For this list, I am only including rares. I am sure you can agree there are a few uncommon cards that are pretty good.
TENI was deciding on which place to put this card, it at least deserves to be in the top ten, in a world without the sheer destructive power of the Eldrazi, post-rotation. This is essentially
Gaea's Revenge, but costing 1 less to cast and with trample replacing haste. Having a mechanic that enables you to 'ramp' cards (
Explore) you've got yourself a nice dino-feast.
NINETorpor Orb on a stick? Pretty much shuts down ETB triggers in a Standard format rife with ETB triggers *cough*
Panharmonicon *cough*
EIGHTWhilst not offering any immediate benefit, other than a 1/1 body for 1, it reminds me a lot of
Cryptbreaker. It's late game, having the ability to shut down recursion whilst giving you a scry/land advantage or counters.
SEVENThis is something that I knew I would see, and not Vraska, but an instant
exile card in black, one that would replace,
Murder or
Anguished Unmaking. Whilst this only targets creatures or planeswalkers, it gains you two life, with the downside of casting an additional 1 mana.
SIXThis is a great enchantment and one I hope I see played in constructed, simply because it gives you a card advantage for every spell or ability that targets a creature you control and it only costs 1. Beware
Fan Bearer!
FIVEI like this card, whilst it gives your opponent an extra land drop/ card advantage, which can be a major drawback, it is a 3/3 for 1 much like
Greenbelt Rampager without having to rely on energy. All you need to do is run this in a mill deck and trigger
Archive Trap from your hand.
FOURGetting more interesting as we go down the list. We have
Thalia, Heretic Cathar who has evolved into a flying dinosaur, now that's Darwinism for you. What I like about this card is that it is a 2/3 flyer, unlike Thalia who was a 3/2 with first strike, this can escape
Shock or
Magma Spray making it more versatile. Whilst it doesn't allow you to tap down nonbasic lands your opponent controls it is nonlegendary which means you can run multiples.
THREE Treasure Map is a fun card, whilst it doesn't do much to the board state, it does allow you to scry the turn it comes into play. Two turns later it flips to create an additional land with three treasure tokens that you can sacrifice to draw cards. Now, remember, this allows you to sacrifice any treasure tokens, that includes the ones created by other cards, meaning, not only can you tap for any mana you can sacrifice them to trigger abilities or draw cards. A nice little incentive to start treasure hunting.
TWONow, this was a little unprecedented, did they intentionally remake of
Dark Confidant? I am interested to see the kind of impact this card has in standard play as well as its cost! This has a downside, rather than an upkeep trigger you have to have attacked before your endstep, which means that not only are you forced to attack to trigger its ability you can really only play your card advantage the following turn, providing that card wasn't an instant.
ONEDrum roll, please! The King of the Merfolk. Well, that's
Lord of Atlantis, but this in a Merfolk deck screams value for the extra 2 mana it costs to target Merfolk you control. This really is an excellent addition to Modern Merfolk decks as well as Merfolk Tribal in Standard!
Let me know whether you agree, or what you consider to be the top ten so far!