Top Trades: July 7 - July 14

Return the Favor | Illustrated by Eli Minaya

Howdy, folks, and welcome back to Top Trades, the weekly series where we check in with some of the most popular cards from the week here at Cardsphere. So, what have folks been trading around? Let’s take a look.

Honorable Mention - Hidden Lair

Number of Trades: 11 --- Number of Cards Traded: 12

Leading things off this week is Hidden Lair, a new dual land out of Marvel Super Heroes.

Hidden Lair is a land with “: Add ” and “: Add or . Activate only if this land entered this turn or if you control a basic land.” In slower decks, this is a pretty consistently on dual land, while in faster (or increasingly multicolored) builds, this is more of a mid-tier pick. After all, it always enters untapped, and that's one of the best qualities - if not the best quality - a land can ask for.

#5 - Polluted Delta

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

Kicking things off, let's talk about a fetch land. Polluted Delta is a land with “, Pay 1 life, Sacrifice this land: Search your library for an Island or Swamp card, put it onto the battlefield, then shuffle.” Pay close attention to those words: this doesn’t just find basic lands, it searches by land type. This means you can grab shock lands, surveil lands, Triomes, and other duals with the right land types, which is a huge part of why fetch lands remain so important across competitive and casual formats alike.

There’s not much mystery here. Players are always looking for fetches, and Polluted Delta in particular does a ton of work across many of Magic's strongest decks. Whether someone is upgrading a Commander mana base or finishing off a Modern deck, this is the kind of staple that tends to circulate constantly.

#4 - Return the Favor

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

Next up is Return the Favor, one of the trickier pieces of red interaction we’ve gotten in a while.

Return the Favor costs for an instant with spree, meaning that you must choose one more more additional costs as you cast it in order for it to have any effect. Here, both of those additional costs are each, providing you with the option to copy target instant, sorcery, activated ability, or triggered ability, and you may choose new targets for the copy. The second option lets you change the target of target spell or ability with a single target.

Return the Favor already has a text box that is full of flexible utility, but the spree mechanic really pushes it over the top. Paying between and for interaction certainly isn't great, but that's the cost of flexibility. Sometimes this protects your own piece, sometimes it hijacks removal, and sometimes it copies a powerful trigger or a game-ending spell.

#3 - Political Triumph

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

Coming in at number three is Political Triumph, a cheap white engine from Marvel Super Heroes.

For , Political Triumph is a Plan enchantment that causes you to scry 1 and put a plan counter on it whenever a creature you control enters. Then, when the fourth plan counter is put on it, you sacrifice it, draw a card, and put a +1/+1 counter on each creature you control.

That’s a pretty appealing package for creature-heavy white decks, especially for just . Early on, it helps smooth your draws while rewarding you for doing what your deck already wanted to do. Then, once you’ve triggered it enough times, it cashes out into both a card and a permanent team-wide buff. Token decks, low-curve aggro shells, and Commander lists trying to go wide all have reason to pick this one up.

#2 - Captain America's Shield

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

Just missing the top spot this week is Captain America’s Shield, a piece of Equipment that looks every bit as annoying to attack through as you’d expect from such an iconic name.

Captain America’s Shield costs for a legendary Equipment artifact with indestructible and an equip cost of . Equipped creature gets +0/+8 and has vigilance, and whenever equipped creature attacks, you tap target creature defending player controls.

The stat boost alone makes combat pretty miserable for the other side, and vigilance means the creature wearing it can pressure life totals without giving up defensive utility. Add in the attack trigger, and this starts to look like a very real role-player for Voltron shells, or just any deck going all-in on the Equipment theme.

#1 - Hex Magic

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

Last but not least, our most traded card of the week is Hex Magic.

For , Hex Magic is an Arcane sorcery that exiles all the cards from your hand, then has you draw that many cards. Until the end of your next turn, you may play cards exiled this way.

Hex Magic is a pretty unusual effect for red (and wheels in general), and it’s easy to see why players are interested. This isn’t traditional rummaging, since you are not discarding anything, and it’s not quite normal impulse draw either, because you immediately refill your hand while still getting access to the old cards for another full turn cycle. In practice, that means Hex Magic can create a huge burst of card flow in decks that are good at converting extra access into velocity. Red Commander decks, spellslinger shells, and plenty of turbo-boosted, ritual-heavy lists are sure to like this one.

Wrap Up

That does it for this week’s Top Trades. Between a new dual land, a staple fetch land, a flexible red interaction piece, and a few Marvel cards that seem to be finding homes pretty quickly, this week’s list covered a pretty nice spread of what players are after right now. Thanks for reading, and be sure to check back next week to see what cards are making moves next!