Cards you initially underrated

[TheInfamousBearAssassin]

Off topic, but is the art on Flickerwisp the creepiest thing ever, or what? It's just a mouth with 14 legs and wings? D:!

They don't really look like legs.

[Tao]

Fauna Shaman. I knew he would be good in Standard but he is also good in Legacy.

[Valtrix]

Intuition. Man, I love diabolic tutors at instant speed that can set up loam shenanigans.

Also, spell pierce. "Oh boy, another conditional counterspell" However, after playing with it I'm definitely a believer. Much, more more useful than first expected. And, in blue decks at the point that it becomes less relevant you can usually get rid of it easily enough.

[Tacosnape]

Fauna Shaman. I knew he would be good in Standard but he is also good in Legacy.

I reserve the right to post Fauna Shaman again, once I become convinced he's actually good.

[coraz86]

I reserve the right to post Fauna Shaman again, once I become convinced he's actually good.

QFT.

On topic, I've become a huge fan of Vindicate these last few months, triply so since planeswalkers have become such a huge pain in the format's ass. (Maybe it's a personal mania, but I'm never going back.)

[rockout]

Blood seeker. The lose one life whenever a creature comes into play under control....completely wrecks bitterblossom. I once had to force of will one at a local tourney against a guy playing tribal vampires. Saddest. force of will. ever.

I remember cracking a pithning needle at the savoirs pre-release and someone told me it was going to be worth money. I laughed. I don't know how good it still is but o well.

[Bryant Cook]

I remember cracking a pithning needle at the savoirs pre-release and someone told me it was going to be worth money. I laughed. I don't know how good it still is but o well.

It's worth about 4$ now.

[rockout]

From 15 to 4 how the mighty have fallen.

[lordofthepit]

Fauna Shaman. I knew he would be good in Standard but he is also good in Legacy.

I know this is the thread for underrated cards, but I'm not aware of any competitive Legacy deck that runs Fauna Shaman, besides possibly some form of Elves deck. Do you have a specific one in mind?

[CorpT]

From 15 to 4 how the mighty have fallen.

Just because it was reprinted in 10th and M10. Especially M10. It was a Rare in a set that had chase Mythics - that basically guarantees that it will drop in price.

I know this is the thread for underrated cards, but I'm not aware of any competitive Legacy deck that runs Fauna Shaman, besides possibly some form of Elves deck. Do you have a specific one in mind?

Chapin ran it in his Survival/Emrakul deck. I'm not sure if that makes it "competitive" but it certainly saw play on Day 2 of GP which should mean something.

[majikal]

Chapin ran it in his Survival/Emrakul deck. I'm not sure if that makes it "competitive" but it certainly saw play on Day 2 of GP which should mean something.

Pretty sure Chapin could have made Day 2 piloting a cup of Ramen noodles. Also Fauna Shaman cost him at least one match that I'm aware of. Probably more.

[anonymos]

LED was far from underrated when it came out. It was the money rare from the set. I always thought it was crap, and for a long time it was.

I'm going to disagree with your statement. LED was considered a junk rare for a LONG time.

The rares from Mirage that saw competitive play while it was legal in "standard" were Bazaar of Wonders, Cadaverous Bloom, Celestial Dawn (still not sure why - I was new), Frenetic Efreet, Hammer of Bogardan, Infernal Contract, Maro, Natural Balance, Sacred Mesa, Spirit of the Night. I didn't see LED or Dreadnought listed anywhere above junk rare prices.

Many of these cards barely passed 5-10 dollars each either other than Hammer. Behold the power of having back issues of Inquest still...

[Shawon]

I'm pretty sure most people underrated all Planeswalkers when Lorwyn came out with the first ever planeswalkers. I can still remember all "Planeswalkers suck, they'll never live past a turn" comments on forums in those months.

[dontbiteitholmes]

I'm going to disagree with your statement. LED was considered a junk rare for a LONG time.

The rares from Mirage that saw competitive play while it was legal in "standard" were Bazaar of Wonders, Cadaverous Bloom, Celestial Dawn (still not sure why - I was new), Frenetic Efreet, Hammer of Bogardan, Infernal Contract, Maro, Natural Balance, Sacred Mesa, Spirit of the Night. I didn't see LED or Dreadnought listed anywhere above junk rare prices.

