History GameBreaker / MAGICTHEGATHERING

* Storm is a mechanic so busted that Wizards themselves consider it to be the most broken mechanic they've ever designed, and it's not hard to see why. Designed to multiply the effects of a spell based on how many other spells were cast before it, Storm became the output of some very potent combo decks that could cast an absurd number of spells due to various cards giving more mana than they cost (albeit temporarily, but that's what Storm is built for). Countering the Storm spell didn't work, either, as the spell copies itself on cast, forcing the player to either counter the Storm triggered ability or erase the entire stack at once. It's so infamous that it named the "Storm scale", which is the official scale gauging how likely a mechanic would be reprinted -- 1 being "it'll always be around" (e.g. Flying, Trample), and 10 being "never again". Naturally, Storm ranks as a 10 on it, accompanied by excessively weird mechanics like Banding or those which really only work in multiplayer Commander games like Voting.

* [[https://mtg.gamepedia.com/Hexproof Hexproof]] and [[https://mtg.gamepedia.com/Infect Infect]] aren't broken mechanics per se. They're powerful, but can be handled. However, putting them in low-cost creatures has proven to be a mistake. A low-cost hexproof creature can be pumped with as many Auras as the player wishes while not risking the usual downside of Auras of being inherent minus if the creature dies, leading to the [[https://strategy.channelfireball.com/all-strategy/mtg/channelmagic-articles/level-one-modern-bogles/ Bogles]] deck, one of the most hated decks of the Modern format due to its boring playstyle. Low-cost Infect creatures lead to players abusing cheap pump cards to score a 10-poison hit as early as turn 2, which's not helped by the fact that [[https://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=485323 two of]] [[https://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?printed=true&multiverseid=214383 said low-cost creatures]] have built-in evasion. Hexproof is also problematic because Wizards wants every color pair to have at least one overlapping evergreen mechanic, and hexproof fulfills this role for blue/green. It's frustrating when said mechanic cannot be put on low-cost creatures, as if blue hadn't enough problems with its overlapping mechanics. Wizards finally solved this problem by [[https://mtg.fandom.com/wiki/Ward keywording the ability to counter a spell or ablity targeting a permament unless a cost is paid into Ward]]. Hexproof is now used mostly for temporary protection or really big creatures. Meanwhile when they went back to New Phyrexia they replaced Infect with Toxic, which only gave a fixed amount of poison counters and didn't give out -1/-1 counters, preventing pumping and making them safer to block.

** [[https://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=600499 Mystic Remora]] has a similar effect - in exchange for the ability to trigger for creatures and a cumulative upkeep cost, it costs a single blue mana and taxes for '''four''' mana. Unlike Rhystic Study, paying for Mystic Remora is completely unviable (and frequently impossible). It's surprisingly less powerful in casual Commander tables due to the higher amount of creatures, but in competitive Commander, where cantrips and low-mana artifacts rule? It's the best card draw spell in the game.

* You better not be playing a mono-color deck if your opponent slaps [[http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=401636 Iona, Shield of Emeria]] on the field. Even with its big, scary mana cost there's always plenty of reanimate spells around. What really broke Iona is Commander; your deck in Commander can never have a card of a different color than one printed on your chosen Commander. This is NOT restricted to their mana cost, but anywhere on the card. As most commander decks are around 2-3 colors, this essentially gave the controller of Iona the ability to shut down 1/3rd to 1/2 of the enemy deck, especially in multiplayer since most people will share colors. Iona would eventually get banned in July 2019.

* The [[https://mtg.fandom.com/wiki/Cascade Cascade]] mechanic from ''Alara Reborn'' and its spiritual sucessor, [[https://mtg.fandom.com/wiki/Discover Discover]] from the ''Lost Caverns of Ixalan''. Cascade was created to be a fun mechanic that encourages variation in games: when you cast a spell, you'll get a free spell from your deck with smaller cost. While a fan-favorite in casual games, it's notably problematic in competitive settings due to its MinMaxing potential - if you build your deck in a specific way, you can always hit the same spell while cascading, something that's not only against the original idea of the mechanic, but also extremely abusable with the [[https://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=509486 costless]] [[https://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=509401 Suspend]] [[https://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=509575 spells]], whose intended downside was that they're not easily castable. In practice, cascade was almost never used as it was originally intended, and ironically, the one card that did it, [[https://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=571517 Bloodbraid Elf]], spent a good time banned in Modern, because it still helps players cast more cards than they should. Even worse is Discover, a rework of the mechanic that makes it more versatile, but doesn't fix any of the original's blatant loopholes. As a result, [[https://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=636861 Geological Appraiser]], a completely innocuous uncommon card, had to be banned in Pioneer two weeks after its release due to combo potential.

The Commander format allows for longer games and more elaborate plays. Its multiplayer format allows for some cards to have even greater impact than the usual 1v1 environment, leading to several cards being very strong in this format.

* There are several cards that force all players' life totals to a set amount, cutting games dramatically short and potentially ending in anticlimactic defeats for most, if not everyone involved. Such cards include [[http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=83531 Biorhythm]] and [[http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=74034 Sway of the Stars]], which are banned to prevent "sudden death" games. Worldfire, which sets ''everyone'' to one life, used to be banned too, but was unbanned in 2022.

* [[http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=47930 Panoptic Mirror]] lets you imprint a spell on it, letting you cast a copy of that spell for free during your upkeep. So of course you imprint [[http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=439354 Time Warp]] for an unending stream of extra turns. Panoptic Mirror is banned in Commander, where the pace of the game is slow enough to let you accomplish it.

