Blog Archives

Retro Magic: Ifh-Biff Efreet - Arabian Nights Rare Card Review

5/29/2012

by ElspethFTW, Gaming Successfully Staff

Ifh-Biff Efreet is one of the more interesting cards in Arabian Nights. With his ability, any player can pay a single green mana to do 1 damage to each player and each creature with flying.

Considering that you can activate his ability as many times as you have green mana to pay, this is a pretty powerful card. It's especially good if your opponent isn't playing any green mana sources. On top of that, it's a 3/3 flyer for 2GG.

It's not hard to see why this is on the Reserve List, as it's actually quite powerful on paper. In practice, the Efreet doesn't really see much play anymore, but pops up in Cubes and Commander decks, here and there.

Retro Magic: Khabal Ghoul - Arabian Nights Card Review

5/27/2012

by ElspethFTW, Gaming Successfully Staff

Here's an interesting Zombie card, an uncommon from Arabian Nights called Khabal Ghoul. For 2B, you get a 1/1 zombie that gets a +1/+1 counter at each end step for every creature that died that turn and wasn't regenerated. Potentially, this guy could get pretty darn big in a hurry.

He's a nice a nice little card to put in your Zombie-based Commander deck or crazy rogue Legacy deck. He's also not bad in Old School Magic, a format where you can only play cards from 1993 or 1994. If you have about $20 to spare per copy of this guy, Khabal Ghoul is worth a look.

Retro Magic: Juzam Djinn - Arabian Nights Rare Card Review - Magic the Gathering (MTG)

5/25/2012

by ElspethFTW, Gaming Successfully

For 2BB, Juzam Djinn gives you a 5/5 that makes you take 1 damage during each of your up-keeps, which is OK. It is certainly worth taking that 1 extra damage with just how big this guy is, and at the time, this was a really massive creature.

Today, a single copy of Juzam Djinn sells for over $400 USD! That doesn't seem worth the price tag at all if you're thinking of playing him. However, the "Old School Magic" format which uses cards from only 1993 and 1994 likes this card a lot. That's what has skyrocketed his price over the years. He's a really useful card, but unless you have $1200+ to shell out on a playset, he's a reserve list card that you probably should steer clear from.

Retro Magic: Elephant Graveyard - Arabian Nights Card Review

5/21/2012

by ElspethFTW, Gaming Successfully Staff

Elephant Graveyard is one of the more interesting land cards ever printed. Not only can you tap it for a colorless mana but you can also tap it to regenerate an Elephant or Mammoth. It's funny to think about a deck now being built that revolves around Elephants and Mammoths, but this card actually would make that combination a really fun deck.

Certainly an Elephant/Mammoth hybrid beat-down deck wouldn't be particularly competitive, but it would be fun. I wouldn't recommend investing in these for the purpose of building a casual deck around them, however, as they're $50 USD a piece for a decent condition copy. But if you happen to stumble across a copy or two of these for a reasonably cheap price, it's not a bad idea to pick them up.

Because this card isn't really that viable to play anymore in any competitive sense, it isn't a problem for it to remain on the Reserve List. Keeping it there simply helps it retain collector's value, which for many Magic players, is perfectly fine.

Retro Magic: Drop of Honey - Arabian Nights Card Review

5/19/2012

by ElspethFTW, Gaming Successfully Staff

One of the cards never reprinted in a later Magic set is Drop of Honey, an interesting enchantment. For a single green mana, its effect is actually fairly powerful. During your upkeep, the creature with the lowest power is destroyed. If there's a tie, you get to choose which is destroyed. Drop of Honey is destroyed when there are no creatures left on the field.

When the set Legends was released in 1994, this card was given an errata to make its ability a targeting ability. This made it incredibly powerful alongside cards that could not be targeted (in later years this would include creatures such as Troll Ascetic with hexproof) or any creatures with protection from green. In recent years, the errata was reversed and revised to be something that was much closer to its original text, so that would no longer target. It's still an interesting card and if you can find one in near-mint condition, it's a rare card worth adding to your collection.

