, or you kept more gas which will still paint a target on your back while not giving you the boost in mana to fight through it. One way or the other I don't think there are many decks out there that should play the card.
6. Damia, Sage of Stone
Funny enough on of the better commanders to run Burgeoning in is Damia. The problem is, you don't want to build that deck anyway. She costs a bunch of mana and has to stay in play until your next upkeep, in which case she would be insane which is the reason why she won't stay in play for that long. Of course you can build a Damia-Deck that doesn`t rely on her to refuel the hand but then again why do you run her as your commander...?
5. Prophet of Kruphix
Good god, we're getting a little bit redundant. Prophet is like Burgeoning for creatures. Run out all of them and make good use of his/her abilites to die to a mass removal in the format of mass removals, or don't run out your whole hand and still get targeted by the table because "he/she got a prophet - kill it with fire!" in which case you might need to run out your hand anyway... Either way Prophet alone doesn't do much besides getting you killed. Then again if you pair it with a Consecrated Sphinx the card can be insane, but to be honest that's more to blame on the Sphinx......
4. Riku of Two Reflections
The king of Momir-Vig-ness. The creature-copy-part triggers on entering the battlefield which makes him likely to go down to "Lightning-Bolt-to-the-face-syndrom" with the creature on the stack even if you managed to untap with him. If you play him "Momir-Mode" (him and a creature/spell in the same turn) though you might face some mana troubles because 5 for Riku and 2 for the trigger makes 7 the first time you play him. Now tell me about all the sweet creatures/spells that you can then still afford to play....
3. Force of Will
Alright now we're getting to the "Big Boys". Good ol' FoW might shine in Legacy and Vintage where mana is tight, Tempo is the main ressource and you're playing 1v1. Multiplayer-EDH just doesn't work that way because when you're playing against more than one opponent there's no real Tempo, the matches are grindier so the games go slower and it's more about Card Advantage. Would you really want to 2 for 1 yourself against ONE of your opponents while the others enjoy their little 3 for 0?
2. Necropotence
We already had that one so you might wanna check out the earlier post.
1. Jace, the Mindsculptor
Big Jace, Jace 2.0... There are all kinds of names for him. I like to call him, "4 mana sorcery speed brainstorm that draws attention from the whole table while costing 60€/70$." Nuff said.
Don't get me wrong here, the above mentioned cards aren't bad but I think some of them (the non-commander-cards) go into way to many decks. And by too many I mean 75-90% of decks shouldn't play them. A deck full of sweepers and counterspells might still be able to get Necropotence to be decent and a 52-Land-Angry-Borb deck can have some really nasty Burgeoning-draws but people seem to play those cards just because their deck is black/green...
Let's get to something more positive...
Top8 List of card that I think are undervalued by the majority of players:
8. Blood Reckoning
Good god, how I love this type of card. It "detargets" you because you know, why should they attack you when they can attack somebody else? So basically your opponents will smack eachother a lot more often while you can sit back, relax and enjoy your coffee/beer/whatever you're drinking. In other words, Blood Reckoning deals a lot more damage to your opponents than it says on the card because each time you DON'T get attacked because of it, the damage dealt is basically damage dealt by Blood Reckoning... and noone will notice.
7. Darien, King of Kjeldor
Partially the same as #8, a bit more vulnerable to removal but way more potent when you do get attacked once in a while because you can then return the favor (damage) 1:1.
6. Jace Beleren
Most of the time you will draw 3 cards out of it while the rest draws one. That might seem a little bit unfavorable but while it's a 3:3 against the whle table (in a 4 player game), your enemies are still each others enemy and not all those cards will get thrown at you... Profit! Some people might even want you to keep him around to get another free card out of the +2 activation. So lay low and Jace away :)
5. Pharika, God of Affliction
The explanation to Pharika was posted prior to this entry... just look it up ;)
4. Reaper of the Wilds
4 mana 4/5 with three abilites? Sign me up. Deathtouch to create favorable blocks? Check! Hexproof to keep him/her around longer? Check! And still if the card didn't have those two abilites I would still play it since getting a free Scry everytime any other creatures dies is quite the game. And remember the best value is the value that comes in little bits so noonce notices it. And if there happens to resolve a sweeper you still get a bunch of Scry 1s chained together to help you find new toys to play with....
3. Coercive Portal
"I'm so glad my board didn't blow up!" is what they will think. "Thanks for the free card suckers!" is what you will think.
2. Journeyer's Kite
I already explained it, so scroll back one blog-entry.... for value!
1. Seer's Sundial
Soooo slow but soooo good. Actually the slowness of the Sundial makes it so insanely good. You won't draw a card every turn unless you topdeck a bunch of lands in a row in which case you're "the poor guy who is topdecking so bad"... and drawing a bunch of cards but nobody will think about that. You can slowly but surely build up really nice mana base while keeping your hand filled up, much like the Kite. Only that Fetchlands and Rampspells are kind of insane...
So what can you learn from this post? When building a deck for multiplayer-EDH don't solely go for "the highest powerlevel" because there are only a few decks - with a really good draw - that can beat the whole table alone. If you try and fail at it you're very likely to not only loose the game but also not have too much fun. Try to be a bit political at times, let others work for you while you seem innocent. Cards that sceam: "Value!!! Cardadvantage!!! Damage!!!" are more likely to get you killed than anything else, so build up small advantages while others play those cards and get killed because of it. It will make winning a lot easier and you'll have a ton more fun playing when you're not playing against a team of 3 people all the time.
That it for today! I hope you liked this Monster-Post... see you around!
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