* There's also the Mirrodin block, a very Artifact-heavy block with the ability to even have Artifact ''lands'', the only cards that traditionally couldn't be Artifacts. So, your entire deck can consist of Artifacts (though this required some thought as the artifact lands were limited by the 4 of a kind rule). Setting aside the Affinity mechanic (cards that get cheaper the more of a certain type of card you have, and why yes there ''were'' cards with 'Affinity for Artifacts'), let's throw in [[http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=50943 Arcbound Ravager]] that gets tougher every time you get rid of an Artifact. Hell, while we're at it let's throw in [[http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=49090 Disciple of the Vault]] who deals a point of hard-to-redirect life loss (not damage) to your opponent every time Arcbound Ravager gets tougher. Now, remember that you can have up to four Disciples in play at once; this means the 55 cards in your deck that aren't Disciples or the Ravager can kill your opponent eleven times over and give you a 56/56 creature, and if that somehow dies, it allows you to make any other artifact creature in play a 57/57 creature thanks to the Modular mechanic letting you transfer +1/+1 counters over to other artifact creatures[[note]]Yes, we know you already sacrificed that creature to the Ravager to make it 56/56, it's just for the example[[/note]] and ''your opponent loses four life just for doing that''. As if that wasn't enough, you could also give the Ravager [[http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=205328 Cranial Plating]] so that any Artifacts you ''hadn't'' sacrificed to it (including the Cranial Plating and the Ravager itself) also made it stronger. The Artifact Lands, Arcbound Ravager, ''and'' Disciple of the Vault all ended up banned. Another card that rode on the Disciple's power is [[http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=49835 Shrapnel Blast]], which could leverage the lifeloss trigger to make throwing explosive artifacts at your opponent (or their creatures) that much more effective (and from a practical standpoint, meant that you could instantly throw an artifact at your opponent's dome to win when you'd dealt 14 points of damage/lifeloss). Other artifacts which helped a great deal include the Welding Jar, which could potentially help you keep a vital artifact creature from being smote by [[http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=49101 Electrostatic Bolt]], and the humble [[http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=46016 Ornithopter]], which was indeed reprinted in Mirrodin Block, and could become a recipient of those delicious +1/+1 Modular-transferred counters so it could fly right over your opponent's ground defenses and smack them a good one. While the Ravager and the Disciple have been unbanned in Modern format, they remain banned in Mirrodin Block. Of the original six Artifact Lands of Mirrodin block, only the Darksteel Citadel has been unbanned for Modern, and all of them are still banned in Block Constructed format. The Ravager itself found a niche in the MUD decks of Vintage, leveraging the wealthy pool of artifact creatures (especially ones that synergize with all the +1/+1 counters being slung around) and the brute mana power of Mishra's Workshop to put fast, aggressive pressure on opponents while slowing them down with Prison Deck-style effects that delayed their actions significantly.

With over 20,000 unique cards as of ''Commander Legends: Battle for Baldur's Gate'', it should come as no surprise that there exists an almost incalculable number of interactions that can turn seemingly innocuous or underwhelming cards into potent engines of destruction. Note that a good number of the strongest combos listed below only require two specific cards that may or may not have a total color combination of 3 or fewer colors. Needing more parts or colors would instead push the combo towards AwesomeButImpractical or CoolButInefficient due to needing more setup and/or mana.

* Taking a small detour from the Standard sets, Wizards decided to experiment something new with Modern Horizons, a set designed as a spiritual successor to Time Spiral whose cards would jump straight to the Modern format... and even then, it didn't avoid some backslash for introducing broken cards:

** Surpassing Teferi and Narset in the "loathed 3-mana walker" category is [[https://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=473159 Oko, Thief of Crowns]]. He already starts with above-average loyalty for a planeswalker of his cost, and his first two abilities let him push it even higher. The dream curve is to play [[https://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=473122 Gilded Goose]] on turn 1, use its Food to make the mana to play Oko on turn 2, and then have his +1 ability turn the Goose into a 3/3 Elk to harass the opponent or defend him. [[https://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=473131 Once Upon a Time]] can also be used to increase the consistency of this optimal curve. His +2 ability isn't too bad, either, as the Food token can also be converted into an Elk. The Elk-transforming ability also works on your opponent's cards, hosing anything that depended on its raw stats or abilities that didn't immediately activate. By the time the opponent's beaten through the Elk army and knocked out Oko's massive loyalty, his controller's likely in a position to field other threats -- [[AllForNothing like another Oko]]. While Teferi and Narset above are susceptible to [[https://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=466894 Fry]], a card specifically designed to answer the likes of these walkers, Oko can avoid dying to it if his controller has the foresight to use his +2 ability first.\\
\\
What really sells Oko is unlike most of the other broken cards in Standard, who usually at most only moonlight in other formats unless they have abilities that are specifically stronger there, Oko proceeded to make an immediate meta impact in nearly every available format from the jump! Not just Standard, but Modern and even Legacy! Even Pioneer, a format that was created just a few weeks after ''Eldraine'''s release, found itself inundated with Oko. It has gotten to the point that top Standard decks were as expensive as some top level decks in Modern (for example Amulet Titan), and it was not unusual to see cards like [[https://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=466864 Noxious Grasp]] and [[https://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=473020 Mystical Dispute]] in the ''main deck''[[note]]Normally, cards that are HighlySpecificCounterplay start in the sideboard as a "just in case" against specific threats; Oko was ''that'' prolific and problematic that you ''needed'' ways to answer him.[[/note]] specifically for dealing with Oko. Even so, the Oko-playing deck would simply defend him with the aforementioned Veil of Summer. For most, it wasn't a matter of if, but when Oko would get banned in Standard -- and he, Veil, and Once Upon a Time all got banned from Standard on 18 November 2019. Not even month later, he was also axed from Pioneer.\\
\\
His reign of terror in Modern lasted a few weeks longer, and was even more devastating. Modern's much better mana bases allowed to splash him in basically any deck that already used one of his colors (and sometimes even if they didn't - one truly egregious example was [[https://i.redd.it/0dtrp3r7xm941.jpg a Boros Burn list]] where Oko was ''the only non-red card in main deck''), leading to a metagame where every deck was either running Oko, or specifically built to counter Oko - and more often than not, Oko decks still could find a way to win. It took some time, but Oko finally got banned in Modern on January 13, 2020, and eventually, even Legacy decided that they couldn't handle the Elking.

