A ban list is going to be a part of any competitive game. Sometimes, things that are a good idea on paper are just too strong in practice and have to be contained. However, that doesn’t stop the rest of us from daydreaming about a world where we can play Force of Will and just ruin everyone else’s days.
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Many cards were banned from competitive and casual Magic: the Gathering settings to provide a more fair and balanced game when playing with others. However, some in-house groups may “unban” these cards to allow for a more cut-throat and hardcore experience. Though it won’t make us any friends, here are ten cards we wish we legal in the Modern format of Magic.
10 Sensei’s Divining Top
Starting strong, we have Sensei’s Divining Top (hold your boos, it gets worse.) Sensei’s Divining Top is a mere one-drop card that has two abilities. First, its controller can spend one mana to look at the top three cards of their library, then put them back in any order.
There is a reason this card was banned and has stayed prohibited. It’s mighty. But it's a perfect slot-in for people looking for a wholly unbalanced game of Magic with all the strongest cards.
9 Ponder
Ponder is another card that won’t win any friends at your table, but you should lobby for it to be grandfathered in if you play Blue decks. Ponder allows you to scry three and then draw one. You can shuffle your deck entirely when you put the cards back, making it an excellent “escape button” if you end up with a subpar overall draw.
Considering Ponder is a one-drop, it’s no wonder it got banned. But you wouldn't be here if you were looking to play a good, fair game of Magic where everyone has fun. Would you?
8 Stasis
Another completely unfair card when played correctly. Stasis means that all the cards do not untap. Stasis is sacrificed at the beginning of your turn unless you pay one Blue mana.
While Stasis is not entirely unfair, it combos exceptionally well with Time Elemental, which allows you to pay two generic mana and two Blue mana to send a permanent with no enchantments attached to it back to the owner’s hand.
This allows you to play Stasis and send it back to your hand before your untap step. This way, you don’t have to sacrifice Stasis, and you don’t skip your untap step. Even if you don’t use the third card in the combo, Kismet, you still represent an impossibly tall wall that can’t be overcome through conventional means.
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7 Scourge of Nel’Toth
Unlike all the cards on here that are just “too good, didn’t allow,” Scourge of Nel’Toth is actually a pretty balanced card. It costs two Black mana and five generic mana to cast from the hand and is a beefy flier. Its real power is in its effect.
Scourge of Nel’Toth can be cast from the graveyard for the cost of two creatures and two Black mana, which is an excellent discount that you should take advantage of! One perfect strategy is to target small animals that have effects when they die, like Footlight Fiend, which allows you to sacrifice them, get their products, and bring out a heavier-hitting monster while dealing damage.
6 Deathrite Shaman
Look, we aren’t asking you to like us—quite the opposite with this pick. Deathrite Shaman is an excellent card for people who hate other people. Deathrite Shaman is a one drop that can be paid with either Green or Black mana, and it has multiple effects.
Firstly, it can be tapped to exile a land from any graveyard, adding one of any mana color to its controller’s pool. For one black, you can tap this card and remove an instant or sorcery from any graveyard to deal two damage to each enemy. For one green, you can tap this card, exile a creature from a graveyard, and regain two hit points.
From a game design standpoint, Deathrite Shaman is way too much for minimal cost, and it’s no wonder this game design monstrosity got axed when they went through and banned all the cards that were a little too strong for the dev’s liking.
5 Muxus, Goblin Grandee
Red aggro players would love to see a Modern-legal print of Muxus and Goblin Grandee to boost their decks’ powers. Muxus is essentially a red aggro deck in a can. He allows his controller to reveal the top six cards of their library, then put all goblin creature cards with a CMC of 5 or less revealed this way onto the battlefield.
Muxus is pretty beefy being a six-drop, but he has the potential to come in as seven cards for the cost of one.
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4 Splinter Twin
Splinter Twin is an Enchantment that allows you to put a token copy of the enchanted card onto the battlefield. It’s a potent card that was banned for a reason. It’s important to note that you must sacrifice the creature at the beginning of the next step, but it’s excellent for targeting animals that have effects when they die. You can get the creature’s death effect without sacrificing the creature wholesale.
3 Ichorid
Ichorid is a card you want to have in your Graveyard, and lucky for Ichorid, it sacrifices itself at the beginning of the end step every time it comes onto the field. You want to put Ichorid in your Graveyard because you can exile a black creature from your Graveyard during the upkeep step to play Ichorid from your Graveyard.
It has haste, so every time it comes onto the field, you can use it to attack, making it an excellent way to get used out of the card that ends up in your Graveyard. This is a perfect “gift that just keeps on giving” option for Black players, and we’d like to see it in Modern too!
2 Force of Will
Force of Will is an excellent counterspell banned for a good reason. Rather than paying Force of Will’s cost, you can pay one life and exile a Blue card from your hand to play the card. It was banned because that’s just too good of a deal, but we’d still like to play it sometimes!
1 Cabal Therapy
To avoid this seeming too much like a love letter to overpowered counterspells, we’d also like to lobby for Cabal Therapy to be unbanned. Not because unbanning Cabal Therapy would be a good move, but because this list is just a list of overpowered cards and cards that need a reprint.
Cabal Therapy allows you to name a non-land card and then have your opponent discard any cards in their hand with that name. Targeted discard is already too strong, but this targeted discard is a mere one drop, and it’s a mystery how this card made it past the drawing board.