Rotation happed and I find myself missing the 2 sets that everyone seems to have hated. My reasons for missing the sets are rooted in the legendary cards that rotated out. I'm going to back up a little and explain how I got started with my love of Legendary creatures and playing bad midrange in Standard, Modern and Historic.
I was on Twitter one day and I saw this Tweet from H0lyDiva, a brewer that I look up to.
I looked at the list and it was full of cards from Dominaria that people never really played, chock full of legends, moxen and legendary sorceries. It was not like any deck that I saw before. I played a few games with the deck and I fell in love with the idea. Being a brewer myself I went to my local Scryfall and found a legend that really spoke to me. Enter Raff Capashen.
One of the cards that really drew me in Diva's list was Urza's Ruinous Blast. I messed around with a lot of lists, usually playing Esper but then I found out that there was a way to hose my fun. That card was Teferi, Time Raveler. I continued to play the deck, trying to find ways to get around this card that seemed to stop my deck in it's track. Core 20 gave me the card I was looking for and I instantly fell in love with it. That card was Kethis, the Hidden Hand.
It cut the blue which is a move that I am always behind and gave me the colors that I love: White, Green and Black. I have made so many decks based on this Elf and a lot of the fun cards came from the sets WAR and C20. Now that my long history story is over, let me show you the cards that I will miss the most.
Tolsimir, Friend to Wolves was a great little package. He brought his wolf friend who instantly fought a creature and gained life. Put Kenrith in the mix and now you have a lifegaining combat trick! Even when you aren't trying to send Voja to their death, getting two 3/3s for 5 mana is pretty good. This duo always made my lists and will continue going into Historic.
Storrev, Devkarin Lich is fun recursion and many time a single point of trample damage was enough to get someone to concede, knowing that a card they previously dealt with will be coming back Main Phase 2. I like that he allows you to get Planeswalkers, especially with the 'walkers that only have (-) abilities.
What can I say about the Golgari Queen herself other than perfection? I love making 1/1 deathtouchers and she immediately draws the eye of any player. Buffing creatures like Questing Beast isn't a passive to ignore. The normal downside of having no (+) ability doesn't concern Kethis since he can bring her back when needed. Long live the Swarm.
Who lands and clears the board? Massacre Girl! Being a boardwipe that leaves behind a 4/4 with Menace helps out vs those pesky go wide style decks. I always had 1-2 of her main because you never knew when you might need to slash the board clear. Her only downside was if there wasn't any x/1s on board but since she triggers upon death, you can easily enable it again by using something like Tolsimir.
Drakuseth, Maw of Flames is a classic red fatty. I never tried him in my legendary decks but I had a blast playing the various reanimator decks that could cheat Flaming Death into play, usually with haste. I shall miss the board clearing power of Drakuseth and the power to make the opponent's head explode in Arena.
Hope you enjoyed my list of cards that I am currently missing due to rotation and thank you for making it this far into my mind. There are a ton more cards that I could add to this list, especially if we dip back into the Ravnica sets. Who knows, there might be another post about this topic later!