** [[https://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=476324 Thassa's Oracle]] is the ultimate finisher for combo decks. While the so-called "Lab Maniac" effects were considered BoringButPractical ways of winning with a combo deck, Thassa's Oracle is the first card of the kind that doesn't require the player to draw from an empty library to win, just requiring you to have a low enough number of cards there. That acts as a massive safety net for such combos, as previous iterations of those decks could easily mill their entire deck only to see their win condition get destroyed and turn an automatic win into an automatic loss. And if that wasn't enough, it's still playable as a simple 2-mana pseudo-scrying creature on the early game, unlike the original Lab Maniac that was effectively a vanilla outside of the combo.\\
\\
Thassa's Oracle was eventually discovered to comprise a 2-card combo with [[https://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=517583 Tainted Pact]] -- you effectively play a singleton deck (including your basic lands!) so that Tainted Pact, in response to Thassa's Oracle's ability, will exile your entire deck and let you win the game on the spot. All this for 2 cards and 4 mana. The combo largely restricted itself to Legacy until Tainted Pact was reprinted in ''Strixhaven'' Mystic Archive and thus made legal in the Historic format (A MTG Arena-exclusive format which permits rotated-out cards to be used). Turns out Historic had enough content to construct a coherent singleton deck, so this combo started to dominate that environment. The combo led to Thassa's Oracle getting banned from Historic, though some players wish for it to be removed from other paper formats.

** [[https://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=509347 Uro, Titan of Nature's Wrath]] left the community flabbergasted about how powerful it is. Not only it's ANOTHER ramp card that offsets the inherent weakness of the playstyle, but it also quickly turns into a massive game-ending threat by iself, while drawing even more cards, gaining even more life and extending even more the land advantage on the battlefield. On top of that, it also has amazing synergies with abilities like Evolve, his low CMC allows plays that aren't possible with other famous finishers, and God have mercy of your soul if you try to use [[https://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=472980 Hushbringer]] as an anti-meta card... because it also stops the sacrifice trigger, turning Uro into a 6/6 for 3 mana that's eager to bury you in card advantage. It's no exaggeration to say that Uro is one of the most overloaded cards in the 27 years of Magic, and as a testament of his power, he saw play in every single format, from Standard to Legacy, before being banned out of Standard on September 28, 2020, with Wizards not ruling out the option of banning him elsewhere. Wizards followed through with that option, as Uro was banned in both Pioneer and Modern on February 15, 2021.

* From ''Core Set 2021'', [[https://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=485502 Elder Gargaroth]] is another infamous example of PowerCreep that Green was subject to. A 3GG 6/6 already blows out the vanilla test, but it comes with three static abilities -- vigilance, trample, and reach -- to make it great on both offense and defense, and when it attacks or blocks, you get a choice of an extra 3/3 body, extra card draw, or extra life, making it great for a lot of situations.

** The modal double-face card [[https://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Valki%2C+God+of+Lies Valki, God of Lies]] and the back side, [[https://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=503725 Tibalt, Cosmic Imposter]]. For two mana, Valki allows you to exile a creature from each opponent's hand until he leaves, allowing you to stop problematic creatures from entering. To add insult to injury, you can pay the CMC of a creature exiled with him to have him permanently become a copy of that creature. On the back, Tibalt gives you an emblem that lets you play cards exiled with him as he enters and lets you spend mana as if it were mana of any color to cast them, allowing you to ignore color restrictions. All three of his abilities exiles cards from different zones to help fuel his emblem, making the exile zone function as an extension of your hand and not being restricted to cards you own.\\
\\
While both Valki and Tibalt are very strong, in Standard, Tibalt is kept in check by costing seven. In Modern, however, players were able to cheat him into play using Cascade. How it works is that you cast a card with Cascade that costs three and reveal cards until you hopefully hit Valki. Since Valki costs two mana and is the front side, you're able to cast him without paying the mana cost, but this also applies to the back side of the card as well since you chose which side to cast. The result: players casting Tibalt ''without paying his mana cost'' as early as turn 2-3 constistently, which caused Wizards to change how Cascade works (it now checks to see if the spell actually does cost less than the spell with cascade).

From mid-2023, the Standard rotation schedule would change, now incorporating sets from the past three years rather than just two. This means that cards that would normally be due to rotate would remain in the format a little longer, and a few very strong cards would be banned to compensate.

The Commander format allows for longer games and more elaborate plays. Its multiplayer format allows for some cards to have even greater impact than the usual 1v1 environment, leading to several cards being very strong specifically here.

* [[http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=87599 Erayo]] flips if the fourth spell of a turn is cast. It takes effort to get there in 1v1, but when more players are put into the equation, especially those who like to play instants, flipping Erayo becomes a lot easier. The reverse side, Erayo's Essence, counters the first spell cast by each opponent each turn, which is very infuriating to work against, especially when this also thwarts attempts at collusion to remove the Essence. Erayo was formerly "banned-as-Commander" before being outright banned like Rofellos above.

* [[http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=425861 Deadeye Navigator]] works out to be an incredibly strong combo enabler, allowing itself or the creature it's soulbonded to to leave and re-enter the battlefield for 2 mana at instant speed. Deadeye's ability to flicker itself lets it dodge a lot of targeted removal, and in the meantime whatever it's bonded with will have been blinked several times for a lot of value from its enter-the-battlefield effect. Due to how Soulbond works with flicker effects, flickering Deadeye lets you change what it bonds with, so you can, for instance, change the flicker combo from [[https://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=446096 generating a lot of mana]] to [[https://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=451049 drawing cards]] to use your mana on.

** There's also [[https://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=571364 Smothering Tithe]] in the taxing category. An experiment from early F.I.R.E. era for powering up white decks, the main problem with Tithe is that it taxes every draw for 2 mana instead of 1. As much as players try to pay it, they eventually run out of mana, and just like Rhystic Study, if it generates too much mana, it can set up major plays. There's also the option of using effects to force your opponent to draw cards, in case you feel particularly evil.
* [[https://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=416787 Expropriate]], one of the most powerful Council's Dilemma cards. You and the opponents vote to give you extra turn(s), or control of a permanent of your choice. This doesn't target, so if anyone votes "money" you're getting something good regardless of how this card is responded to. You're essentially given an extra turn at minimum, and a powerful permanent from each opponent; if anyone gives you more extra turns you're in an even better winning position. Just like Rhystic Study, there's also an unwritten rule to "always vote for money", although this one is a bit more flexible.

* [[https://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=497517 Teferi's Protection]] is a 3-mana white instant that, essentially, causes everything you own to phase out for a turn and provides you with a turn's protection from everything. It is ''the'' best life-saving card in the game as there are very few ways to bypass Teferi's Protection. One of the best ways to use it is in response to a boardwipe, as you will phase back in with your army of permanents ready to take down your opponents who have been ravaged by it.

