Hall of Shame Nomination: Ice Age

[BigBlue]

Here's the full list (sans basic & snow lands)

Abyssal Specter
Adarkar Sentinel
Adarkar Unicorn
Adarkar Wastes
Aegis of the Meek
Aggression
Altar of Bone
Amulet of Quoz
Anarchy
Arctic Foxes
Arcum's Sleigh
Arcum's Weathervane
Arcum's Whistle
Arenson's Aura
Armor of Faith
Arnjlot's Ascent
Ashen Ghoul
Aurochs
Avalanche
Balduvian Barbarians
Balduvian Bears
Balduvian Conjurer
Balduvian Hydra
Balduvian Shaman
Barbarian Guides
Barbed Sextant
Baton of Morale
Battle Cry
Battle Frenzy
Binding Grasp
Black Scarab
Blessed Wine
Blinking Spirit
Blizzard
Blue Scarab
Bone Shaman
Brainstorm
Brand of Ill Omen
Breath of Dreams
Brine Shaman
Brown Ouphe
Brushland
Burnt Offering
Call to Arms
Caribou Range
Celestial Sword
Centaur Archer
Chaos Lord
Chaos Moon
Chromatic Armor
Chub Toad
Circle of Protection: Black
Circle of Protection: Blue
Circle of Protection: Green
Circle of Protection: Red
Circle of Protection: White
Clairvoyance
Cloak of Confusion
Cold Snap
Conquer
Cooperation
Counterspell
Crown of the Ages
Curse of Marit Lage
Dance of the Dead
Dark Banishing
Dark Ritual
Death Ward
Deflection
Demonic Consultation
Despotic Scepter
Diabolic Vision
Dire Wolves
Disenchant
Dread Wight
Dreams of the Dead
Drift of the Dead
Drought
Dwarven Armory
Earthlink
Earthlore
Elder Druid
Elemental Augury
Elkin Bottle
Elvish Healer
Enduring Renewal
Energy Storm
Enervate
Errant Minion
Errantry
Essence Filter
Essence Flare
Essence Vortex
Fanatical Fever
Fear
Fiery Justice
Fire Covenant
Flame Spirit
Flare
Flooded Woodlands
Flow of Maggots
Folk of the Pines
Forbidden Lore
Force Void
Forgotten Lore
Formation
Foul Familiar
Foxfire
Freyalise Supplicant
Freyalise's Charm
Freyalise's Winds
Fumarole
Fylgja
Fyndhorn Bow
Fyndhorn Brownie
Fyndhorn Elder
Fyndhorn Elves
Fyndhorn Pollen
Game of Chaos
Gangrenous Zombies
Gaze of Pain
General Jarkeld
Ghostly Flame
Giant Growth
Giant Trap Door Spider
Glacial Chasm
Glacial Crevasses
Glacial Wall
Glaciers
Goblin Lyre
Goblin Mutant
Goblin Sappers
Goblin Ski Patrol
Goblin Snowman
Gorilla Pack
Gravebind
Green Scarab
Grizzled Wolverine
Hallowed Ground
Halls of Mist
Heal
Hecatomb
Hematite Talisman
Hipparion
Hoar Shade
Hot Springs
Howl from Beyond
Hurricane
Hyalopterous Lemure
Hydroblast
Hymn of Rebirth
Ice Cauldron
Ice Floe
Iceberg
Icequake
Icy Manipulator
Icy Prison
Illusionary Forces
Illusionary Presence
Illusionary Terrain
Illusionary Wall
Illusions of Grandeur
Imposing Visage
Incinerate
Infernal Darkness
Infernal Denizen
Infinite Hourglass
Infuse
Jester's Cap
Jester's Mask
Jeweled Amulet
Johtull Wurm
Jokulhaups
Juniper Order Druid
Justice
Karplusan Forest
