MTG: Mistakes in Past Card Reviews and Lessons Learned

Greetings Legacy community... And MTG community, considering that, though I write primarily Legacy articles, today's article will cover ideas you can apply to any MTG review, to cards in any format.

This July, I celebrated 2 years writing articles. In that time, I have reviewed many new sets (even more so considering WotC's fast-paced set schedule, which doesn't let any of us rest even for a second!), and, in this time, I got some right, and, of course, some wrong.

However, mistakes are also opportunities to learn, which is something I have been thinking about for a while. In this article, I decided to go over what I consider to be my 5 biggest card review fumbles, and the lessons I learned from them.

5: Forth Eorlingas!

In this case, my mistake wasn't giving this card a bad review (ironically, it is one of my favorite cards and I had a lot of success with it in Legacy), but the fact I didn't review it at all! Here's some context for you: I am a dinosaur. I have been playing MTG since 1996, and I actually took a long break since then, from 2012 to 2018. Some concepts from that time are still ingrained in my brain, such as "set blocks".

A concept that I overlooked right at the beginning, when I first started reviewing sets, mostly because I didn't have to deal with this before I started writing articles, was this: regular sets come out alongside Commander-exclusive cards. It's not like I didn't know they existed, after all, I had been playing with Initiative cards for some time before. What I didn't know was that they came out at the same time as the main set and were tied to it.

So, when I reviewed The Lord of the Rings: Tales of Middle-Earth, which is already a giant set on its own and difficult to go through, I overlooked one of the strongest and most relevant cards for Legacy! Imagine my complete genuine surprise when I saw a Boros list with it in a top 8 on Magic Online the next week after the set came out.

Lesson Learned

Obviously, the first lesson I learned was keeping up with the times. MTG is a dynamic TCG, and a lot of what we take as absolute certain won't be worth anything in the next few years. The competitive circuit has changed, entire formats have changed, and even the structure of the game has changed. So, when you take a break, naturally a lot will have changed once you come back.

Though the common joke in the community is that Commander isn't MTG because it is too different, the truth is that they're still tied. So, you should always keep an eye out for Commander exclusive cards released alongside main sets. You'll always end up finding interesting things for Legacy along the way, such as Broadside Bombardiers or Kappa Cannoneer.

4: Pest Control

I usually say that, unlike sets released straight to Modern, which are always incredibly powerful, Standard-focused sets don't affect Legacy that much. However, from time to time, you'll find cards that end up revolutionizing already existing archetypes, such as Atraxa, Grand Unifier, Up the Beanstalk, Doorkeeper Thrull, or the banned Expressive Iteration and Dreadhorde Arcanist.

When Outlaws of Thunder Junction came out, I saw a card that could have become like the cards above - a "game changer", as I called it in my article. This card was Pest Control... Though it is useful in some control decks, it didn't turn into the massive, meta-shaping removal I imagined it would be, not by a long shot.

Lesson Learned

Easy, Eltinho! Occasionally, we get too excited with new cards, even more when they're upgraded versions of already existing cards, and we overestimate them by a mile. For instance, Pest Control was a cheaper version of Hidetsugu Consumes All. We should always consider the context surrounding the new cards themselves and imagine where they would fit. At the time, Esper Control wasn't that popular, and Pest Control didn't fix any of the issues it had. It was just a tool that made this deck better at what it already did well. So, from this card, I learned that I should always try to look at new cards with a cool head.

3: Stock Up

I didn't even mention Stock Up when I reviewed all the playable cards from Aetherdrift to Legacy. 3 mana on a sorcery that doesn't affect the board? Getting the same cards as you'd get for the same thing the unplayable Divination costs? Not a chance!

Big mistake. I've said more than once that we don't often find real low-cost card advantage like this in Legacy, and the efficient ones we do find often end up banned. However, Stock Up doesn't only create card advantage. It also filters the top 5 cards in your deck, so it fits decks like Show and Tell like a glove. In these lists, it helps you find your missing combo pieces and perfectly fits Ancient Tomb + a blue land or Lotus Petal.

It's not a Dig Through Time, but it is the closest to it without immediately being considered ban-worthy. As a bonus, Orcish Bowmasters doesn't impact it!

Lesson Learned

A card may not fit the standards of a format and be deemed terrible as a result, but a buffed version of it might. If you inject enough power into a card, it could break these standards and actually see a lot of play. Stock Up could have withered away and failed in Legacy, but it was still worth a paragraph or two.

Now, after Aetherdrift, whenever something similar to Stock Up comes along, I make a point of mentioning it in my reviews because it might just go down the same path.

Some bonus trivia for you: Stock Up also sees play in Vintage!

2: Lord of the Rings Landcyclers

Landcycling has been in MTG since Scourge, released back in 2003, and has basically never seen play in Legacy, apart from the occasional Timeless Dragon in some control lists, like Landstill. These versions cycle for half the mana, but that doesn't mean they will see play in the format, right?

I ignored this cycle completely because this mechanic has always been irrelevant. And I consider this to be one of my biggest card review mistakes about Legacy.

Lesson Learned

The big lesson here is that a 50% discount in a format as efficient as Legacy goes a long way. 1 mana to draw 1 card is the standard minimum for this format, but 2 mana is unplayable.

So, these new cards already meet the bare minimum, considering they basically draw 1 card for 1 mana. The fact they also draw a land is particularly relevant early on, and they're also a way to escape the Blood Moon lock.

Add that to the fact they make lists very flexible, particularly the banned and Reanimatable Troll of Khazad-dûm and Lórien Revealed, which is great with Force of Will, and they're a recipe for success. It's a pity the Troll was banned for Entomb's sins because it gave many new strategies to Reanimator and other decks too.

1: Surveil Lands

By far, I consider these lands my biggest review mistake in two years of writing articles. Stock Up is often considered a sleeper card, and I wasn't the only one to overlook its power. I actually took a look at the Landcyclers before dismissing them as not powerful enough for this format. As for these Surveil Lands, I ignored them completely because of a very basic reason: lands that come into play tapped aren't cut out for Legacy, apart from a few rare exceptions, like Cloudpost.

And it didn't even cross my mind that they're basic lands, and, as such, we can tutor them with fetch lands, which would set them apart from the others. It didn't seem to me, at the time, that taking a risk and putting a land in play tapped would be worth it. And, actually, that's precisely what turned out to be true.

Lesson Learned

Be careful with preestablished notions. Temple of Enlightenment can't play in Legacy, so, logically, Meticulous Archive shouldn't. Even though surveil is nearly always better than scry. Period.

However, with these cards, we can scry nearly whenever we want because we can tutor it with cards we'd already use anyway, our fetch lands, and this versatility does make a difference. Besides, we can also tutor these Surveil Lands with LotR's landcyclers. My blind spot to this detail forced me to reconsider the way I reviewed new cards because a simple type change can make the whole difference in the world. It could turn a terrible card into one that consistently sees play in the format. "I sacrifice my fetch land at the end of your turn, then Surveil 1" is nearly as incredible as a cantrip on turn 1.

Mistakes are part of our lives. To this day, I revisit something I played at the 2004 World Championship. Nonetheless, learning from our mistakes is also a part of our lives. After these 2 years of writing articles, I'm quite proud of the content I created, but I also know I fumbled a few times along the way, as you can see above.

Yet, everything made me a better player and content creator, and I hope these mistakes can make me even better in the future. Bringing them up to understand why I made them is not only a way for me to get better but also a way to help other players notice patterns in their own reviews.

What do you think? Tell us your thoughts in our comment section below.

Thank you for reading, and see you next time!