* [[https://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=466980 Golos, Tireless Pilgrim]] was clearly designed for Commander - and ended up acquiring enough infamy that it ended up banned despite being the most played commander in the format. Its ETB effect of searching any land might sound innocuous, or even just a bit powerful because it can fetch any land, but it means Golos players can always find lands to pay the increasing commander tax and always keep it in play. Once it stays, it's a constant threat due to its effect of playing the top three cards of your deck for free, putting players into MortonsFork situations where they either removed Golos, only for it to return easily and bring more lands, or let it stay on the field and risk losing the game in case his effect flips any powerful card. There are only a few ways to fully stop its threat, such as [[https://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=545704 Darksteel Mutation]] and post-errata [[https://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=489773 Oubliette]], but you still have to deal with the other 99 cards in the deck - which can be ANY cards, since Golos has a WUBRG color identity. Worse, since it has WUBRG pips on its text, but costs five generic mana to cast, Golos could helm decks of ANY combination, even with less colors, at the small cost of not using its activated ability often. This effectively meant that Golos could replace any other commander in the game - and in fact, would be BETTER than a significant amount of them. Before its ban, EDHREC listed over 7600 decks led by Golos in the last two years - to put in perspective, the former most popular commander, [[https://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=489863 Atraxa]], only reached around 6000, and even [[https://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Korvold%2C+Fae-Cursed+King Korvold]] and [[https://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=476052 Kenrith]], which face similar criticism for being too versatile, couldn't reach past 6200.

* Lost Caverns of Ixalan introduced a card that's a must-include in basically any Typal/Kindred deck: [[https://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=639271 Roaming Throne]]. For 4 mana, you get a Golem with ward 2 that becomes another creature type when it enters the battlefield, and whenever a creature of that chosen type has an ability that triggers, it triggers an additional time. Got a triggered ability that generates tokens? Doubles that. Card draw on damage? Doubles that. Death triggers? Doubled. Got an effect that can duplicate this? You're getting that trigger thrice. Wizards has been experimenting with the "triggers an additional time" ability since its introduction in Kaladesh, but Roaming Throne is by far the most versatile of those.

** In Vintage, not only does it bring down the house in tandem with Yawgmoth’s Will, it also allows for the existence of a deck called Manaless Dredge. [[https://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=382861 Bazaar of Baghdad]] combos extremely well with a dredge deck, and if you don't ''need'' to cast any spells, you can do something insane - such as, say, ''run no mana sources'', normally the lifeblood of any deck - and thus run four copies of Bazaar of Baghdad and four copies of [[https://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=438794 Serum Powder]] so that you can ensure that you always get a Bazaar of Baghdad in your opening hand. As the deck runs scads of dredge cards, all you need to do is find one dredge card and you can quickly dump your library into your graveyard. [[https://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=413635 Ichorid]] doesn't cost mana to get into play in this situation, [[https://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=452797 Narcomoeba]] comes into play for free as well, [[https://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=601380 Street Wraith]] lets you dredge cards even faster, [[https://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=601371 Dread Return]] allows you to bring your [[https://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=456763 Golgari Grave-Troll]] into play, and [[https://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=456683 Bridge from Below]] allows you to spew out piles of zombie tokens for free... the net effect is a deck which can win on turn 3 reliably, turn 2 occasionally, and on a god draw kill you on turn 1. Because you’re technically not casting anything, it’s also completely immune to counterspells, too. Needless to say, the deck is very popular, in large part due to costing less to assemble than most Vintage decks, making it a “budget” option for anyone looking to explore the format. While the deck is only dominant in Vintage if unprepared for (and everyone prepares for it because it sucks losing to a deck that dumb), the deck fundamentally circumvents the basic mechanics of Magic, not requiring mana to function. It doesn't help that Vintage decks are not really equipped to deal with hordes of monsters, as creature-rushing isn’t typically a viable strategy in the format - Swords to Plowshares and similar spot removal is not especially useful against the deck and won't save you from being swarmed. Thus many decks run four copies of some graveyard hate spell - like [[https://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=512292 Leyline of the Void]] - in their sideboard and just mulligan until they get it in games 2 and 3.\\
\\
(Relatedly, remember how we mentioned, way at the top of the page, that there is essentially no combo or card that does not benefit from a Black Lotus? This is the first one that doesn't. And yes, it took almost ''20 years'' of new cards to finally achieve one.)

* Storm is a mechanic so busted that Wizards themselves consider it to be the most broken mechanic they've ever designed, and it's not hard to see why. Designed to multiply the effects of a spell based on how many other spells were cast before it, Storm became the output of some very potent combo decks that could cast an absurd number of spells due to various cards giving more mana than they cost (albeit temporarily, but that's what Storm is built for). Countering the Storm spell didn't work, either, as the spell copies itself on cast, forcing the player to either counter the Storm triggered ability or erase the entire stack at once. It's so infamous that it named the "Storm scale", which is the official scale gauging how likely a mechanic would be reprinted -- 1 being "it'll always be around" (e.g. Flying, Trample), and 10 being "never again". Naturally, Storm ranks as a 10 on it, accompanied by excessively weird mechanics like Banding or those which really only work in multiplayer Commander games like Voting.

** [[http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=248046 Mental Misstep]] counters more cards in Legacy and Modern that one can imagine. It also counters ''itself'' and is completely splashable, so when it was legal, there was no reason for one to not run 4 of it, if only to ensure yourself against opposing Mental Missteps.

** [[https://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=479747 Lutri, the Spellchaser]]. Its Companion condition only checks if you have at most one copy of each nonland card, a requirement that practically every Commander or Brawl deck already meets.[[note]]A Commander or Brawl deck can only contain one copy of any card that isn't a basic land. Only [[https://mtg.gamepedia.com/Relentless seven cards]] get around this rule, and all but [[https://scryfall.com/card/ltr/100/nazg%C3%BBl Nazgûl]] are rarely used in Commander.[[/note]] Thus, there's nearly no opportunity cost for including Lutri as your Companion as long as your Commander deck has access to red and blue mana at minimum. Hence Lutri got ''banned from Commander and Brawl before the set even released'', and has stayed banned even after the Companion mechanic got reworked.