Many of these cards barely passed 5-10 dollars each either other than Hammer. Behold the power of having back issues of Inquest still...

It was the money rare when the set initially came out. I don't know what happened after that I stopped buying cards for a while.

[4eak]

I'm pretty sure most people underrated all Planeswalkers when Lorwyn came out with the first ever planeswalkers

I really disagree with the idea that Planeswalkers have been underrated overall (which is what I think you are implying, even though that isn't what you've explicitly stated here). Planeswalkers generally do suck in Legacy. From Deckcheck, maindeck Planeswalker usage for all available Legacy decks:

PW -- Decks of any size tournament -- Decks of 33+ Person Tournaments
Ajani Goldmane -- 30 -- 11
Ajani Vengeant -- 51 -- 18
Chandra Ablaze -- 2 -- 0
Chandra Nalaar -- 6 -- 0
Elspeth, Knight-Errant -- 353 -- 156
Garruk Wildspeaker -- 85 -- 40
Gideon Jura --2 -- 2
Jace Beleren -- 155 -- 58
Jace, the Mind Sculptor -- 155 --78
Liliana Vess -- 16 -- 4
Nicol Bolas, Planeswalker -- 3 -- 2
Nissa Revane -- 2 -- 1
Sarkhan Vol -- 10 -- 3
Sarkhan the Mad -- 0 -- 0
Sorin Markov -- 6 -- 2
Tezzeret the Seeker -- 16 -- 1

For Comparison:
Tarmogoyf -- 3523 -- 1725
Eternal Witness -- 914 -- 409
Shock -- 28 -- 11 (sadly, Didgeroo and Nourishing Lich came up short for this example)

I will say, given how long it has been out, Jace, the Mind Sculptor has shown itself to be fairly good. Given the slightly more than 6 months it has been available, here is an approximate maindeck impact comparison of Jace and Goyf (given the same time frame, since their debuts).

1510 Decks, 155 used Jace -- 10%
494 Decks, 123 used Tarmogoyf -- 25%
(Legacy has obviously grown)

Noteworthy, I didn't count the number of Jace and Goyfs actually played in a deck, and Goyf's numbers would most certainly improve even further if we considered the average quantity in each deck playing it (almost always 4x when played) in our analysis. Planeswalkers, even when played in a deck, aren't played in great quantities, which further limits how much impact they really have.



peace,
4eak

[clavio]

http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/s...ead.php?11278-[Question-35]-Planeswalkers-in-Legacy

These guys didn't think Elspeth would see any play in legacy. I think thats an example of a card being underrated chief.

[Shawon]

@4eak: What I was talking about in my post was people dismissing planeswalkers in any deck, with no particular format in mind. Your data shows that planeswalkers saw tourney play, albeit small percentages, so I still agree that a lot of people underrated planeswalkers when they came out in Lorwyn, not Shards Block or later.

[4eak]

@ clavio

These guys didn't think Elspeth would see any play in legacy. I think thats an example of a card being underrated chief.

But, this is not an example which counters what I've said. My argument certainly allows for exceptions (Jace 2.0 and Elspeth, for example) -- I was explaining how Planeswalkers overall have not been underrrated. Please read again, because I was rebutting this claim (actually, somewhat broader, because I think more was implied):

I'm pretty sure most people underrated all Planeswalkers when Lorwyn came out with the first ever planeswalkers

As to your reply, let me first say that "3 people" is not the same as "most people" (and only 2 of them commented on Elspeth). Second, even if most people were wrong about Elspeth (your example isn't an indicator either, btw) does not mean that "most people underrated all Planeswalkers".

In my view, your example of Elspeth is a poor one too, as the degree to which Elspeth has been misjudged by the masses at the time it was released may not have been far off; honestly, Elspeth hasn't really had a ton of impact on Legacy.

For anyone interested in more context behind those comments, at the time they were made this was the DTB Forum.

