Magic the Gathering: The Top 5 in Shards of Alara

Today's Article is all about Shards of Alara. Wizards did something different with Shards of Alara, or at least something different from the sets that came out closely before it. Let's take a look at the five best cards in the Shards of Alara Magic The Gathering set.

Five: Wooly Thoctar

This card has absolutely no text in it's box except for flavor text. How then, can it outdo all the others with cool unique abilities? Well, it's a 5/4 for 3 mana. It doesn't get much more efficient than that ladies and gentlemen. While your opponent will be slapping down cards that he/she thinks are good with stats like 2/3 or 2/2 wth flying, you'll be slapping down a Wooly Thoctar turn after turn. This is how you unleash a horde of 5/3 crazies that your opponent will have no choice but to gasp at. All it costs to you ladies and gentlemen: one mountain, one plains, and one forest.

Four: Stoic Angel

Stoic Angel both cripples your opponent's creature base AND gives you a great advantage, especially if you're made your deck out of mostly vigilance creatures. You slap down a Stoic Angel, and your opponent won't be able to untap all of his creatures during his untap step. This means they're going to think a lot more carefully about the outcome before they attack, and it doesn't matter how many creatures they have out there. If they attack with all of the and you use a card like Pollen Lullaby, BOOM, all of their creatures are tapped and they're not coming out to play again for a very long time. Stoic Angel begs to have a deck built around it. You can do this by making your deck out of vigilance creatures, so you never have to untap, therefore you're left unhindered by the Stoic Angel. This card wins tournaments.

Three: Wild Nacatl

Wild Natacl follows the same kind of theory behind the Wooly Thoctar. It's a 1/1 for one mana. This is neither bad nor good. It just is. But wait, if you control a mountain it gets +1/+1? If you control a plains it gets +1/+1? This is an incredibly versatile card, and while you need to control both of these lands to boost it up to a 3/3, even posessing one makes it efficient. Ultimately, if things go as planned, you can take 2 mana and slap two Wild Natactls down. This way, you're getting two 3/3s for 2 mana.

Two: Quietus Spike

I'm generally not a fan of the artifact equipment, but this one is an exception. It takes three mana for this equipment and that's quite an investment, especially for a turn 3. What makes this equipment so good though, is that it can literally be attached to any creature you have and it's helpful. If they block, their creature dies. If they don't, well, they lost half of their life. This is especially useful in the beginning of the game so you can ravage their life total to 10 early on. It's never a bad thing to invest 3 mana for 10 life. Think about that for a second. How often does that actually happen in a game of magic. You can take half of an opponent's life total for 3 mana. A very, very solid card. The better thing about it also being equipment is that if your creature dies, it just goes out ready to be attached to another. They're never going to get that 2 for 1 on you because it stays in the game.

One: Sarkhan Vol

Shards of Alara has some new Planeswalkers, but Sarkhan Vol is the best out of all of them. Ajani Vengeant was my next choice but Sarkhan Vol has sooooo much power behind him that he has forced himself to the top. It only takes 2 turns at sorcery speed to get five 4/4 dragon tokens under your control. If you don't think this is powerful, go back and do some research! =)

Check out my other articles for more of the Top 5 of other sets.