** Eventually, Mark Rosewater revealed on his blog how such an overpowered mechanic made it past playtesting: a combination of having to sink a lot of time into tweaking the complicated Mutate mechanic so that it didn't confuse players, and the [[UsefulNotes/COVID19Pandemic COVID-19 pandemic]] hitting right before the set's release and forcing everyone out of the office, meant that work on Companion kept falling to the wayside and eventually was allowed to be released in a semi-unfinished state, to game-breaking results.

The introduction of the Alchemy game mode in Magic: The Gathering Arena allowed for something which is impossible in paper Magic: rebalancing paper cards in a digital format, in addition to rebalancing digital-only cards, allowing Wizards to deal with problem cards without having to ban them, buff struggling and underperforming cards and archetypes, or even nerf a previously banned card and unban it. While there are many examples of nerfed cards, a few stand out:

** Finally, the rest of the "boon" cycle that Ancestral Recall was a part of had balance issues of their own, with the exception of Giant Growth (+3/+3 to one creature until end of turn), which ''did'' manage to be balanced and has been reprinted many times ever since. While Healing Salve (heal or prevent three damage) was pretty weak and was quietly dropped, Dark Ritual is another variant on the theme of Black Lotus, turning one black mana into three - not nearly as broken as either Black Lotus or Ancestral Recall, but still powerful enough that it's been phased out of newer sets. Lightning Bolt, on the other hand, was an early lesson in how mana efficiency ''greatly'' affects a card's power level and the viability of other cards. Simply put, three damage for one mana at Instant speed is ''waaay'' too powerful, especially back when the game was new when the only non-Wall creatures that could survive it all cost at least four mana, putting you at a massive mana and tempo advantage most of the time. While it still sees reprints in Modern/Legacy-oriented sets due to the higher power level in those formats, it has largely been supplanted by Shock and similar cards in Standard, which remain mainstays in Red decks. To give more insight into Bolt's power, [[https://scryfall.com/card/snc/125/strangle Strangle]] is a Sorcery that also can't hit players, and is still considered one of the best Red removal spells in Standard in years.

* The turbo mana instant [[http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=205422 Dark Ritual]] has been around since the beginning and just like there is almost no deck that doesn't benefit from Black Lotus, there is almost no deck that runs black that doesn't benefit from having Dark Ritual in it. It allowed decks to set up stuff far earlier, and multiple copies can be chained off to make more mana, and can then be reused from the graveyard to fuel even more shennigans. It had it's turns being banned or restricted to curb degenerate decks such as Necropotence but despite this, managed to survive up to ''Mercadian Masques '' block before it was finally phased out of Standard reprinting.
** Black in general had a ''ton'' of turbo mana cards that allowed them to power out costly stuff, though often at the cost of requiring other resources like life, sacrificing or discarding. It took til the lead up to 8th edition with Onslaught Block for them to shift turbo mana to Red after Odyssey block gave black far too many ways to easly pump out tons of black mana, including the above mentioned Cabal Coffers.

** In general Wizards found it hard to balance all of these instant mana generation spells. The biggest reason being that they can chain off each other, allowing for early set up of just about anything, and because they are instants they can be recycled from the graveyard. Eventually Wizards just phased out this type of mana generation in favor of effects that generate Treasure tokens, which where much more vulnerable to board state and removal, can come in tapped, and for the most part never gives out more mana then was spent.

** The most hated Prison card, however, was [[https://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=202472 Stasis]], which skipped the untap step in exchange for paying 1 blue mana during your upkeep to keep in play. It was often played with [[https://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=25663 Storm Cauldron]] and [[https://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=202434 Kismet]] to lock down the opponents's field while allowing you to endless return lands back to your hand to replay them. Much like how Wizard's cut down on land destruction, they also cut down on the number of ways to lock down lands for the same reasons.

** [[http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=413783 Maze of Ith]] was esstentally a free blocker for each one you had, being able to negate damage from attacking creatures for each one for just tapping it, giving any sort of deck a powerfull stall tool that often extended games to draws, landing it on the Restricted list.

** [[https://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?printed=true&multiverseid=29896 Cabal Coffers]] was an another attempt to make a balanced high mana land that wasn't broken like the Urza lands were. It required an investment cost and only generated mana equal to the number of swamps you control, something back in Odyssey block was hard to power though. Even in it's inception it helped make Mono-Black Control viable by enable game ending life drains or dumping it into [[https://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=598966 Nantuko Shade]]. It only became more powerful as more sets came out, especially when [[https://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?printed=true&multiverseid=131005 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth]] came out from ''Planer Chaos'' and made ''all lands swamps'', and since Cabal Coffers wasn't legendary you can pump out even more mana then any of the Urza lands ever could.

** [[http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=201236 The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale]] is a horribly nasty card to drop on any "weenie" deck built around cheap creatures, since it adds a constant upkeep that needs to be paid or the creatures die.
** [[https://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?printed=true&multiverseid=29896 Cabal Coffers]] was an another attempt to make a balanced high mana land that wasn't broken like the Urza lands were. It required an investment cost and only generated mana equal to the number of swamps you control, something back in Odyssey block was hard to power though. Even in it's inception it helped make Mono-Black Control viable by enable game ending life drains. It only became more powerful as more sets came out, especially when [[https://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?printed=true&multiverseid=131005 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth]] came out from ''Planer Chaos'' and made ''all lands swamps'', and since Cabal Coffers wasn't legendary you can pump out even more mana then any of the Urza lands ever could.

** [[http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=413783 Maze of Ith]] got a trip to the Restricted list for the same reason.

** This is also banned in Commander. For the reasons stated above.

** Griselbrand finally got some competition when Phyrexia: All Will Be One introduced [[https://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=604292&part=Atraxa%2c+Grand+Unifier Atraxa, Grand Unifier]]. On one side, she doesn't have the same combo potental as Griselbrand because she can only generate card advantage when she enters the battlefield. On the other side, she has many upsides to compensate: her ability doesn't cost any life, she allows you some degree of selection, she digs three cards further, she has deathtouch and vigilance to make her a better stabilizing play when you're behind, she can be blinked to reuse its effect and, finally, the fact she has four colors allows her to be used as a cost for the many spells in Legacy that require you to exile cards from the same color from your hand, most notably Force of Will. Also, she's not banned in Commander.

