Top Trades: October 14 - October 21

Foil | Illustrated by Donato Giancola

Welcome welcome, folks, and happy Thursday! Another week has come and gone, and with that it's time for another Top Trades, the weekly series where we check in with some of the most popular cards here at Cardsphere. So, what's been moving? Let's take a look!

Honorable Mention - Superior Spider-Man

Number of Trades: 4 --- Number of Cards Traded: 6

Kicking of this week as our honorable mention is also our sole contender from Marvel's Spider-Man, and that card is Superior Spider-Man.

For , Superior Spider-Man is a 4/4 legendary Human Spider Hero creature with the additional flexibility of being able to enter as a clone of any card in a graveyard, except it keeps the name Superior Spider-Man and is still a 4/4. When it does, exile the card it cloned.

While it's unfortunate that Superior-Spider Man can't enter with some of the crazier power and toughness stats from among possible clone targets, that belies the true potency of this card: the ability to steal abilities. Atraxa, Grand Unifier, Etali, Primal Conqueror, Craterhoof Behemoth... all these game-ending enters triggers and more are available for just , thanks to Superior Spider-Man.

#5 - Foil

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

Up first on our main list for the week is a card that answers the question "What if Force of Will was a common?"

For , Foil is an instant that reads "Counter target spell." Simple and straightforward, it also has the alternate casting cost of discard an Island and another card (rather than pay its mana cost).

So, what to make of the alternate cost? Discarding two cards is a whole lot harder to do than simply exiling one, especially when one of those cards has to be an Island. That said, discard synergies are a whole lot easier to exploit, so, in the right deck, Foil's alternate cost can be a pretty easy way set up graveyard advantage.

#4 - Bojuka Bog

Number of Trades: 4 --- Number of Cards Traded: 6

Speaking of graveyard synergies, up next is a land card the readily puts a stop in any graveyard deck's plans: Bojuka Bog.

Bojuka Bog is a land that enters tapped, can tap to add , and has "When this land enters, exile target player's graveyard." Not a card from a graveyard: a whole graveyard. Is exiling a graveyard worth having a land enter tapped? In the right matchups, absolutely; just look at how much work Endurance has put in across formats.

#3 - Malakir Rebirth

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

Coming in at third place on our list is another land, albeit only on the back side: Malakir Rebirth.

Malakir Rebirth is a modal dual face card (MDFC), meaning that you choose which side - front or back - you want to play when you play it. On the front face, Malakir Rebirth is an instant for that grants target creature the ability "When this creature dies, return it to the battlefield tapped under its owner's control," until end of turn. Additionally, Malakir Rebrith also causes you to lose two life.

On the back, Malakir Rebirth is Malakir Mire, a land that enters tapped and can tap to add . Sure, it might not have the same potent enters trigger the likes of Bojuka Bog, but the flexibility provided by the option to cast Malakir Rebirth more than makes up for it.

#2 - Drown in Ichor

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

Our penultimate pick for the week is solid piece of removal from way back in Phyrexia: All Will Be One, and that card is Drown in Ichor.

For , this sorcery pretty easily kills any creature, regardless of whether or not it's indestructible, thanks to its -4/-4 debuff. On top of that, you'll also get to proliferate when Drown in Ichor resolves, providing you with extra counters anywhere you could want them; poison on your opponents, loyalty on your planeswalkers, the list goes on. Sure, being a sorcery isn't great, but Drown in Ichor more than makes up for it.

#1 - Winding Way

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

Last but not least, we come to a pretty useful pseudo-cantrip in green. Let's talk about Winding Way.

For , Winding Way is a sorcery that first asks you to choose creature or land. After that, you'll pick up the top four cards of your library, reveal them, and put all instances of the chosen card type into your hand. The rest get put into your graveyard.

You don't have to look any further than this week's list to see just how important the graveyard is to some decks. Foil shows how to put cards there, Bojuka Bog showed us what to do when we needed to stop someone from using them. Winding Way, meanwhile, gives both graveyard advantage and card advantage, all for the low cost of ,

Wrap Up

Maybe it's because we're getting closer to Halloween, but this week really felt like the graveyard week. From our honorable mention all the way up to our first pick, from commons to rares, the graveyard was everywhere this time. Check back in next week for another edition of Top Trades, and thanks for reading!