In an analysis where I called out so many of my own old takes as being dubious, I'm going to have to admit, just a few years later, that I am finding some of my own comments to exhibit the same problem. I don't intend to fully review the whole thread. At least not yet. But since I happened to notice this one post of mine, I'm going to respond to two of my own notes here. This is from my post looking back at the Hall of Shame nominations for
Weatherlight...
My thoughts now
There are times when I go back and read my own posts and ask, “What on Earth were you thinking, you idiot?” But there are also times when I go back and read my own posts and find myself saying, “That’s right and you put it better than I ever could, wait…”
At least as far as Inner Sanctum vs. Psychic Vortex is concerned, I fully agree with the 2009 version of myself, and I think Ransac is bad and wrong. Psychic Vortex is a very cool Magic card. It takes cumulative upkeep, something that was always a drawback on cards, and turns it into an advantage. I think this card has held up pretty well, despite being a clunky, four-drop, buildaround enchantment. If it weren’t a Reserved List rare, it would probably be more popular. Inner Sanctum, on the other hand, is a crappy version of Bubble Matrix, a card that was released in this very same set.
So I think Pyshic Vortex was a bad call. But I also have to admit that my comparison of Inner Sanctum to Bubble Matrix doesn’t seem quite as fair now as it did back in 2009. Yes, Bubble Matrix is a much better card. This doesn’t mean that Inner Sanctum is the worst card in Weatherlight. I do still think it’s lousy, but I can see how it might kinda-sorta be playable. Well, Ertai’s Familiar is an awkward self-mill creature with very minor utility. Desperate Gambit is a decent card in coinflip decks. Blossoming Wreath is an explosive lifegain spell and Modus was utterly wrong to nominate it. And that leaves us with Mwonvuli Ooze and any other cards we might have missed in the nomination process.
Jangling Automaton is horrible if your opponent has basically any creatures. Gallowbraid has the distinction of probably being the worst commander, and is a really bad card overall. Straw Golem is one of the most fragile creatures in existence. Ancestral Knowledge is excessively clunky and could too easily just suck up your mana without doing anything. But let’s face it: the worst card in Weatherlight is Mwonvuli Ooze.
I've
bolded and colored green two cards that weren't originally nominated, but which I considered as possible contenders for worst card in
Weatherlight. Now, I'll give myself a tiny bit of benefit of the doubt, in that I was just spitballing possible nominations that might be seen as bad cards, especially ones that might be seen as worse than many of the actual nominations from 2009. I didn't actually select either of these as my own pick for worst card in the set. However, I still think I have to eat crow on this one.
Jangling Automaton is one of the easiest ways to force blocks, a useful application in the right deck. Some opponents can just tap their creatures to activate some ability or another, but not everyone can do that all the time, and if you can benefit from having a load of creatures all block your attacker with Lure on it or something, then Jangling Automaton is not a liability, but an enabler. In particular, it was an automatic inclusion when I built an EDH deck helmed by General Marhault Elsdragon, something I'd do one year and three months after making that post dismissing Jangling Automaton as "horrible if your opponent has basically any creatures." While that commander hadn't yet been released when I made the post, the application is really pretty general. If you have any sort of Lure effect and really want your opponent's creatures to block you guy even if they already attacked last turn, you can just swing with Jangling Automaton too and make that happen. As a fan of the "rampage" ability, I should have been keen on this and I was not. Is Jangling Automaton situational? Yes. Is it so hypersituational as to make this card a valid point of discussion for worst card in the set? No, I think not. I think I flubbed this one. And it stings because that General Marhault Elsdragon deck has been one of my favorite EDH decks I ever built. I love that deck. I will absolutely rebuild it some day. And Jangling Automaton is an autoinclude there.
Ancestral Knowledge is a different case. I haven't used the card in an EDH deck, and can't recall ever having played it myself. However, in the Magic Memories thread for Squandered Resources, I found myself fascinated by the use of Ancestral Knowledge in a Premodern deck called "Inscrutable Pattern." That post had me go down a rabbit hole of looking for other decks employing this unusual card. Not only is Ancestral Knowledge something of a Premodern staple, but it has put up some healthy representation in Highlander formats, including cEDH, and has even made at least one top 8 appearance in a Legacy tournament maindeck. Put simply, Ancestral Knowledge is a good card. It's a very weird card, but its effect is strong enough that it's easy to work into decks in multiple formats. I claimed that it is "excessively clunky and could too easily just suck up your mana without doing anything." And that's only right in a very crude sense. I should have known better than to underestimate this card.
My final pick of Mwonvuli Ooze stands. But those two cards don't belong in the same paragraph as that dud. I messed up.