Drop of Honey actually is on the Reserve List. It is a fairly powerful card, but compared to others on the list, it's now just very good. With the errata that once made it very, very good no longer in play, it probably does not need to be on that list any longer.

Retro Magic: Diamond Valley - Arabian Nights Card Review

5/17/2012

by ElspethFTW, Gaming Successfully Staff

One of the most expensive cards from Arabian Nights, often selling on the secondary market for about $100 USD a copy, Diamond Valley is one of the best cards in the set, as well.

By tapping Diamond Valley you can sacrifice a creature in order to gain life equal to the sacrificed creature's toughness. Not only that, but it's effect is able to be used after blockers have been declared.

While it's not really a card that can necessarily win you a game, it's a very fun card for EDH decks that are built around life-gain mechanics. It is pricey, but it's a fun card to play, and you can use it quite a number of times in a game, so it's worth a look if you're willing to sink one hundred bucks into acquiring a copy. This card is, understandably, on the Reserve List.

Retro Magic: City in a Bottle - Arabian Nights Card Review

5/15/2012

by ElspethFTW, Gaming Successfully Staff

While it's a pretty cool concept for a card, it's fairly obvious why City in a Bottle was never reprinted. Not only is it relatively useless now, but it was ridiculously powerful at the time. It discards every card from the Arabian Nights expansion that is currently in play, and as long as City in a Bottle is on the board, no other cards from Arabian Nights can be played.

One interesting aspect of this card, though, is that it does not affect reprints of cards from the Arabian Nights expansion. City in a Bottle will forever remain on the Reserve List as an interesting curiosity and a chase card for serious Magic: the Gathering collectors.

(Side note, Oct 19, 2016: Since there is no Reserve List on Magic Online, City in a Bottle was in fact reprinted in Vintage Masters, as a mythic rare no less! What a strange way to introduce it into Magic Online. I guess they thought people would use it to blow up Bazaar of Baghdad strategies? I don't know...)

Retro Magic: Bazaar of Baghdad - Arabian Nights Card Review - Magic the Gathering (MTG)

5/13/2012

by ElspethFTW, Gaming Successfully Staff

Bazaar of Baghdad is not only on the Reserve List, but it is also banned in Legacy tournament play. On the surface, tapping to draw two cards, and then having to discard three doesn't sound terribly impressive. However, being able to use its tap ability every turn, especially in a deck that utilizes the Graveyard as a resource, it can become a very powerful engine.

Because of how quickly you can fill your graveyard with the cards you actually want in there while drawing into your game-winning combo pieces, Wizards of the Coast decided that this card needed to be banned. It still sees a good amount of play in Vintage, however, where there is a much smaller ban list, so it's still incredibly valuable.

Retro Magic: Ali From Cairo - Arabian Nights Card Review - Magic the Gathering (MTG)

5/11/2012

by ElspethFTW, Gaming Successfully Staff

Ali from Cairo has a pretty silly ability. It's obvious why this card has stayed on Magic the Gathering's Reserve List - one of the cards that Wizards of the Coast has promised to never reprint. Basically, you can never lose the game as long as Ali is on the board (unless you lose by poison counters, of course.) Any damage that would reduce your life to 0 will still leave you with 1 life.

One important note: Any loss of life you would take outside of damage, such as the effect of the Extort mechanic, would still reduce your life to 0. So it's still possible to lose with Ali on the board; it's just considerably more difficult.

As this card is not banned in Vintage or Legacy, it's still very possible to build a deck around Ali from Cairo. Getting your hands on a play-set is certainly a pricey proposition, though, at over $50 a piece. will a deck based around him be as good as it once was? Not particularly, especially as a creature with no power and only 1 toughness. But he's still fun to play, and he's a valuable card for your collection.