* One of those ways of dealing with Snapcaster Mage was [[http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=290529 Deathrite Shaman]], which can exile instants and sorceries from any graveyard while damaging your opponents at the same time. And it also gets two other useful graveyard-exiling abilities, one for creatures that heals you life, and one for lands that gives you mana. Oh, and did we mention it also only costs one mana, that can be paid from either of two colors thanks to hybrid mana, and it's also a 1/2 creature? It's effectively a combination of [[http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=221896 Birds of Paradise]] and [[http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Grim%20Lavamancer Grim Lavamancer]] (both of which are themselves considered pretty good cards) with a third ability to boot, and it's tougher to kill than either of those two cards. It has an amazing amount of utility and versatility in what it can do- it can mana-ramp, it can make your fetchlands even more useful by exiling them for mana after they're in the graveyard, it can hate on your opponent's graveyard to prevent them from reusing their cards with flashback or reanimation spells, it can deal damage, it can lifegain, and it's even an above-curve creature in black, being a 1/2 with no drawbacks for 1 mana. It's been referred to as the "first one-mana planeswalker", and many consider it to be the best one-mana creature ever printed. It was a fairly dominating force in every format it existed in, eventually being banned in Modern ''and'' Legacy. In Standard it was considerably weaker thanks to the lack of fetchlands, but it was still a very powerful card.

* [[https://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=523935&part=Solitude The]] [[https://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=523970&part=Subtlety pitch]] [[https://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=524060&part=Endurance elementals]] from Modern Horizons 2. One of the rare cases where a whole cycle of nonland cards is considered broken, those five are creatures that can be cast for no mana through the Evoke mechanic, which sacrifices them immediately. That's already powerful, but Evoke is a mechanic that's ridiculously easy to abuse by either blinking the creature or using an effect that revives it when it dies - you'll get to keep the creature you spent no mana for and will get a second trigger of its effect. The worst offenders are [[https://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=523990&part=Grief Grief]], which can rip two cards from your opponent's hand on the very first turn of the game, and [[https://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=524029&part=Fury Fury]], which can kill nearly every creature played in Modern while being a four-turn clock[[labelnote:*]][[https://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=631168 or even three]] with the right cards[[/labelnote]] on your opponent's life. And again, that's for a single mana. They were part of the Elemental Money Pile deck, which was both as powerful and as expensive as some Legacy decks, before the ban of Yorion (see the Mechanics folder) nerfed it, and when the so-called Scam deck focused on abusing the Evoke loophole took over the meta, many players started severely resenting the pitch elementals, both for their power level and for the massive PowerCreep they introduced in the Modern format. While Fury ended up banned in the December 2023 banlists, some players wanted Grief, or even the whole cycle, to be banned too.
* Limited formats usually don't have many game-breaking cards due to their self-correcting nature. However, there are exceptions, and [[https://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=646519 Pack Rat]] might be the most infamous one. It costs only two mana, it grows, and it has a self-replicating ability that ensures that, if it's not dealt with, it'll stick to the table until someone reaches 0 life. While many powerful cards have existed in the history of Limited formats, none of them reached the level of infamy that the Rats reached - even with Umezawa's Jitte, you at least needed other creatures to equip. Meanwhile, there are stories of people winning games with decks composed of a copy of Pack Rat and 39 basic swamps, and when Wizards reprinted it in Ravnica Remastered, they effectively created a unique rarity scarcer than Mythic to shove Pack Rat in, just to make sure as few Limited games as possible are ruined by its presence.
* And speaking of cards that are infamous in Limited, [[https://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=144161 Sprout Swarm]] from Future Sight. A card with both convoke and buyback that creates a single 1/1 token doesn't sound like much at first. But then your opponent casts it for the second time. And the third time. And the fourth. And the fifth. And... you get the idea. Sprout Swarm ensures that the player will NEVER run out of creatures, and it doesn't even matter that they're 1/1. But the worst part is that, unlike Umezawa's Jitte and Pack Rat, Sprout Swarm was a '''common'''. That meant that not only you would face it in every game where your opponent had the color green (and thanks to Convoke, sometimes maybe even in games where they don't), but that it was possible to players to have multiple copies of them, making it easy to find among their deck and effectively sealing the game. When Wizards created the Time Spiral Remastered set, they tried to include this card as a reprint, but it was eventually cut because it caused so many problems for Limited formats that they considered upshifting it to '''mythic rare''' before deeming it more trouble than it's worth.

* [[https://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=574587 Sheoldred, the Apocalypse]] is an influential Mythic in multiple formats ever since her introduction. A 4-mana 4/5 with deathtouch is already a good threat that's hard to answer, but she gains you life when you draw cards and causes the opponent to lose life when they draw cards. The incremental life gain helps you stabilize against aggressive opponents, while the life loss pressures the opponent as they try to draw into answers. It's also worth noting that black has the ability to draw cards or force other players to draw ''en masse'', usually at the cost of life, a problem which this card entirely eliminates--[[https://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=518023 Sign in Blood]] suddenly becomes either "Target player draws two cards and gains two life" or "target player draws two cards and loses six life", and [[https://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=487253 Peer into the Abyss]] becomes a 'you lose' card. You basically have to answer Sheoldred on the spot or risk her creating a shift in advantage that can put you on the back foot. Sheoldred is a big reason why Black became a very strong color in Standard, and there have been a couple of bans to other Black cards in Standard to keep it in check. To cap it off, it's also extremely expensive - the set where it was originally printed, Dominaria United, was notably low-powered and had only two other chase cards[[labelnote:*]]Liliana of the Veil, which was a reprint, and Leyline Binding, a powerful card, but that requires very specific mana base construction[[/labelnote]]. That made the whole monetary value of the set concentrate on Sheoldred, shooting her price up to ''$100 a copy''.

* Lost Caverns of Ixalan introduced a card that's a must-include in basically any Typal/Kindred deck: [[https://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=638906 Roaming Throne]]. For 4 mana, you get a Golem with ward 2 that becomes another creature type when it enters the battlefield, and whenever a creature of that chosen type has an ability that triggers, it triggers an additional time. Got a triggered ability that generates tokens? Doubles that. Card draw on damage? Doubles that. Death triggers? Doubled. Got an effect that can duplicate this? You're getting that trigger thrice. Wizards has been experimenting with the "triggers an additional time" ability since its introduction in Kaladesh, but Roaming Throne is by far the most versatile of those.

