Top Trades: July 8-July 15

Welcome back to Top Trades everyone! It's that time of the week again - time to check in and see what cards have been moving around the most here at Cardsphere. This week has a good deal of excitement in store as we finally start to see cards other than those from Modern Horizons 3 in our list, so let's dive in and take a look at what cards people are trading.

Honorable Mention - Urza's Cave

Number of Trades: 9 --- Number of Cards Traded: 13

Making its return as our honorable mention this week is none other than Urza's Cave, one of the most ubiquitous lands to have come out in Modern Horizons 3. Any land that enters the battlefield untapped, provides mana, and has some additional upside is always going to have an audience of eager players in Magic, but Urza's Cave doesn't have just any old upside. Instead, it's a tutor. Any land tutor. Any land tutor straight to the battlefield. Now that's a powerful effect. Gaea's Cradle? Check. Missing a key piece for Tron? Urza's Cave has got you covered. Trying to assemble Dark Depths combo? Urza's Cave is here! The list of use cases for this card just keeps on going, and the cost of running it is so negligible (adding colorless mana as opposed to colored) that it's barely worth worrying about in most lists. Pick up a copy if you haven't already; odds are you'll want it somewhere.

#5 - Strix Serenade

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

Alright alright alright, it's time for our first card from the main list! Coming in at number five is Strix Serenade, a riff on Swan Song and one of the first good low-cost creature counterspells to see the light of day in quite a while.

First, some background. Many of the most important counterspells in Magic are united in their ability to hit noncreature spells, as battles between players happen just as frequently on the stack as they do on the battlefield. We saw this reach a crux with the release of Force of Negation, one of Magic's best counterspells of the recent era, but like so many others it was restricted to just hitting noncreature spells. Compare that against the slew of creature counterspells and you'll find that there just aren't that many seeing support at competitive tables. This isn't to say creature counterspells aren't important, but rather that they need to be extra powerful in order to make up for their inability to hit the wider range of stack-based threats roaming around the game. Stern Scolding is an excellent example of this - effectively blue's version of a removal spell, this one-mana creature counterspell was decently costed but just not good enough to see wider play. Strix Serenade, meanwhile, seems to have just wide enough a range, hitting artifacts and planeswalkers as well, and just low enough of a cost to be more broadly viable.

#4 - Slime Against Humanity

Number of Trades: 7 --- Number of Cards Traded: 13

Here we are! Our first non-Modern Horizons 3 card in nearly a month, and what a card it is. For three mana, Slime Against Humanity is a sorcery that reads "Create a 0/0 green Ooze creature token with trample. Put X +1/+1 counters on it, where X is two plus the total number of cards you own in exile and in your graveyard that are Oozes or are named Slime Against Humanity." Pretty neat, right? Well, the real appeal for this card comes in its final line of text, something that breaks the possibilities wide open and makes the largest Ooze this card can create skyrocket in size - "A deck can have any number of cards named Slime Against Humanity."

Cards like this - those which can be run in any number within a deck - have always been crowd favorites. From Shadowborn Apostle to Dragon's Approach, players love building decks that center around unique and wacky effects, especially if you can jam multiples. This time, instead of searching for Demons or Dragons, it just so happens to be making a massive Ooze token each turn.

#3 - Brotherhood Regalia

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

Next up on our list is Brotherhood Regalia, a selection from Magic's newest set, Universes Beyond: Assassin's Creed. A typal-Equipment reminiscent of the age-old Whispersilk Cloak, Brotherhood Regalia costs , has the dual equip costs of "Equip legendary creature " and "Equip ," as well as the effect "Equipped creature has ward , is an Assassin in addition to its other types, and can't be blocked." Let's break this down.

Ward might not be as powerful as hexproof, or even shroud, but it sure does a swell job at slowing down your opponents from interacting with whatever creature is wearing Brotherhood Regalia. As for making that creature into an Assassin, this isn't just useful for your average typal synergy; instead, this should also be evaluated against the backdrop of freerunning, an alternate cost which some new cards from Assassin's Creed have which can only be paid if you've dealt combat damage to an opponent this turn with an Assassin (or your commander). Making the equipped creature unblockable further solidifies the viability of this freerunning plan, as now you'll have the option to turn it on every turn thanks to Brotherhood Regalia's newly minted unblockable Assassin. Finally, as for the equip costs themselves, neither is particularly stellar, but having the option to quickly cast Brotherhood Regalia thanks to its low mana cost and then protect your commander in the same turn for just is always a good thing.

#2 - Writhing Chrysalis

Number of Trades: 9 --- Number of Cards Traded: 15

It looks like we're back to our normally scheduled Modern Horizons 3 cards for the rest of our list. So, which card made it to second place? Why, that would be Writhing Chrysalis, one of the most broken commons any limited environment has every seen.

At the cost of four mana (), Writhing Chrysalis is a 2/3 Eldrazi creature with devoid, reach, and "Whenever you sacrifice another Eldrazi, put a +1/+1 counter on Writhing Chrysalis." Also, just casting this creature creates two Eldrazi Spawn tokens as a triggered ability. Now that's a lot of value.

In limited, this card is absolutely broken not just because it returned half of the mana investment immediately via the Eldrazi Spawn and became a 4/5 with reach in the process, but also because it was printed at common. This meant that it shows up in multiples pretty readily, and since each sacrifice of an Eldrazi triggers all of your Writhing Chrysalises, they can get big fast. One two-mana 4/5 Eldrazi was bad enough. Two two-mana 6/7 Eldrazi is much worse.

Branching out from the backdrop and we can see that these Eldrazi are making a similar appearance in Pauper. They aren't quite the same menace as they are elsewhere, thanks in large part to the ever-expansive nature of the format and its bevy of other broken cards, but don't be fooled - this common creature is turning out to be a real threat.

#1 - Ripples of Undeath

Number of Trades: 10 --- Number of Cards Traded: 11

Finally, we come to our most traded card of the week - Ripples of Undeath.

For two mana (), Ripples of Undeath is an enchantment that provides a lot of value over the course of the game, at the cost of some life here and there. Each turn, at the beginning of your precombat main phase, you'll mill three cards. Then, Ripples of Undeath offers a choice: do nothing and let the cards sit there in your graveyard, or pay and three life to choose one of the cards milled this way this turn and put it into your hand.

What's so special about Ripples of Undeath is that you don't have to pay the cost for its ability in order to get all of its bonus - instead, you only pay for taking a card back to hand. Often, we see effects like this trigger in an all-or-nothing fashion - you either pay the cost and, in this case, mill cards and pick one afterwards to keep, or you skip paying the cost and nothing happens at all. Ripples of Undeath, meanwhile, gives you a key bit of information before asking for any further investment - that is, it mills the cards first.

Don't underestimate this little bonus. Over the course of a long game, those milled cards from turns when you didn't see a card worth grabbing will most certainly add up, providing fodder for any and all graveyard based strategies. Escape costs? Check. Recasting a massive graveyard via Past in Flames? Also check. Just because Ripples of Undeath says the word graveyard on it doesn't mean that its limited to reanimation strategies - think of it more like a card draw engine that slowly moves the rest of your deck to the graveyard. Not too shabby for two mana.

Wrap Up

Just going by the numbers, we can see that the new set allure of Modern Horizons 3 is slowly dwindling, but not nearly enough to disappear completely. The set was chock full of good cards after all, but so too are other sets of recent memory. Assassin's Creed, Thunder Junction, the list goes on. Here's to seeing if more of these other sets pop up next week.