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To go with my previous article, this time I would like to talk about some stuff I NEVER EVER want to see again in constructed play. Those things that were overpowered, out of the box broken, or not playable due to their being so sub par.

Cursed Scroll- I thought I'd start with some obvious ones… not only a reward for bad play in-so-far as overextending yourself goes, but also a card that shores up too many of a lot of colors and decktypes problems… colorless direct damage that can hurt players, cheap to activate and cheaper still to play, slips in under counterspells even. Too strong, even with it's 'drawback'. You may think I am going to say Masticore next, but masticore's drawback is more reasonable, and more decks can find a way to play around a 4/4 critter, despite regen.

Rishadan Port- Another obvious one, can fit in every deck that can handle having a few colorless lands, is generically useful (even more so than wasteland, because wasteland is dead against a few decks), again, colorless, provides mana on its own, and does horrible things to people brave enough to play cities of brass.

Force of Will- This card might as well be colorless too, for the amount of play it saw last extended season… just too easily splashable. It should have cost 2 life and required and island in play, then maybe it would have been reasonable. Thwart is a good replacement.

Replenish- I know, I know, I may be getting too obvious here, but seriously? How on earth could they have overlooked the potential for this card? Living Death (first card that comes to mind with a comparable ability) was a strong card because of what it could do, but a smart player could sometimes play around it, and it was expensive to cast. Replenish takes away the ability to play around it by only affecting the caster, then takes away the drawback of killing your own enchantments, then becomes silly by costing one mana less, and that one mana being one of the colorful ones.

Goblin Game/Thieves Auction/etc.- I am a fan of wacky cards too, but when they require so much mana to use, and so much colored mana at that, they become unplayable. They cost way beyond the boundaries of what they should, and they should only have one colorful mana in the casting so if someone finds something useful to do with it, they can splash it in their deck. 5 mana cards should cause hefty damage to the unprepared, 6 mana cards should wreck someone caught unawares or who is in a bad position to start with, 7 mana cards need to be something that can be brought into play through alternate means, not sorceries that don't make up for themselves half the time. Even a card like Draco is unplayable because it just doesn't do enough harm for the trouble to get it out there.

Firefly- I think that's the name for the one red and 3 colorless 1/1 flying firebreathing guy… unplayable past sealed. Period. No nifty tricks, no special abilities like protection from a color or can't be countered or something, anything that would make it one of those 'secret tech' type cards that hops up in midseason against a certain deck type. Just a bad card.

Time Spiral- one of several cards that was reprinted as a 'fixed' version… they made it cost more, but then gave it an ability that made it basically free… sigh. The removing itself from the game was a step in the right direction, but just not enough to outweigh this cards strengths. At least this one got banned, but only because of its power in high tide decks. Still, it shouldn't have been printed. I'll forgive people for their early mistakes, like time walk and shelkin brownie, but this was a recent one, and someone should have gotten a swift kick to the head for letting this one into our boosters.

Memory Jar- and while on the subject of cards that have been banned, who on earth said
"why not a card that gives the user more cards than the mana they put into it? And a lot of cards too! A whole new hand! Yeah! Lets put more than a tenth of their deck into their hands! Yeah!" enough said. Oh wait, not enough said… necropotence; what the heck? Do they never learn from their mistakes? Oh wait, no they don't, they printed bargain too…

Hmmm… well that is a brief look at a few cards that just ticked me off. Perhaps some other time I'll list some more… perhaps when the next set comes out… we'll see.