Top Trades: January 6 - January 13

Iroh's Demonstration | Illustrated by Song Qijin

Howdy, folks, and welcome back to Top Trades, the weekly series where we check in with some of the most popular cards here at Cardsphere. So, with Lorwyn Eclipsed on the horizon, what are folks picking up? Let's take a look!

Honorable Mention - Redirect Lightning

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

I've got to say, as a fan of cEDH, it really makes me happy to see a recent all-star of the format returning to our list week after week.

This week's honorable mention is none other than Redirect Lightning, a premier piece of interaction printed in Avatar: The Last Airbender which has continued to expand red's toolkit for dealing threats on the stack.

For and either an additional or five life, Redirect Lightning is a Lesson instant that allows you to change the target of target spell or ability with a single target. Need to fizzle a counterspell? Redirect Lightning has got you covered. Want to have a piece of removal kill a creature its owner controls? Redirect Lightning has your back there, too, and all for a pretty reasonable price.

#5 - Koh, the Face Stealer

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

Starting off our main list for this week is another Avatar: The Last Airbender pick, albeit one that's designed basically on the opposite end of the Magic card spectrum, Koh, the Face Stealer.

For , Koh is a 6/6 legendary Shapeshifter Spirit creature that lets you exile up to one other target creature when it enters. Additionally, whenever a creature dies, you may exile it. Why all the exiling? Because Koh has "Pay 1 life: Choose a creature card exiled with Koh," and "Koh has all activated and triggered abilities of the last chosen card."

Koh enables some pretty funky interactions that are pretty reminiscent of early Scion of the Ur-Dragon combos. Whether it's gaining the ability to draw cards off of Asmodeus the Archfiend only to later gain the abilities to discard cards for mana a la Skirge Familiar or simply sinking a ton of life into Koh via Moltensteel Dragon, time will only add to the cards which make Koh better, and more intricate.

#4 - Iroh's Demonstration

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

Coming in at slot number four is a flexible piece of removal that also doubles as a board wipe for small creatures: Iroh's Demonstration.

For , Iroh's Demonstration is a Lesson sorcery that allows you to pick one of two modes: either deal one damage to each creature your opponents control, or deal four damage to one creature.

Four damage is a pretty solid rate for a two-mana sorcery with this much flexibility, and while one damage may not sound like a lot it can actually be really devastating when played against the right deck. Tear through tokens, Elves, a Ragavan; Iroh's Demonstration does it all.

#3 - Tempest Hawk

Number of Trades: 8 --- Number of Cards Traded: 28

Flying back in from Tarkir: Dragonstorm is the only common card on this week's list: Tempest Hawk.

For , Tempest Hawk is 2/2 Bird creature with flying that breaks traditional deckbuilding restrictions by allowing you to run any number of copies of it in your deck. Additionally, to make use of the many copies of it which you'll hopefully be running, each time Tempest Hawk deals combat damage to a player you can search your library for another copy to put into your hand.

While it may not actually make token copies of it, an unattended-to Tempest Hawk is essentially an army in a can. Cast it, swing, grab another to cast. Next turn, swing with two, grab two more, then rinse and repeat.

#2 - Day of Black Sun

Number of Trades: 9 --- Number of Cards Traded: 10

Our penultimate pick for the week is an interesting take on the traditional X-based black board wipe: Day of the Black Sun.

For , Day of Black Sun is a sorcery that causes each creature with mana value X or less to lose all abilities until end of turn. Then, it destroys those creatures.

Sweet, simple, and straight to the point, Day of Black Sun is a card that gets around every form of defensive measure your opponents can muster, from indestructible to good ol' fashioned protection. Now, creatures with those abilities often cost more because of them, meaning that Day of Black Sun's ability-removal text is only really going to matter if you have a lot of mana, but don't discount that flexibility. Games are won and lost on the margin.

#1 - Nest of Scarabs

Number of Trades: 9 --- Number of Cards Traded: 17

Last but not least, our most traded card for the week: Nest of Scarabs, a speculative pick based on the return of -1/-1 counter synergies in Lorwyn Eclipsed.

For , Nest of Scarabs is an enchantment that causes you to create X 1/1 black Insect creature tokens whenever you put a -1/-1 counter on a creature, where X is the number of counters placed that way. Importantly, this doesn't condition token creation on those counters being placed on opposing creatures, meaning that you'll get Insects for putting counters on your own things, too. Since Lorwyn Eclipsed has a lot of cards that do that running around, it's no wonder that Nest of Scarabs is gaining attention.

Wrap Up

To little surprise, Avatar continues to be the hottest topic on Cardsphere. The set is recent and the cards in it were pretty phenomenal, both in flavor and utility. That said, Lorwyn Eclipsed is causing more attention to shift to -1/-1 counters, so tune in next week to see if the trend continues. As always, thanks for reading!