Top Trades: October 7-October 14

Happy Thursday, and welcome back to Top Trades - the weekly series where we check in with some of the most popular cards here at Cardsphere over the past week. So, which cards are players trading around the most? Let's find out!

Honorable Mention - Fear of Missing Out

Number of Trades: 7 --- Number of Cards Traded: 8

Starting us off as this week's honorable mention is Fear of Missing Out, an incredibly efficient and aggressive creature from Magic's newest set, Duskmourn: House of Horror.

At the cost of , Fear of Missing Out is a 2/3 Nightmare enchantment creature that causes you to discard a card and then draw a card when it enters the battlefield, allowing you to inch closer towards fulfilling the delirium requirement on its second triggered ability: whenever Fear of Missing Out attacks for the first time each turn, if there are four or more card types among cards in your graveyard, untap target creature and there will be an additional combat phase after this one.

Most extra-combat effects in Magic cost somewhere around four or five mana, so having a repeatable one for as little as two mana is an incredible rate. Sure, you can only untap one creature this way (meaning that your second combat will likely have fewer participants than the first), but this is still an extra combat step. At the very least, Fear of Missing Out will be attacking twice in a turn.

#5 - Overlord of the Hauntwoods

Number of Trades: 6 --- Number of Cards Traded: 6

Next up is our first main-list pick of the week, and that honor goes to none other than Overlord of the Hauntwoods. We've talked quite a bit about the cycles in Duskmourn, be they Leylines, Glimmers, or Fears, but now it's time to make our way up the chain to the big mythics of the set: Overlords.

Unique to Duskmourn's Overlords is the mechanic impending. This is an alternate cost that works sort of like suspend, but with a lot more value attached; in short, by paying a card's impending cost, it will resolve as a noncreature enchantment with a number of time counters on it equal to its impending number. At the beginning of your end step, you'll remove a time counter, and once the last is removed then the impending permanent will become a creature. So far, all cards with impending are enchantment creatures, meaning that they resolve as noncreature enchantments if you cast them for their impending cost.

Alright, back to Overlord of the Hauntwoods. For , this Overlord is a 6/5 Avatar Horror enchantment creature that creates a tapped land token named Everywhere (which has every basic land type) whenever it enters or attacks. Alternatively, you can also pay to cast Overlord of the Haunts for its impending cost, in which case it'll stick around as a noncreature enchantment for four turns.

#4 - No More Lies

Number of Trades: 6 --- Number of Cards Traded: 9

Coming in at number four is a pretty solid counterspell that's been putting in work across Pioneer (and also the occasional Standard deck), and that card is No More Lies.

For , No More Lies is an instant that reads "Counter target spell unless its controller pays . If that spell is countered this way, exile it instead of putting it into its owner's graveyard."

Overall, there's not too much to say about No More Lies, other than the fact that two mana for a counterspell is pretty decent rate, especially one that can hit any card type. Add this to the fact that it exiles spells - an important bonus in a world where delirium and other graveyard-matters themes are running around - and you have a pretty utilitarian spell.

#3 - Troll of Khazad-dum

Number of Trades: 6 --- Number of Cards Traded: 11

Just like No More Lies, the next card on our list is another fairly utilitarian card, albeit one that is seeing much more success across the formats in which it is legal. Let's talk about Troll of Khazad-dûm.

Troll of Khazad-dûm is among Magic's most efficient landcylers, as the primary draw to the card is its ability to pay and discard it in order to search your library for a Swamp to put into your hand. When it isn't being pitched, it can be cast for , leaving you with a 6/5 Troll that can't be blocked except by three or more creatures.

Longtime readers of Top Trades will immediately recognize this card for what it (essentially) is, and that's an MDFC. Sure, you won't be playing the Troll as a land, but it's primary purpose is to be just that - a card you discard on an end step to find the land you'll play next turn. This low-cost flexibility thanks to a swampcycling cost of just means that decks across Legacy, Modern, and Pauper are able to run the Troll where a land would otherwise be, propping up its ubiquity across formats.

The real kicker, however, is the synergy with Reanimator strategies that the Troll props up in older formats. It may not be pitchable to Grief anymore, but there's something to be said of turning a Troll of Khazad-dûm into a land on your end step, just to turn around and bring it back as an aggressive 6/5 threat the next turn.

#2 - Temporary Lockdown

Number of Trades: 7 --- Number of Cards Traded: 7

Alright, time to swing back around to an oldie-but-a-goody (at least, as far as old-ish Standard sets are concerned): Temporary Lockdown.

Temporary Lockdown is an enchantment for that, upon entering the battlefield, exiles all nonland permanents with mana value two or less until Temporary Lockdown leaves the battlefield.

If No More Lies was this week's bit of sideboard tech for dealing with graveyard strategies, then Temporary Lockdown is our answer to go-wide strategies. Sure, locking down (pun-intended) a few cards here and there against most lists is certainly useful, but Pioneer is full of aggressive decks that like to clog up that battlefield with cheap cards, and Temporary Lockdown is our one-stop answer for all of that nonsense, all at once.

#1 - Unstoppable Slasher

Number of Trades: 9 --- Number of Cards Traded: 11

Here we are folks, this week's most traded card, another efficient, aggressive creature from Duskmourn: Unstoppable Slasher.

For , Unstoppable Slasher is a 2/3 Zombie Assassin that packs an incredible punch each and every time it attacks. Right from the get-go, Unstoppable Slasher has deathtouch, so the combat math is always going to end in something being destroyed. If Unstoppable Slasher deals combat damage to a player, however, then something quite like what I imagine player-deathtouch to be happens: that player loses half their life, rounded up.

This already makes Unstoppable Slasher an incredible threat, but not quite one deserving of the monicker "Unstoppable" just yet. To see where that part comes in, you have to turn to the second triggered ability this card packs: when it dies, if it had no counters on it, return it to the battlefield tapped under its owners control with two stun counters on it. Sure, this means Unstoppable Slasher will be slow to restart, but it will get there...eventually.

Wrap Up

This week was a pretty nice overview of Pioneer (well, outside of Troll of Khazad-dûm, that is). Cards from across Standard-legal sets popped up on our lists, going as far back as Dominaria United and as recently as Duskmourn. All in all, nothing too crazy, but definitely some interesting movement going on in the world of utility pickups. Come back next week to check back in on the newest Top Trades, and thanks for reading!