No Reservations II, pt. 11c—Visions

{Bullshit in Plant Language}

Lichenthrope 187, downgraded from to .

Price





Charging Monstrosaur is an . Sure, it’s about as pushed as you can get at , so much so that it could easily be a , but it’s still an . Why is Lichenthrope Listed again?

{Bullshit in Meteorological Phenomenon}

Lightning Cloud 188, downgraded from to .

Price





Lightning Cloud makes a fine build-around-me , especially for Limited play, but is made of terrible and feel-bad as a Listed .

{Bullshit in Ogrish}

Ogre Enforcer 189, downgraded from to .

Price





When I first started designing Magic cards, back around the turn of the millennium, I had the idea for a mechanic, called Overkill² N, inspired by and incorporating elements of Ogre Enforcer, Callous Giant, & Divine Presence, but I could never think of the appropriate wording.



What I wanted was an ability that made it so the creature with the ability could only be destroyed by exactly lethal damage+N or more from a single source, and anything less than that would be replaced with no damage. Mind you, that’s replaced and not prevented.



All of this is to say that Ogre Enforcer is a decent that didn’t deserved to be Listed.

{Bullshit in both Phyrexian and Eldrazi}

Phyrexian Marauder 136

Price





I think I can be forgiven for not remembering Ugin’s Conjurant, as it’s a new card. That doesn’t mean that it doesn’t prove my point about the bullshit of The Reserved List on two separate occasions in this very episode alone.

{Bullshit in An Unfortunate Inability to Continue This Running Gag}

Pillar Tombs of Aku 137

Price





Unless it’s a really unique or interesting effect, World Enchantments get Piled.

{Hey, y’get that thing I sencha?}

Pygmy Potamus I’ma hafta get back to you on that, chief…

Price





Man, saboteur abilities were rough back in the day. For some reason, you were forced to choose between dealing unblocked combat damage, or getting an effect (see Ophidian, or search Gatherer for “assigns no combat damage”). It took them years before someone finally had the courage to stand up, lift their head up high, and proclaim ”¿Porque no los dos?”⁴



I want so very desperately for Pygmy Hippo to have another go at Standard, but the unnecessary choice of either dealing combat damage or doing the cool thing is inexcusable. So, until WotC gives us an updated redo, I’m just gonna hafta stick it where it’ll have the greatest chance of seeing the greatest amount of play. 61

{Bullshit in Awakened⁵ Land (And we’re back to that again.)}

Quirion Druid 190, downgraded from to , to match Balduvian Frostwaker.

Price

{Look Martha, the needle moved a bit!}

Rainbow Efreet 58

Price



Am I a little biased against damn near impossible to deal with creatures that inevitably wind up as control finishers? Hello, allow me to introduce myself. I’m a filthy & proud casual Social Gamer Timmy/Johnny, whose idea of fun is allowing everyone to do their cool things, within reason. If the entire table has identified something as a threat to the continuation of the game, it should not require a very specific card that has a very low probability of anyone running it in their deck in order to get rid of it.



Phasing should never have been printed, much less seen the light of Standard, but Rainbow Efreet is too obviously powerful to Pile, but not quite powerful enough on its own to consider it a mistake (although phasing is). The funny thing is, we’ve gone so long without utilizing the proper category that I’d almost completely forgotten it existed. If there’s a more perfect indictment of The Reserved List, I’ve yet to hear it.

{”Oh that’s nice, innit? I’m glad they gettin’ something, ‘cause they ‘ad hell of a time.”⁶}

Retribution of the Meek 191

Price





How many Standard formats can you think of where Retribution of the Meek would’ve been the perfect safety valve? How many wasted opportunities because of WotC’s misguided devotion to a promise that they’ve already broken?

{Look Martha, even way back then, they were experimenting with current “you control” technology.}

Righteous War 192

Price





Gather ‘round, children, as Old Man Magic tells you tales of R&D’s mistakes of the past. It wasn’t until Lorwyn that the now-standard form of “you control” was adopted across the board⁷ (and even Lorwyn had an outlier or two). Before then, it was “all x” (e.g. “all Elves” or “all white creatures”) or “all creatures”. This had a few corner case benefits, but the positives were FAR outweighed by the negatives.



So to find such an advanced early adopter of the eventual standard is amazing, but the fact that it’s Listed because hurr-durr reasons is amazingly stupid.

{Footnotes}