By and large, what I believe to be the Legacy community's perspective on Planeswalkers in general (exclude Jace 2.0 if you want), have been fairly accurate. Even for more recent perspectives on PWs, I would go so far as to suggest that it was reasonable to believe that dedicated control was dying and that PWs were growing weaker until the banning of Mystical tutor (which was completely unforseen). I wouldn't call that underrating though -- we need to consider predictions within context.

For comparison, let me give you an example of some Lorwyn cards that were truly underrated at the time:

Merfolk.

Few people took Teh Fish seriously enough. Hell, even today, some people suggest/joke about the deck as not "being a real deck". It has proven to be a real predator and a contender (admittedly, to my surprise, even in a very Zoo heavy metagame).

With all of that said, I think Planeswalkers may be getting stronger, especially with our shifting metagame. Jace 2.0 appears to have better and better positioning in the evolving metagame; it may be the first PW that is worth building around (Elspeth missing the mark, just barely).


Edited in:

@ Shawon

What I was talking about in my post was people dismissing planeswalkers in any deck, with no particular format in mind.

You should be clearer; we are on a Legacy forum (even if other formats are discussed).

Your data shows that planeswalkers saw tourney play, albeit small percentages, so I still agree that a lot of people underrated planeswalkers when they came out in Lorwyn, not Shards Block or later.

This isn't exactly agreeing with your initial statement. Even so, I still disagree with you. I gave you two examples of cards which have tournament results that I don't consider very relevant to Legacy -- I did that to put the Planeswalkers in perspective. I think Eternal Witness is only barely playable in competitive Legacy, and Shock (which has more tournament results than the majority of PWs) is a complete fluke. You see my point, right? Even if PWs put up some results, it was usually noise, not signal.

Perhaps we disagree on the degree to which a prediction must be accurate in order for it to be valid; perhaps we don't even agree on what the general sentiment was on these cards at the time. I apologize if I'm not understanding you correctly. From what I can see, the predictions/ratings of the Lorwyn PWs were fairly accurate. Planeswalkers from that era have done very little in this format; and I think the skeptics of PWs from that era were generally correct.




peace,
4eak

[TheInfamousBearAssassin]

I actually bought 24 Lords of Atlantis before Lorwyn came out, since they were $0.40 each at the time and just fundamentally a retarded card waiting for any other non-sucky Merfolk to get printed.

I did think Planeswalkers were over-rated when they came out, but I'm not sure if that counts as under-rating them. Cards that do new things always get hyped through the roof. No one remembers Upwelling.

I think Eternal Witness is only barely playable in competitive Legacy

I don't agree with this btw. I think Eternal Witness is a card like Lim-Dul's Vault or Vedalken Shackles that won't see real play at all until the metagame shifts to where it's suddenly amazing. That and as long as Survival of the Fittest sees play it will still randomly top 8 as a 1-of.

[Michael Keller]

I think there's a fine balance between underrating a card when it comes out and justifying a card's worth as newer cards get printed. Here's a couple I thought of off the top of my head that saw/see play and were at one time forgotten or just unused in competitive play:

Gamekeeper: Once Oath of Druids got the axe, people looked for different ways to cheat larger creatures into play. This guy ended up seeing some action and proved to be pretty effective before loads of different graveyard hate (Leyline of the Void, Relic of Progenitus, Extirpate, etc.) were printed. Doesn't see as much play as he used to, but proved to be pretty effective in its first several years in the format.

The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale: This card collected dust for so many years. Even when Living Wish was released, people at first never really considered it a target as toolbox sideboards became more intricate over the years. This card was (and still is) very rare, which is part of the reason the price-tag on these fetches close to three bills. It's no wonder it sees play today; it is an uncounterable way of wiping the board of a large number of creatures without doing anything, really. When the rise in value of a card increases that much, it's quite obvious people started seeing it for how effective it truly is.

Dream Halls: I believe it may have been Inquest magazine called it the "worst card in the set" when Stronghold was first released, but I may be wrong on that; I don't know. Either way, the card went a while before seeing any real play. Once it did, it got banned. So yeah, I personally think it's awful, but apparently some people thought it was good enough to remove from the format for many years. Go figure.