Top Trades: October 14-October 21

Happy Thursday, everyone! The week is almost wrapped up, and with it comes the newest installment of Top Trades, the series where we check in with Cardsphere to find out which cards folks are trading around the most. So, which cards do people have their eyes on? Lets take a look!

Honorable Mention - Unstoppable Slasher

Number of Trades: 5 --- Number of Cards Traded: 5

Continuing its unstoppable run from last week is this week's honorable mention, none other than Unstoppable Slasher. For , this Zombie Assassin is a creature that comes in swinging and won't stop until it takes something with it, be it a creature or a massive chunk of life. So, let's break it down.

First off, the stats - Unstoppable Slasher is a 2/3 with deathtouch, meaning that whatever creature it connects with will almost certainly be headed to the graveyard, barring any indestructibility or other such nonsense. This pairs nicely with the combat damage trigger it carries, which reads as "Whenever Unstoppable Slasher deals combat damage to a player, they lose half their life, rounded up." But that's not all.

Whenever Unstoppable Slasher dies, if it didn't have any counters on it, then it comes back to the battlefield under its owners control, tapped and with two stun counters on it. This effectively means that the only way to truly kill the Slasher is to destroy it twice in rapid succession, a difficult feat that has allowed for Unstoppable Slasher to find a home in decks across Pioneer.

#5 - Enduring Vitality

Number of Trades: 5 --- Number of Cards Traded: 5

Starting off our main list of picks for the week is Enduring Vitality, green's contribution to Duskmourn's cycle of rare Glimmer creatures. So, what can we look forward to here? Mana, and lots of it.

For , Enduring Vitality is a 3/3 Glimmer enchantment creature with vigilance and two abilities, one static and the other a trigger. As far as the static ability is concerned, this is your usual Duskmourn Enduring-cycle effect; when Enduring Vitality dies, if it was a creature, you get to return it to the battlefield as a noncreature enchantment. This allows you to continue reaping the benefits of Enduring Vitality's static ability, which grants each creature you control the ability to tap for a mana of any color.

Enduring Vitality is an efficiently costed creature with a pretty stellar upside attached to it. A 3/3 with vigilance for three mana isn't bad, and long-time players will remember how powerful the ability to turn creatures into mana is, thinking back to cards like Cryptolith Rite. Overall, a solid way to suddenly add a lot of mana.

#4 - Withering Torment

Number of Trades: 5 --- Number of Cards Traded: 8

Next up on our list is Withering Torment, an uncommon removal spell from Duskmourn that does something very few mono-block removal spells can: remove enchantments.

Despite shifts in Color Pie philosophies over the years, black continues to be the worst color when it comes to directly removing enchantments. Red has Chaos Warp effects, blue has good-old-fashioned bounce spells like Boomerang, while green and white are able to remove enchantments all day long. Black, meanwhile, can barely touch them, outside of a very select toolkit such as Feed the Swarm and Ghastly Death Tyrant. As such, any black spell that can deal with enchantments while maintaining a mana cost even approaching efficiency is going to be welcomed with open arms. Enter, Withering Torment.

For , Withering Torment is an instant that reads "Destroy target creature or enchantment. You lose 2 life." No ifs, ands, or buts, just clean and simple removal.

#3 - Static Prison

Number of Trades: 6 --- Number of Cards Traded: 7

Speaking of removal, our third pick is Static Prison, this week's contribution from Modern Horizons 3.

Coming in at just , Static Prison is an enchantment that exiles any nonland permanent an opponent controls (until Static Prison leaves the battlefield, that is), and then grants you two energy counters. The reason for this second clause, however, is that at the beginning of your precombat mainphase you must pay one energy counter or else Static Prison will be sacrificed.

At base rate, Static Prison is a very efficient piece of temporary removal, with similar effects usually costing around two mana instead. While that trade off in efficiency may seem fair thanks to the timer imposed by the energy cost, in reality this is often anything but, thanks in no small part to the parasitic synergy that the energy system brings with it.

Plenty of other tournament-viable cards offer energy counters right now, from Galvanic Discharge to Amped Raptor, meaning that players will rarely be in short supply of energy. On the flip side, it also means that Static Prison is also a ritual of sorts; cast it, blink a nonland permanent for a turn, then let the Prison be sacrificed on your next turn and spend the energy elsewhere.

#2 - Armadillo Cloak

Number of Trades: 6 --- Number of Cards Traded: 10

Alrighty folks, on to our penultimate pick for the week, an old staple of casual Commander decks near and far, Armadillo Cloak!

Longtime players of Voltron Commander strategies (decks with the goal of making the commander as large as possible so as to make dealing 21 commander damage increasingly likely) will recognize Armadillo Cloak as one of the first, best Auras to attach to a Commander in the early game. For , this Aura gives a creature +2/+2, trample, and has the triggered ability "Whenever enchanted creature deals damage, you gain that much life."

Now, as for why Armadillo Cloak is moving this week, I honestly can't say. Enchantments are on the rise right now thanks to synergies printed in Duskmourn, so the most likely answer is simply that older enchantments (such as Armadillo Cloak) are simply riding the wave of rising popularity. This is a staple of casual Commander that players come back to time after time, after all.

#1 - Lorien Revealed

Number of Trades: 7 --- Number of Cards Traded: 9

Here we are, everyone, this week's most traded card of the week: Lórien Revealed! So, why is a common rounding out our list? Let's dig a little deeper.

Last week, we took a look at Troll of Khazad-dum, a pretty decent creature that was made into a multi-format star thanks to one incredibly efficient ability: Swampcycling . Well, Lórien Revealed is blue's counterpart to Troll of Khazad-dum, offering up Islandcycling .

Outside of just being a flexible way of picking up Islands (already a potent effect for any card), Lórien Revealed also adds card draw to the mix. When you aren't discarding it, Lórien Revealed is a sorcery that costs and draws its caster three cards.

In Magic, flexibility is key - the ability to have a land that can do anything else is a tantalizing effect. Couple that with arguably the strongest action in the game (drawing cards), as well as the synergy of being exilable to cards like Force of Will and well, now you can see this little common's real value.

Wrap Up

This week was a look at important cards across Magic's formats, from Pioneer to Modern and then back around to Legacy and Pauper. Plenty of cards are moving around on Cardsphere, so tune in again next week for the newest installment of Top Trades. As always, thanks for reading!