Old man yells at Magic cards.
You’ve seen plenty of lists that highlight the best Magic cards, so today, we’ll do the opposite – the most unfun cards in Magic. This list is, of course, highly subjective, but I will be using the following guiding principles:
- Gameplay – the most significant factor is how the card plays. For various reasons, all the cards on this list have heinous gameplay. Bonus points to cards that prolong miserable games — a long, low-quality game counts for more than a short one.
- Ubiquity – How heavily was (or is) the card played across formats. I’m looking at how unfun a given card is, but how many players it made have less fun over the years. The more a card got played, the more impact it had on global fun levels.
- Power Level – This isn’t actually a factor intrinsically, but the power level (in part) determines ubiquity, so the cards on this list tend to be quite powerful.
Let’s get to it!
#8 Winter Orb
Winter Orb
Fifth Edition, Rare
Winter Orb is so old that it fails pretty hard on the ubiquity test (the number of games played with this is the least on the list by a wide margin). Still, I wanted to include one shoutout to Magic’s first years, and Winter Orb barely beat out The Abyss, Nether Void, Stasis, and Armageddon. Orb scores high on the other metrics, as games involving Winter Orb are agonizingly slow, long, and rarely in much question — once you’re Orb locked, you don’t usually get out of it. This was frequently used with ways to tap it (Relic Barrier, Opposition, or Icy Manipulator), but even just playing it in aggressive decks sufficed. If you’ve never gotten a four-mana spell Memory Lapse’d with a Winter Orb in play, you can’t truly understand how miserable this card was.
#7 Mental Misstep
Mental Misstep
New Phyrexia, Uncommon
By my estimation, Mental Misstep is the second least-played card on the list (mainly because it got banned in so many formats so quickly). I did play with this plenty, and it was not a good time. The Misstep lottery was just “how many Mental Missteps are in my opening hand” and when you double-Misstep’d their turn one play and countered their Misstep, it was simply brutal. The only positive (if it even is one) that you can say about Mental Misstep is that it wasn’t that loud — once the Misstep turns were done, you still did just play Magic, even if turn one was a massive factor in the winner.
#6 Daze
Daze
Nemesis, Common
Daze occupies a special place on the list, as it’s likely the most played card (historically and currently). My main point of contention with Daze is how badly it punishes mana cards that are three mana or more and how agonizing it is to try and ride it out. When you decide to wait a turn to play around Daze, they often will Wasteland you, at which point you’ve lost a turn and have the same decision again.
So, you wait and pass the turn. and if they have another Wasteland, it’s a disaster. But even if they don’t, they will frequently just Force of Will your play, even pitching that Daze for further insult. The problem (I have) with Daze is that it gives you the illusion that you can play around it, but the reality is that you can’t and shouldn’t in most games. Perhaps that’s more of a problem with how people play against Daze than the card itself, but whatever the cause, it can be pretty demoralizing to face. If you’ve ever gotten a Force of Will countered by Daze, you know exactly what I’m talking about.
#5 Goblin Charbelcher
Goblin Charbelcher
Mirrodin, Rare
Goblin Charbelcher often takes the fall for a variety of cards here (such as Balustrade Spy) because it represents the all-in-turn one combo kill decks. This is the most controversial card on the list because some people love the combo gameplay and because there’s an argument to be made that having this kind of deck in the metagame is good. “It keeps people honest”, or something similar. Well, it’s my list, and I think that reducing Magic to flipping over both hands and checking for a number of Force of Will or Force of Negation versus a turn-one win isn’t the most enthralling gameplay. I will say that fizzled Belcher games against decks with tons of answers but no way to close the game can be pretty funny, but most games involving Belcher-style decks just aren’t that good.
