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By: JXClaytor, Joshua Claytor
Sep 11 2013 8:28am
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Grinding is miserable right now!  Theros previews have started and Standard events on MTGO to me have taken on a Dead Man Walking kind of feel to them.  Yeah Restoration Angel, Thragtusk and Snapcaster Mage are giving their final well deserved farewells to the format before they all move on to Modern (well maybe not Thragtusk) for the foreseeable future.  Gods are coming!  New Planeswalkers are coming!  Legendary Enchantment Artifacts are about to be a thing!  So while I may be 7-10 this week in my quest for the MOCS things are going to be awesome soon!  People will have fantastic prerelease stories, or swan songs about how they did!  Pros will complain on twitter about Starcity having multiple open events before Pro Tour Theros, and so many packs will get opened searching for the chase rares and all we get to do on MTGO is play current Standard for a few more weeks! 

We have it rough on MTGO.  I really wish that the sets could sync up closer to paper, but I do not think that will ever happen.  Maybe we could get our prerelease the weekend after papers since the paper world no longer has real release events.  As a pretty strict MTGO only player I want to play with the shiny new toys at the same time as everyone else, waiting is just a bummer! 

So Theros is happening, it is getting spoiled on Twitter, the mothership, other strategy sites (I'm not sure if we are getting one this go round, it would have been super nice though!) and reddit posts.  It looks full of flavor and much more exciting to me than M14 did, we're getting an old favorite back in Thoughtseize, which will be nice, I think the art is not as good as the original, but if it's cheaper, than that helps out modern!  Now, let's reprint the fetchlands Wizards! 

I'm going off topic, I know everyone is excited about Theros, but this past Standard format means something to me.  Remember M13 brought me back into actually playing the game (I guess I never really left since I was managing the site while I was playing WOW.) and Return to Ravnica was one of my most favorite blocks of all time, with only the original Ravnica, original Mirrodin, and Onslaught blocks surpassing it.  I guess I want to say bye to my favorite cards in my own way, so without further ado I present the ten cards I am going to miss when rotation happens. 

*Spoiler*

Rancor is first! 

10.

Back in July, Hellrider was on my list of cards that I would not miss at all when the format rotated.  What happened?  Well I played with it.  I pretty much qualified for the prelims of season nine with a mono red deck that cost less than 100 dollars in Standard (of course I missed the prelims, but that alternate art Ratchet Bomb is hot!)  Playing with it swung games in my favor.  A little behind versus a control matchup?  Here comes Hellrider to square things up in my favor.  Board stalled in an aggro match?  Hellrider leapt forth like a burly protector to close out the game.  Nothing better to do on turn four?  Hellrider got in for four!  Some people see mono red as a mindless deck, make some guys, turn them sideways, burn out blockers, but it's not as mindless as that.  As a control player the past five weeks on an aggro deck has been a learning exercise for me.  Do I send in the Hellrider knowing blocks will kill it?  Do I maximize damage and leave him back?  I learned a lot with this card, and while I have been playing since 1994, I think it is nice to know that I can still learn a bit in this game!  Hellrider

9.  Predator Ooze

My first PTQ back was a mono green aggro deck similar to what Carrie Oliver won a WMCQ with last year.  Ooze was my biggest threat, and the target of many Revenge of the Hunted.  It got along nice with (Ulvenweld Tracker) and Prey Upon.  It was hard to answer outside of a Tragic Slip or Devour Flesh.  I did poorly at that PTQ, but seeing my friends do well and actually playing paper cards again helped reignite my spark so to say. 

8.  Falkenrath Aristocrat

I guess the cards that I will miss were some of the ones that I was most successful with.  While Tom Martell was wearing a fancy scarf and celebrating his Pro Tour win with a deck that featured this card, I was too busy hanging out with my son and getting ready to battle in a game day.  I ended up splitting in the top four of that event, as ice cream and video games with Cassius was a little more important than the playmat, but this card won me and my play group close to four boxes of product in the three weeks after the Pro Tour. 

7.  Wolfir Silverheart

I feel as if Wolfir Silverheart was underplayed while it was in the format.  Sure it had a strong showing in block events, and kinda shined a little bit after M14 came out, but Thragtusk was the five drop of the format, which forced out a rather unique creature.  I played a ton of this guy with Yeva, Nature's Herald because sometimes there really is nothing better than a mid-combat +4/+4 boost that just wrecked your opponent's side of the board.  When paired there was not much that was stopping this guy and its buddy. 

6. 

While researching this article, I could have sworn that this card was featured in a Grand Prix Top Eight.  I might have gotten it confused with a StarCity open, but I digress.  When Innistrad  first came out this enchantment was combined with Grand Architect to power out cheap Wurmcoil Engines.  Sometimes the deck would win with Perilous Myr and Havengul Lich.  You would cast the Myr for free, and then reanimate it multiple times with the Lich.  Sure it's seen some fringe play since Scars rotated out, Summoning never really took off in the new (soon to be old) Standard.  It was a fun card, and one that I thought was a brewers dream!  Heartless Summoning

5.  Omniscience

Another card that is a brewers dream, this enchantment has seen some moderate success in Legacy where you can cheat it into play with Show and TellUnexpected Results is the closest thing to Show and Tell in Standard, and well it can be pretty unreliable.  Travis Woo had a great Unexpected Results deck when Gatecrash first came out, but nothing really came of it.  I'll miss it though because the card for me was just so much fun.  Sometimes you'd get it out on turn four and cast everything in the world for free, and other times you'd die with it chilling it in your hand, but when it worked out for you, it was truly was a thing of beauty. 

4.  Lingering Souls

When spoiled that was a pretty unassuming token generator.  I remember hearing people say it was not as good as Midnight Haunting, but I guess they were wrong.  I'm just kidding, everyone who saw this card knew it was powerful, Jacob Van Lunen predicted that it would see play in Standard, Modern and Legacy.  It has done all of those things and managed to get  banned in block along with Intangible Virtue because it warped the format.  To me there was something awesome about this card, it of course played well with the Aristocrats, and I honestly think that the 4 power worth of fliers you got for 5 mana was pretty fair.  I mean that's the going rate for a Serra Angel or Sengir Vampire right?   

3. Sorin, Lord of Innistrad

I cannot tell you how many times I have cast this guy, activated his first ability and ended up winning the game thanks to the lifelinking vampires he produced.  I may have used his ultimate ability a handful of times, but his +1 was the best thing going.  Out of the planeswalkers that are going to rotate, I am going to miss him the most.  Garruk Relentless and Liliana of the Veil may have gotten more play, but for my money, Sorin was better than all of them! 

2. Champion of the Parish

As a cop out I wrote an article about this guy, you should check it out!  Humans may not miss him much post rotation, there are some really neat ones in Theros!  I however will miss him a ton, as he was a cornerstone in a ton of

1. 

:( We will always have pauper.  :( I guess Modern.  I'm thankful that this card was reprinted, it not only got me back into magic, but reminded me of how neat magic was during my freshman year of college.   Rancor



With that said I am for sure looking forward to Theros.  I cannot wait to get my hands on the digital goodness!  The rotation of course will shake up Standard, but with the Pro Tour soon after the sets release and multiple higher profile standard events going around (Starcity Opens, TCGplayer.com 5ks, and two different state championships).  Enjoy these cards while they are still around, you may never play with them again, but hopefully they will be able to shine in other formats as well!  Next time we'll have more words and maybe a video about magic.  Who knows? 

Thanks for reading!

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