Magic: The Gathering is the longest-running collectible trading card game of all time, currently containing over twenty thousand unique cards. Since the game’s debut in 1993, much of how the game is played has changed, with shifting priorities in game design and rules changes such as the removal of Mana Burn.
There are many cards from the early days of Magic that look completely useless when viewed with modern game design conventions in mind. Despite this, there are several incredible cards from the game’s first set, Alpha, that still see a great deal of high-level play to this day.
10 Sinkhole
Though land destruction tends to be frowned upon in some Commander circles, one of the most efficient land destruction cards originates from Alpha.
Simple and to the point, for two black mana, Sinkhole is a sorcery that can destroy any target land. While the card is banned in Pauper, decks that make use of land destruction in Legacy and Vintage tend to include Sinkhole due to its low mana cost.
9 Swords To Plowshares
Another efficient card from Alpha, Swords to Plowshares is still considered to be one of the best white removal spells in white to this day. Primarily seeing play in Commander, Swords to Plowshares can exile any creature for a single mana, doing so at instant speed.
While that creature’s controller is able to gain life equal to that creature’s power, this card can reliably get some of the most dangerous creatures off the board for a negligible mana investment.
8 Counterspell
Counterspells are one of the most iconic forms of blue instants, allowing players to completely negate another spell’s effect as it’s being cast. While there has been a wide range of counterspells of varying quality throughout the game’s history, the first-ever counter, simply called Counterspell, can counter any spell for the low cost of two mana.
Due to its low cost and versatility, the card sees play in several formats including Pauper, in which it is one of the most effective counters available.
7 Dark Ritual
Some of the strongest cards in Magic’s history are those that are able to quickly produce large quantities of mana, allowing a player to cast their most threatening spells early into a game, or string several key spells together.
For a single black mana, Dark Ritual is an instant for a single black mana that produces three black mana for its caster. The card sees play in a variety of formats including Legacy and Pauper.
6 Berserk
Berserk is an incredibly efficient and offense-oriented green instant for a single mana that doubles a creature’s power and provides it with trample.
While this spell can push damage through for a low cost, it states that if the creature it targets attacks, at the end of that turn, said creature is destroyed. However, due to the wording of this spell stating that the creature is destroyed and not sacrificed, this can be subverted with an indestructible creature.
5 Winter Orb
Few artifacts are able to consistently garner as many groans from other players as Winter Orb. A low-cost artifact for only two mana, Winter Orb prevents players from untapping more than one of their lands during their untap step as long as Winter Orb is untapped.
This can deprive one’s opponents of their resources while a player with Winter Orb builds their deck with a means of tapping and untapping their permanents in order to make this effect one-sided.
4 Birds Of Paradise
Mana ramp and mana fixing are both essential parts of Magic, allowing decks to play their spells ahead of schedule and with the colors of mana they need.
Birds of Paradise is a one-mana green creature with flying that can be tapped to produce one mana of any color, serving as one of the best “mana dorks” in the game’s history. This has led the card to see play in a variety of formats including Modern, Legacy, and Commander.
3 Lightning Bolt
Burn decks have been a staple of Magic since the game’s inception, aiming to defeat one’s opponents through the use of direct damage produced by red instants and sorceries. While there has been a multitude of red burn spells over the years, the bard was set from the word ‘go’ with the printing of Lightning Bolt.
For one mana, Lightning Bolt can deal three damage to any target. Flexible and with a low mana cost, Lightning Bolt is the card that every other burn spell wants to be.
2 The Original Dual Lands
As mentioned with Birds of Paradise, mana fixing is an incredibly important part of Magic, allowing players of multicolored decks to access the right colors of mana when needed. While nearly every Magic set includes new lands that are capable of tapping for numerous colors, each comes with some slight inhibitor that prevents it from being as effective as the original Dual Lands.
Multi-typed and capable of tapping for one of two colors, these ten original dual lands each enter the battlefield untapped and have virtually no downside, making them the ideal lands to play in the formats in which they are legal.
1 The Power Nine
The Power Nine are the nine strongest cards to have ever been printed in Magic’s history, with nearly each of these cards being banned or restricted in nearly every format.
Black Lotus, Time Walk, Ancestral Recall, Mox Sapphire, Mox Jet, Mox Ruby, Mox Emerald, Mox Pearl, and Time Twister each were originally printed in Alpha and are still some of the most impactful cards that players can access in the Vintage format.
