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Ranking the Mythics of Worldwake

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Shoved in the middle between two monumental sets, Worldwake at times feels like an anomaly. Often I find myself forgetting many of the cards in the set, and I think most people just think of it as "the set with Jace, the Mind Sculptor and Stoneforge Mystic." While that's true, I think you'll be surprised at the quality of cards that players have loved playing with for years and years. One may inevitably be better than all, but the set is packed top to bottom with outstanding mythics and today we're going to rank them all! Let's not waste any time and dive on in!

10. Novablast Wurm

Novablast Wurm

If you bought a booster box of Worldwake or even just saw one at your local game store, you'd find yourself seeing the art of Novablast Wurm on it. If you're like me, that would make you pretty excited to actually open the card out of a pack. Until you read the card, that is.

Novablast Wurm practically begs players to try figuring it out. It seems so simple yet feels like a puzzle at the same time. How can you make it work so that you just keep blowing up your opponents' board while retaining your own? Turns out, there's really just not many ways, and playing this card is as rough as it seems. Paying 7 mana for a 7/7 that doesn't do anything until it attacks and blows up your board as well as your opponents' just doesn't cut it. Back then you had Doom Blade as well, making it that much worse. It was bad in its time and remains a stinker to this day.

9. Abyssal Persecutor

As I mentioned when I covered Magic 2010 just a few weeks ago, Platinum Angel is an absolute all-timer of a Magic card. Even when it didn't have much competitive pedigree behind it, it was the kind of thing everyone loved. So, in Worldwake, we got the inverse of that card in Abyssal Persecutor. A highly aggressive demon instead of defensive angel, the card wouldn't allow you to win the game as long as it was on the battlefield. It is - and was - a really cool card that saw a bit of Standard play and feels great to play in Cube, but ultimately it's not as impactful as you'd like it to be most of the time. In your average set of mythics, this might end up a bit higher, but here, it's easily on the lower end.

8. Admonition Angel

Do you like Oblivion Ring abilities? Then you're going to love Admonition Angel. This card continuously steals away all your opponents' stuff just for taking the basic game action of playing lands. Even if it didn't do any of that, it's still a massive angel that brings in some serious beats. In some ways, getting to exile tons of things at the same time just feels like gravy. The only real downside to this is how expensive it is and how easy it is to pick off with a board wipe. If you can stick a Lightning Greaves or similar on it, though, oh boy is it going to absolutely take over the game single-handedly.

7. Wrexial, the Risen Deep

Wrexial feels a bit weird, and honestly a little out of place. It feels so mechanically off I've always wondered why it wound up in this set. As the story goes, it turns out it was actually something Ken Nagle wanted to build so that he could use it as a commander and it just wound up in the set, so if it feels a bit weird that's why. Turns out he was really onto something because actually playing with Wrexial can be a total beating in the right game. It's highly dependent on the spell quality of your opponents and how many of them are even playing a lot of instants and sorceries in the first place. Even if there's not much, though, just one or two hits can get you some serious value.

6. Dragonmaster Outcast

If you're a new player just getting into the game playing lots of Commander, seeing Dragonmaster Outcast will leave your jaw on the floor. When I first came back to the game about six months after this set came out and got hooked on Commander, it was all I wanted to be doing. Sure, it was easy to pick off, but getting a 5/5 every turn for such a low opportunity cost is too hard to pass up. It was worth a solid chunk of change for a good long while until it was reprinted in a variety of Commander precons over the last few years. With iconic art and everlasting casual appeal, it's a great card and the fact that it's this low on the list is telling at how great the quality of mythics was in this set.

5. Omnath, Locus of Mana

Omnath is such a simple card, but it truly is the epitome of what Green is trying to do. Make lots of mana, and then store it into your giant creature. For the most part, Omnath is just a massive vanilla beat stick, but the fact that it also stores up your mana means you can use it for some really massive plays later in the game. While a lot of the love for it came just from Mono-Green Commander decks, it's great in other color combinations as well, such as playing it in a Gruul deck to fuel Fireball-style cards. Even beyond just how great it feels to play, Omnath became such a fan favorite that we got five different versions total over the years - far more than practically any non-planeswalker legend to date.

4. Comet Storm

When Modern Masters 2015 came out, the set was utterly lambasted for its inclusion of Comet Storm as a mythic. It was barely worth anything and was essentially a bulk rare at the time - a status it holds to this day. But it was a mythic for good reason, because if you end up staring this card down in a game of Limited, you're almost assuredly going to be completely wiped out. The same is true of Commander, where it becomes a true house of a finisher that allows you to kill each of your opponents at once if you have the mana to do so. Despite being such a budget card, it has the second highest EDHREC rating among the set's mythics, and that's in a set with some truly outstanding mythics as we've already seen. The card is quite a bit more underrated than I think people are willing to give it for until it completely dominates the games it's played in.

3. Eye of Ugin

On its own, Eye of Ugin isn't super great. It only helps you if you have Eldrazi and if you don't it doesn't even do the bare minimum by tapping for a colorless mana. It wasn't even remotely playable until the following set came out, as up until this point there weren't any Eldrazi in the game. Even then, it was only usable in fairly niche decks as the Eldrazi we did get were either not great or else were too expensive to make the discount worthwhile. So, why is this in third place, then?

Well, it took several years for it to be worthwhile, but eventually we got Oath of the Gatewatch which brought us a ton of aggressively cost Eldrazi creatures. Using Eye of Ugin, you could cast multiple copies of Eldrazi Mimic and Endless One for free on your very first turn. Then on your second turn, you'd play an Eldrazi Temple, play a Thought-Knot Seer, effectively Thoughtseize your opponent, and also your free Mimics are now 4/4 beaters...on turn two! This sort of play led to the infamous Eldrazi Winter that plagued Modern for a short while, leading to Eye of Ugin's eventual ban in the format. Even after that it still made showings in Legacy and Vintage on the back of Eldrazi decks - forever cementing it as an all-timer.

2. Avenger of Zendikar

I love playing Green ramp decks a ridiculous amount and when it comes to amazing finishers, few stand out to me as much as Avenger of Zendikar. I think most peoples' minds will jump to Craterhoof Behemoth, who certainly takes the true crown for Green finishers, but it's wild how ubiquitous Avenger has been since its release. The card saw tons of play in Standard decks - primarily Valakut lists - but it's remained a constant in casual play. Even almost 15 years after its release, it's still one of the best top-end plays for any Green deck in Commander and continues to be one of the best things you can be doing in Green ramp decks in MTGO's Vintage Cube. Turns out just getting a bunch of creatures and making them big is all you need for a great time.

1. Jace, the Mind Sculptor

"Jace, the Mind Sculptor - better than all."

If you know the lyrics, you know how true it is. For the longest time, Jace, the Mind Sculptor was the undisputed king of planeswalkers. He commanded over a $100 price tag for years - earning the famous "Wallet Sculptor" moniker in the process - and dominated just about every format you can think of. He earned a ban in Standard, was kicked out of Modern from the onset, and saw tremendous amounts of play in Legacy and in Vintage Cubes. Today, his impact has diminished in the wake of current power creep, but even now he remains a powerhouse and one of the greatest and most iconic cards in the entire history of Magic: The Gathering. Truly, there could be no other for number one.

Paige Smith

Twitter: @TheMaverickGal

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