Karplusan Giant
Karplusan Yeti
Kelsinko Ranger
Kjeldoran Dead
Kjeldoran Elite Guard
Kjeldoran Frostbeast
Kjeldoran Guard
Kjeldoran Knight
Kjeldoran Phalanx
Kjeldoran Royal Guard
Kjeldoran Skycaptain
Kjeldoran Skyknight
Kjeldoran Warrior
Knight of Stromgald
Krovikan Elementalist
Krovikan Fetish
Krovikan Sorcerer
Krovikan Vampire
Land Cap
Lapis Lazuli Talisman
Lava Burst
Lava Tubes
Legions of Lim-Dul
Leshrac's Rite
Leshrac's Sigil
Lhurgoyf
Lightning Blow
Lim-Dul's Cohort
Lim-Dul's Hex
Lost Order of Jarkeld
Lure
Maddening Wind
Magus of the Unseen
Malachite Talisman
Marton Stromgald
Melee
Melting
Mercenaries
Merieke Ri Berit
Mesmeric Trance
Meteor Shower
Mind Ravel
Mind Warp
Mind Whip
Minion of Leshrac
Minion of Tevesh Szat
Mistfolk
Mole Worms
Monsoon
Moor Fiend
Mountain Goat
Mountain Titan
Mudslide
Musician
Mystic Might
Mystic Remora
Nacre Talisman
Naked Singularity
Nature's Lore
Necropotence
Norritt
Oath of Lim-Dul
Onyx Talisman
Orcish Cannoneers
Orcish Conscripts
Orcish Farmer
Orcish Healer
Orcish Librarian
Orcish Lumberjack
Orcish Squatters
Order of the Sacred Torch
Order of the White Shield
Pale Bears
Panic
Pentagram of the Ages
Pestilence Rats
Phantasmal Mount
Pit Trap
Polar Kraken
Portent
Power Sink
Pox
Prismatic Ward
Pygmy Allosaurus
Pyknite
Pyroblast
Pyroclasm
Rally
Ray of Command
Ray of Erasure
Reality Twist
Reclamation
Red Scarab
Regeneration
Rime Dryad
Ritual of Subdual
River Delta
Runed Arch
Sabretooth Tiger
Sacred Boon
Scaled Wurm
Sea Spirit
Seizures
Seraph
Shambling Strider
Shatter
Shield Bearer
Shield of the Ages
Shyft
Sibilant Spirit
Silver Erne
Skeleton Ship
Skull Catapult
Sleight of Mind
Snow Devil
Snow Fortress
Snow Hound
Snowblind
Snowfall
Soldevi Golem
Soldevi Machinist
Soldevi Simulacrum
Songs of the Damned
Soul Barrier
Soul Burn
Soul Kiss
Spectral Shield
Spoils of Evil
Spoils of War
Staff of the Ages
Stampede
Stench of Evil
Stone Rain
Stone Spirit
Stonehands
Storm Spirit
Stormbind
Stromgald Cabal
Stunted Growth
Sulfurous Springs
Sunstone
Swords to Plowshares
Tarpan
Thermokarst
Thoughtleech
Thunder Wall
Timberline Ridge
Time Bomb
Tinder Wall
Tor Giant
Total War
Touch of Death
Touch of Vitae
Trailblazer
Underground River
Updraft
Urza's Bauble
Veldt
Venomous Breath
Vertigo
Vexing Arcanix
Vibrating Sphere
Walking Wall
Wall of Lava
Wall of Pine Needles
Wall of Shields
War Chariot
Warning
Whalebone Glider
White Scarab
Whiteout
Wiitigo
Wild Growth
Wind Spirit
Wings of Aesthir
Winter's Chill
Withering Wisps
Woolly Mammoths
Woolly Spider
Word of Blasting
Word of Undoing
Wrath of Marit Lage
Yavimaya Gnats
Zuran Enchanter
Zuran Orb
Zuran Spellcaster
Zur's Weirding