* The original [[https://mtg.gamepedia.com/Partner partner]] mechanic was widely considered a mistake among commander players. This mechanic allowed access to two commanders as long as they both had the partner ability. While it generated a lot of variety, giving players access to four-color decks, the ability to have two separate commanders saw a lot of play. The two most notable were [[https://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?&multiverseid=420663 Thrasios, Triton Hero]] and [[https://gatherer.wizards.com/pages/card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=420665 Tymna, the Weaver]], who are widely considered to be two of the best due to their already strong abilities. The mechanic would return in Battlebond in the form of "partner with", limiting certain commanders to one specific partner. Partner returns in Commander Legends, but thus far all of the commanders revealed with the mechanic are mono-colored, limiting players' options.

** Speaking of Legacy combos, [[https://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=481554 Gyruda, Doom of Depths]] also had one before the errata. In his case, the idea was to create a deck full of cloning effects, cast Gyruda on turn 1 and chain multiples of his ETB effect until a haste-enabler or another win condition was found. While it might sound irrealistic to cast a six-mana creature in turn 1, just remember that Lion's Eye Diamond exists, and discarding your whole hand is moot when the card you need to play is outside the game.
** [[https://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=611824 Yorion, Sky Nomad]]'s restriction of playing with more cards than usual is notably light. Yes, it does mean losing consistency, but every format has cards that help with that, many of which are ETB effects that Yorion can help re-trigger, and if you're feeling particularly aventurous, you can run it with the otherwise AwesomeButImpractical [[https://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=331455 Battle of Wits]]. On Modern, particularly, it caused problems due to buffing the infamous Elemental Money Pile deck, a deck that ran Risen Reef, four-color Omnath and four of the pitch elementals as the abusable ETB effects of choice, all of which have been mentioned on this page already for being game-breakers themselves. When Yorion was banned from Modern, Wizards mentioned both its power and the annoyance with the dexterity issues caused by an 80-card deck as reasons.

* The [[https://mtg.fandom.com/wiki/Cascade?so=search Cascade]] mechanic from Alara Reborn and its spiritual sucessor, [[https://mtg.fandom.com/wiki/Discover Discover]] from the Lost Caverns of Ixalan. Cascade was created to be a fun mechanic that encourages variation in games: when you cast a spell, you'll get a free spell from your deck with smaller cost. While a fan-favorite in casual games, it's notably problematic in competitive settings due to its MinMaxing potential - if you build your deck in a specific way, you can always hit the same spell while cascading, something that's not only against the original idea of the mechanic, but also extremely abusable with the [[https://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=511220&part=Living+End costless]] [[https://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=511135&part=Restore+Balance Suspend]] [[https://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=511309&part=Hypergenesis spells]], whose intended downside was that they're not easily castable. In practice, cascade was almost never used as it was originally intended, and ironically, the one card that did it, [[https://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=569126 Bloodbraid Elf]], spent a good time banned in Modern, because it still helps players cast more cards than they should. Even worse is Discover, a rework of the mechanic that makes it more versatile, but doesn't fix any of the original's blatant loopholes. As a result, [[https://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=636491 Geological Appraiser]], a completely innocuous uncommon card, had to be banned in Pioneer two weeks after its release due to combo potential.

** It's Red counterpart [[https://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=383151 Wheel of Fortune]] only discarded each player's hands before drawing seven, but was still very powerful for the same reasons, if not more so. It gave Red Aggro decks an easy way to refill their hands while screwing over any others, and of course was an easy way to fill your graveyard. It was also banned in Legacy and Restricted in Vintage. Unlike with Timetwister, Wizards had much more success in making the Wheel's ability more balanced and reoccurring with other cards when it's limited only to the user's hand and for fewer cards or hand replacement.

* Also banned from Standard in January 2017: [[http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=417808 Smuggler's Copter]]. It's cheap, completely generic flyer with a solid 3/3 body, has the low cost of Crew 1 meaning anything stronger than a Wall can man it, is largely immune to sorcery-speed creature removal, and offers a loot when it goes into combat, allowing for any deck to easily filter through their draws. There was ''no'' incentive to not run it, thus reducing the diversity of decks in Standard. Simply waiting for it to rotate will do no good with the new rotation schedule, so Wizards decided to simply ban it. The flexibility and power of Smuggler's Copter also proved it to be too strong for Pioneer, and it was banned from that format in December 2019.

* [[https://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?printed=true&multiverseid=1491 Mana Drain.]] Essentially a copy of Counterspell, already regarded as one of the best counter cards ever made (to the point of being phased out in favor of [[https://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?printed=true&multiverseid=189918 Cancel]]), Mana Drain ups the ante by also providing a boost to mana equal to the CMC of whatever it just countered at the start of your next turn. To repeat: an effect that was already somewhat cheap is now actively paying you to use it. The sole potential downside of mana burn was nullified by the removal of the mechanic in 2010, and even when it did exist, a user needed little incentive to spend their new windfall. It should perhaps be needless to say that it's banned in Legacy (though it goes unrestricted in Vintage), and Mark Rosewater famously declared of the card that it wouldn't see a reprint "until all of R&D got hit by a bus." That said, it has been reprinted no less than three times in recent years.

