Top Trades: December 30 - January 6

Mai, Scornful Striker | Illustrated by Hori Airi

Howdy folks, and welcome to Top Trades, the weekly series where we check in with the most popular cards here at Cardsphere. So, what have traders been trading? Let's take a look!

Honorable Mention – Bender's Waterskin

Number of Trades: 4 --- Number of Cards Traded: 4

Kicking us off this week is our honorable mention, Bender's Waterskin.

For , Bender's Waterskin is a nifty mana rock that can be tapped to add one mana of any color. Beyond the mana fixing, however, what really makes this card special is its ability to untap on each player's turn, essentially guaranteeing that you'll always have some mana up when you pass the turn.

It may not be enough to cast a classic Counterspell, but that's just one spell. Swords to Plowshares, Spell Snare, Lightning Bolt; the list of valuable instant-speed one-drops is as long as Magic is old.

#5 – Starting Town

Number of Trades: 4 --- Number of Cards Traded: 5

Starting off our main list for the week is none other than Starting Town, a nonbasic land that has readily come to be a staple of multicolor decks across formats.

A nonbasic Town land, Starting Town enters the battlefield tapped unless you play it on the first, second, or third turns of the game. As for activated abilities, this card has two: “: Add ,” and “, Pay 1 life: Add one mana of any color.”

The flexibility of entering untapped and providing one mana of any color immediately puts Starting Town among the likes of City of Brass and Mana Confluence, two lands that similarly became Commander staples and went on to define the mana bases of their Standard environments. Unfortunately, Starting Town will come down tapped in the later turns of the game, something that can throw off more controlling builds, but where consistent land drops matter the most is the early game, a point at which this card has you covered.

#4 – Katara, Waterbending Master

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

Next up on our list is powerful legendary creature from the Jumpstart supplement to Avatar: The Last Airbender, and that's none other than Katara, Waterbending Master.

For , Katara is a legendary 1/3 Human Warrior Ally with two important triggered abilities. First, whenever you cast a spell during an opponent's turn, you get an experience counter. Secondly, whenever Katara attacks, you may draw a card for each experience counter you have. If you do, discard a card.

Katara is a card that scales incredibly well as Commander games go on. Cast it early, sit back and patrol the game with interaction as you pile on experience counters, then attack with Katara to draw a wild number of cards. Best of all, those experience counters never go away, so if Katara dies and comes back, you'll be in just as good a position as you were in the first place.

#3 – Mai, Scornful Striker

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

On to another two-drop legendary creature from Avatar, albeit this time from the main set and with a just one triggered ability.

For , Mai, Scornful Striker is a 2/2 legendary Human Noble Ally with first strike and “Whenever a player casts a noncreature spell, they lose 2 life.”

At its most useful, Mai boils down to an effective source of pressure for spellslinger and storm decks. While it doesn't outright counter noncreature spells, that triggered ability puts just enough pressure on players seeking to win the game through an onslaught of instants and sorceries that they'll have to think twice about sequencing, buying just enough time for you to mount a proper counterattack.

#2 – Blowfly Infestation

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

Coming in as our penultimate pick for the week is an enchantment that invites us to speculate about all the new -1/-1 counter support coming out of Lorwyn Eclipsed. Here's Blowfly Infestation.

For , this enchantment has one triggered ability: “Whenever a creature dies, if it had a -1/-1 counter on it, put a -1/-1 counter on target creature.”

At first glance, Blowfly Infestation is a simple card that serves to keep passing around -1/-1 counters gradually. A great way to make sure tricky creatures get a debuff, for sure, but this card is capable of so much more. First off, the second a creature with a -1/-1 counters on it dies, you can essentially choose to kill off every one-toughness creature on the board. Just have Blowfly Infestation place the new -1/-1 counter on the X/1, that creature will immediately die, then rinse and repeat.

Additionally, Blowfly Infestation is also a great way to keep a nonthreatening number of -1/-1 counters on your own creature. As has been previewed in Lorwyn Eclipsed, there are plenty of creatures that actually want to have a -1/-1 counter on them, and Blowfly Infestation makes that all the more doable.

#1 – The Legend of Yangchen

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

Last but not least, back to Avatar: The Last Airbender for this week's most traded card: The Legend of Yangchen.

For , The Legend of Yangchen is a Saga enchantment. When it reaches stage one, a nasty wave of removal hits the field. “Starting with you, each player chooses up to one permanent with mana value 3 or greater from among permanents your opponents control. Exile those permanents.” In 1v1 Magic, this usually just means that you'll be exiling something and your opponent will choose not to (since they'd be exiling their own cards), but in multiplayer the politics unlocked here are substantial. Strike a deal with an opponent to gang up on another player, or simply cast The Legend of Yangchen to watch as each opponent deals with the next most threatening player.

At stage two, The Legend of Yangchen again invites deal-making. “You may have target opponent draw three cards. If you do, draw three cards.” The power here is all in the timing: you'll have the ability to cast spells from cards drawn off of Yangchen before your opponent does, so the question is: is it worth it?

Last but not least, at stage three, The Legend of Yangchen transforms into Avatar Yangchen, a legendary 4/5 Avatar creature with flying and “Whenever you cast your second spell each turn, airbend up to one other target nonland permanent.”

Wrap Up

This week was full of some of Avatar's sleeper hits, the cards which didn't pop when the set released and everyone's eyes were on the obvious all-stars but which have nonetheless gone on to cultivate an audience. Plus, we got a little taste of Lorwyn and the return of -1/-1 counters. Check back in next week for another Top Trades, and thanks for reading!