#4 Karakas
Karakas
Ultimate Masters, Mythic
Karakas can somewhat be excused based on being printed in the first couple of years of Magic (and the first time legendary creatures were even a thing), but it still sees tons of play to this day. A land that provides white and is untapped that also bounces any legendary creature is just completely out of control, and it’s no surprise this is banned in any kind of Commander format. Even in Cube, it’s one of the top cards as more and more of Magic’s best creatures are legendary.
Not only is the opportunity cost almost nonexistent (a weakness to Wasteland and the risk of drawing multiple copies in Legacy are about it), but Karakas often dominates any game where it appears. It makes opposing legendary creatures nearly blank, protects yours from removal, and lets you re-trigger enter-the-battlefield effects as many times as you please. Venser, Shaper Savant and Karakas were always tough to deal with, even if that’s a bit slow for the present day. Karakas not only gets the nod here for the gameplay but facilitates the fact that it’s banned in so many formats.
#3 Nadu, Winged Wisdom
Nadu, Winged Wisdom
Modern Horizons 3, Rare
Nadu, Winged Wisdom didn’t last long in Modern, though thanks to the scheduled ban system, it lasted much longer than it should have. Not only is Nadu absolutely busted, but it might score the absolute lowest on any Magic card ever when it comes to “the game is decided but not deterministic, so we have to take at least fifty game actions before I concede to your combo”. They can always miss (or at least it seems like it), so you are obliged to watch them trigger Nadu, Shuko, and Springheart Nantuko many, many, many, times before ultimately losing. It’s not a fun experience, and combined with the often sloppy mechanics (“Did I put my Nadu on my Birds of Paradise once or twice this turn?”), it’s about as agonizing as games of Magic get when you factor in quality against duration.
#2 White Plume Adventurer
White Plume Adventurer
Commander Legends: Battle for Baldur’s Gate, Rare
Oh, White Plume Adventurer — where to begin? This card really ticks a lot of the boxes when it comes to terrible gameplay:
- Extremely confusing – reading the card does not explain the card. This has a whole other novel of text riding alongside it, as the entire dungeon plus how the Initiative works as a concept is tucked away in the “gain the Initiative” rules text.
- Extremely powerful – White Plume Adventurer wins most games where it’s cast and even became banned in Legacy (one of the most historically powerful formats in the game). Gaining the Initiative is incredibly powerful, and the only three-mana way to do so (when coupled with Ancient Tomb and the like) ended up being way too good.
- The game doesn’t always end, but it’s often over — this is a hallmark of unfun cards. White Plume Adventurer ends up in plenty of games where the person who cast it is definitely going to win, as the Initiative marches inexorably on, but it still takes a while to conclude.
I really don’t have a problem with the gameplay of “you have to deal combat damage to take the Initiative”, but the whole dungeon thing and the insane power level make the mechanic abysmal in a non-multiplayer setting. The Monarch is a much cleaner and saner version, and I think it leads to good games instead of unpleasant ones.
#1 Sensei’s Divining Top
Sensei’s Divining Top
Double Masters 2022, Rare
The all-time cards for terrible gameplay and (hopefully) always will be Sensei’s Divining Top. This card looks unassuming on first read (“It doesn’t really do anything, right?”), but leads to the highest number of pure wasted minutes per game of any card in history. Looking at the top three and re-arranging them is the perfect storm of pseudo-relevant decision-making, a process that takes a real amount of time and something that many players activate multiple times a turn. The fact that Sensei’s Divining Top games are often “upkeep, activate Sensei’s Divining Top, think, draw. Going into main phase, activate Sensei’s Divining Top, pass. End of your turn, activate Sensei’s Divining Top again, just to check” is just unbelievable and it’s paired with a high power level. It is actually quite strong to be able to constantly look at the top three cards of your library and draw a card when needed, so the card saw lots and lots of play.
I won’t even get into the Counterbalance part of things, because that was also miserable, and overall, Sensei’s Divining Top is my pick for not only the least fun Magic card ever but also the most poorly designed. It really has no redeeming factors, and automatically makes games less fun by its very presence.