Nominations are due by 10/15

 

[Mooseman]

Ok, I'll go first with a card that won't win, but what the heck....

Ice Cauldron
4
Artifact
X,tap: Put a charge counter on Ice Cauldron, and put a spell card face up on Ice Cauldron. Note the type and amount of mana used to pay this activation cost. Use this ability only if there are no charge counters on Ice Cauldron. You may play that spell card as though it were in your hand.
tap: Remove the charge counter from Ice Cauldron to add mana of the type and amount last used to put a charge counter on Ice Cauldron to your mana pool. This mana is usable only to cast the spell on top of Ice Cauldron

Spend the mana now for a spell to maybe cast it later and if it's destroyed you lose both...... hmmmm..... and all for 4 mana (plus the cost of the spell)

 

[BigBlue]

I always wanted to figure out a way to use that card... I never did find one, but I didn't try all that hard.

 

[Oversoul]

I used to use it. Although it is mediocre, it's viable in the right deck. You're looking at it as "if it's destroyed, that would be bad." But that's true of a lot of cards. I think my main use for Ice Cauldron back in the day was to power out Drain Life. There are better ways of doing that, though. And I might have just kept it in my deck because I liked the picture--I forget...

 

[DarthFerret]

I am nominating Cold Snap. Even when Ice Age was new, no one ever had enough snow lands to make this card ever worth putting in a deck.

 

[Shabbaman]

I take insult in the nomination of Ice cauldron. That card is great! Well, I used to think it was great, which makes me realise how much my decks sucked back then. Ice cauldron is something like a mana battery. Sub-par, but not useless. I think I used it to avoid manascrew. Yes, I know, a land would've been better...

I'm torn between Melting and Snowfall. Snowfall is crap, but I can see someone building a deck around it, it's still an engine of some kind. So I'm going with Melting. You play a card that has no effect unless your opponent is playing the Snowfall-deck, how bad can it be?

 

[BigBlue]

I'm going to nominate Avalanche. It's simply too expensive to be that effective at Land destruction which only works on Snow lands. By the time you can cast it, if you are counting on LD, you'll have controlled it plenty.

 

[Ransac]

I'm gonna nominate Infernal Denizen.


Ransac, cpa trash man

 

[Oversoul]

I'm mostly with Shabbaman on this one. The first card that came to mind for me was Snowfall. When he mentioned Melting, I remembered the card incorrectly. I thought it was a sorcery that made snow-covered lands (I refuse to call them "snow lands") into regular lands. This would be much worse than Avalanche (which actually kills the lands) or almost any other card in the game. Useless permanents are still better than useless sorceries. At least the permanents can be sacrificed to something or whatever.

I had reservations about nominating Snowfall partially because http://www.casualplayers.org/forums/showthread.php?t=13144 is still one of my favorite threads...

But I firmly believe that Snowfall is worse than Great Wall. The biggest difference between them is that while Great Wall does nothing, Snowfall helps you pay for Snowfall. It has synergy with Snow-Covered Islands in the sense that more Snow-Covered Islands will help you pay the upkeep for Snowfall so that you can keep Snowfall out longer. Keeping Snowfall out longer means that your Snow-Covered Islands will be producing more mana to help pay for Snowfall. The net result is that your lands are needlessly tapped or your useless enchantment dies.

Melting costs one more mana to play, which isn't really relevant. It doesn't have an upkeep. But one could potentially (with enough Snow-Covered Islands) have other cumulative upkeep cards hop on for the ride along with Snowfall and keep them out longer. Melting doesn't combo with anything (except Opalescence or something). So while Snowfall combos with bad cards, Melting hoses bad cards, and that could be seen as intrinsically worse. Because the cards are so bad, no one is ever going to use them. Therefore Melting is even more useless. On the other hand, because Snowfall is the worst card hosed by Melting, which is useless, Snowfall is even more useless. There's sort of a feedback loop here. These cards spiral downward into obscurity alongside each other. Which one is truly the worse of the two depends on your preference and your idea of what makes a card "the worst."

But Shabbaman already nominated one, so I'll nominate the other. I nominate Snowfall.

 

[BigBlue]

Recap so far -

Avalanche - BigBlue
Cold Snap - Darthferret
Ice Cauldron - Mooseman
Infernal Denizen - Ransac
Melting - Shabbaman
Snowfall - Oversoul

 

[Oversoul]

So it's the 28th...

 

[BigBlue]

Yeah, I've been uber busy at work and at home...

Posting the voting thread very soon...

 

[Spiderman]

Man, I keep forgetting to nominate...