Top Trades: September 9-September 16

Happy Thursday everyone! The week's just about over, and that means it's time for Top Trades, the series where we check in on the most popular cards here at Cardsphere. So, what's been moving around the most this week? Let's take a look.

Honorable Mention: Boggart Trawler

Number of Trades: 5 --- Number of Cards Traded: 8

This week's honorable mention is none other than one of Modern Horizons 3's mono-color creature MDFC land cards, and that creature is Boggart Trawler.

For , Boggart Trawler is a 3/1 Goblin that will exile a player's graveyard when it enters. On the flipside, you can have it enter as Boggart Bog, a land which produces and asks if you'd like to pay three life to have it enter untapped. Otherwise, Boggart Bog will come in tapped.

Goblins are always popular, so it's no surprise that Boggart Trawler has a dedicated audience. Black may not be the primary color for this creature type, but it sure is a close second, which means that there are plenty of Goblin-typal Commander decks for which Boggart Trawler is a potential include with very minimal deckbuilding cost. It's an almost-always untapped land on the back side, after all.

Outside of Commander, Boggart Trawler has also made showings in the occasional Modern deck, usually as a one-of. In these situations, Boggart Trawler takes on the role of mainboard anti-graveyard tech, providing additional support in game one before sideboarding becomes an option. Not too shabby for an uncommon.

#5 - Season of Weaving

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

Alright, on to the main list for the week, starting off with Season of Weaving - Bloomburrow's newest spin on the modal spell mechanic.

Unlike modal-spell cycles from sets prior - such as the Charms (Boros Charm), Commands (Cryptic Command), or Confluences (Mystic Confluence) - this installment from Bloomburrow debuts a point system. Each Season allows you to pick any of its modes any number of times, provided that the total sum of the points expended remains less than or equal to five (each mode has an associated point cost). So, what are the options for Season of Weaving?

The first option - worth one point - is simple but potent: draw a card. The second option - worth two points - is a bit more situational but potentially game ending, and that reads as "Choose an artifact or creature you control. Create a token that's a copy of it." Finally, for three points, you can return each nonland, nontoken permanent to its controller's hand. So, what does this spell look like in practice?

On an unclogged bored, Season of Weaving is usually to either draw three cards and make a token-clone or draw a card and make two clones. This leaves you in a commanding position for the next turn, usually one that can close out a game. If things are a bit murkier though, then either clone something you control and then wipe the board to leave you with the last resources standing, or simply boardwipe and draw two cards to plan for later turns.

#4 - Shadow of the Second Sun

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

Next up on our list is another commanding six-drop in blue, and that's Shadow of the Second Sun.

For less, Shadow of the Second Sun is essentially a bodiless-version of Sphinx of the Second Sun, a 6/6 Sphinx creature with flying and a triggered ability which grants its controller an extra beginning phase after the postcombat mainphase. Other than not being a creature (Shadow of the Second Sun is an Aura with "Enchant player"), the only real difference here is that Shadow grants the trigger to the player it's enchanting, not the player who controls it. A minor difference in practice (you'll often be both controlling and enchanted by this card), but I can see a niche circumstance where someone wants to enchant an opponent. Maybe they'd like to see someone lose to one more turn's worth of The One Ring damage, perhaps?

#3 - Seat of the Synod

Number of Trades: 6 --- Number of Cards Traded: 7

Oh Seat of the Synod, now we're getting to the really broken stuff. This card has broken more formats than most players care to remember (*cough* Modern *cough*). So where to begin?

First off, what the card is. Seat of the Synod is an artifact land with ": Add " and no other abilities. Seems straight forward enough, right? So, what is it that this card really does?

As we've seen with the MDFC cycle in Modern Horizons 3, never underestimate an untapped land with even the smallest amount of upside (especially one that provides ), and boy oh boy is being an artifact an upside. You see, there's this little mechanic called "affinity for artifacts" which reduces a spell's mana cost by for each artifact you control, something which effectively enables artifact lands to produce far more mana then they would otherwise appear to be capable of. Run enough of these spells alongside a mana base full of artifact lands and suddenly you have an archetype capable of absurdly consistent value engines. Thanks, Seat of the Synod.

#2 - Deep-Cavern Bat

Number of Trades: 7 --- Number of Cards Traded: 14

Speaking of value plays, now it's time to come back to Standard Magic and the world of unbanned cards, this time with Lost Caverns of Ixalan's very-own Deep-Cavern Bat.

For , Deep-Cavern Bat is a 1/1 Bat with flying, lifelink, and the incredibly potent triggered ability of "When Deep-Cavern Bat enters the battlefield, look at target opponent's hand. You may exile a nonland card from it until Deep-Cavern Bat leaves the battlefield." Bat-typal synergies aside (anyone remember Zoraline, Cosmos Caller from last week?), Deep-Cavern Bat is just a powerful card. Despite being a 1/1, the flying ability means that Deep-Cavern Bat is likely going to live through most combat steps, chipping through unblocked, allowing for plenty of turns to pass before your opponent has any hopes of getting their card back. If they want to use up a removal spell on the Bat, then all the better. Odds are you'll be playing a deck full of creatures worth more than the 1/1 they just spent a card dealing with.

#1 - Sadistic Glee

Number of Trades: 7 --- Number of Cards Traded: 15

Alright everyone, drumroll please for this week's most traded card: Sadistic Glee, a very old common that I honestly didn't know existed until I came across it while researching this week's article. So, what's so special about it? Well, it all ties back to Modern Horizons 3 and a very broken Lizard. But first, the card itself.

Sadistic Glee is an enchantment from Tempest that, for , grants enchanted creature a +1/+1 counter whenever a creature dies. Simple enough, right? Well, just like Seat of the Synod, this common has a game-warping interaction, albeit with just one other card: Basking Broodscale.

Basking Broodscale has two important abilities for this loop, the first being that whenever one or more +1/+1 counters are put on it, you may create a 0/1 Eldrazi Spawn token with "Sacrifice this creature: Add ." The second, although less crucial, ability is ": Adapt 1." This means that you can pay two mana to put a +1/+1 counter on the Broodscale, assuming it doesn't have any counters already on it. Once this happens, you'll make an Eldrazi Spawn, which you can then sacrifice for mana...triggering Sadistic Glee, which puts a +1/+1 counter on the Broodscale, restarting the loop.

This will end with you having an infinitely large Lizard, as well as an infinite amount of colorless mana. From there, winning the game is usually pretty easy, especially when the rest of your deck is dedicated to clearing the path for your combo - as is the case with one of Pauper's newer combo decks, Glee Combo (sometimes called Broodscale Combo).

Wrap Up

This week really has been a list for all ages. We've got cards as old as Tempest and as new as Bloomburrow, reaching formats from Pauper to Standard. Check back in next week where we'll see Cardsphere's newest movers, and thanks for reading!