** Before Ravager Affinity ruled the roost of the Mirrodin Constructed era, [[http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=46556 Broodstar]] 'Big Blue' Affinity gave players a taste of speed and power in a single package. This signature Big Blue can Fly over enemy defenses, and in addition to having its casting cost reduced by your artifacts, it also has an effective power/toughness equal to those artifacts, so you could potentially make it ''grow'' stupendously large. It is entirely possible to leverage Affinity For Artifacts to summon Broodstar for UU and get it at least at 8/8. Another powerful blue spell that synergized amazingly with all Affinity decks is [[http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=46085 Thoughtcast]], which, with enough artifacts in play, could essentially become two-thirds of Ancestral Recall. Yes. Broodstar remains a favourite option for Blue-heavy artifact decks as a big, intimidating flier that can be summoned inexpensively. Another card that works well with the Broodstar, as well as any escorting creatures that come with it, is the [[http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=46021 Lightning Greaves]], as Haste and Shroud are powerful keyworded abilities that make it that much harder to intefere with attackers popping straight out of your hand and into the battle lines.
** [[http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=46060 Furnace Dragon]] quickly became a staple of Mono Red Control during Mirrodin Block. A big red dragon with Affinity for Artifacts in a metal-heavy format means that you could easily summon it for the low, low price of RRR, and the "drawback" that it ''exiles all artifacts'' if summoned the normal way can be reintepreted as a ''non-targeting, reanimation-proofed Shatterstorm'' effect. Since it ''exiles'' rather than destroys, it can bypass the Indestructible attribute introduced in Darksteel ''and'' safely get rid of artifacts without tripping the Disciple of the Vault's scary life-loss ability. Red-heavy variants of Affinity would end up sideboarding this dragon for use in certain Mirror Matches in Constructed during the season, and even some Tooth and Nail variants could sideboard it and scrounge up the required red mana to summon it manually after using the Tooth and Nail's signature effect to tutor the Dragon into hand. Outside of Mirrodin Block and the Type 2 Season of that era, this dragon is a powerful answer to many artifact-heavy opponents.
** Mirrodin also gave Vintage players the extremely nasty [[http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=43545 Trinisphere]], which could ''selectively'' slow down the lightning-fast plays Vintage is famous for, as it reflects the classical Artifact attribute of allowing its controller to disable its ability selectively by tapping or untapping it, possible with Twiddle, Jolt, an Icy Manipulator, or something that could use the tapping of artifacts as an activation cost for its ability. [[https://mtg.fandom.com/wiki/Vintage_Stax_deck Some notable Legacy and Vintage Prison-style decks]] are specifically designed to use Trinisphere to help cripple combo decks and slow down everyone else.
** [[http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=370411 Chalice of the Void]] and [[http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=370549 Engineered Explosives]] also see a fair amount of use in Legacy and Vintage as well, due to their flexible and powerful abilities which allow them to selectively hard-counter cards of a selectable Converted Mana Cost - where the Chalice actively counters them and prevents them from being cast, the Explosives will destroy any such cards that already in play and can also target token creatures if the X-value is set to 0, and yes, both of them are capable of stopping Moxen and Lotuses from being utilized effectively by opponents. As of late September 2015, the Chalice is restricted in Vintage: Casting it for 0 mana prevents the opponent from playing moxen or Black Lotus, which can put him or her too far behind to catch up.
** Seemingly trying to cement Mirrodin as the next Urza / Rath block in power terms, there was also fast mana in the form of [[http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=47446 Chrome Mox]], which had a visit to the restricted list in Vintage in 2004 and is currently banned in Modern.
** [[http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=48197 Skullclamp]]. What's the problem that ZergRush decks often face? They run out of cards, and if that's not enough to kill their opponent they lose momentum. So they printed an extremely cheap equipment that lets you strengthen or kill your creatures and ''draw two cards'' every time it happens.[[http://www.wizards.com/Magic/Magazine/Article.aspx?x=mtgcom/daily/af17 This article]] explains that it was banned because it was sucking the entire format into a Skullclamp "black hole." The 'Clamp is currently banned in Block Constructed, Modern, ''and'' Legacy, which is a testament to its true might.
** [[http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=212630 Æther Vial]] also saw a trip to the banlist; since it puts cards directly into play without requiring them to be cast, they can't be countered. Free, uncounterable creatures ''at Instant speed'' every turn proved irresistible to a great many decks. The Vial could even be used with [[http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=49047 Power Conduit]] to manipulate its charge counter stockpile on the quick. This artifact is banned in Mirrodin Block Constructed and was historically banned in the now-depreciated Extended constructed format due to its extreme low cost for power, and subsequent reprints saw this card KickedUpstairs by being promoted from its original Uncommon rarity to Rare and Mythic Rare due to its ability.
*** Apart from giving you the ability to flash creatures into play on demand, the Vial also has incredible synergy with spells and abilities such as Unsummon effects and Comes-Into-Play abilities. Need a counterspell that's in the grave? Bounce your own Eternal Witness back into hand and flash her back out with the Vial to get another use of her Regrowth ability and retrieve that counterspell! One Mirrodin Block Constructed deck that utilized the [[http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=51628 Witness]]-[[http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=46035 Shard]] combination was later made more ridiculously effective when another player added the Vial to that deck to maximize its ability to abuse the multiple reusable spells and abilities that they could grant themselves. On the black side of things, a variant of that same Crystal Shard deck utilized [[http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Discussion.aspx?multiverseid=46096 Chittering Rats]] and [[http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=45286 Ravenous Rats]] instead, and combining the soft draw-denial ability of the Rats with the reusable unsummoning power of the Shard and then boosting the effects with the mana-free instant-speed Vial power made it possible to deny multiple card draws to an opponent ''and'' strip their hand of cards with reusable discard, effectively granting you a soft-lock victory where your rats slowly ate them alive while they were rendered unable to keep enough usable cards in hand. On top of all this, the Vial's paltry mana cost of (1) means that you can easily use the [[http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=50163 Trinket Mage]] to tutor it to hand if you somehow kept an opening hand without it.
*** And in Modern, Aether Vial is commonly abused with Merfolk. The deck runs a ''lot'' of 2-mana Merfolk, with several of them granting +1/+1 to other Merfolk you control, so it's not uncommon to see the deck flash in a nigh-unstoppable army that constantly buffs each other while dodging counterspells.
** [[http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=206329 Platinum Angel]] can be broken in casual play: you ''cannot lose'', and the opponent cannot ''win''. It can be incredible for stopping low-end versions of certain kinds of combo decks short, particularly when combined with something like [[http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=48582 Shield of Kaldra]] or [[http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=46021 Lightning Greaves]] to stop your opponent destroying it. However, since any high-level deck will run a ''ton'' of fast Artifact hate and fast anti-creature spells like [[http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=420695 Swords to Plowshares]] or [[http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=240001 Thunderbolt]] that will kill it as soon as it hits the field, and likely have cards to force a player to sacrifice it even if its controller ''can'' give it Hexproof, Indestructible and / or Shroud (none of which prevent a card being sacrificed by the player controlling it), and Platinum Angel has a very high mana cost, it is not even regarded as even ''good'' at tournament level.
** [[http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=292752 Isochron Scepter]] becomes a relentless terror that forces opponents to see your effective 2-mana Instants every turn. Fogs every turn! 1 guaranteed Counterspell every turn! Fire/Ice every turn! [[http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Flash Flash]] every turn! [[http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Mana%20Drain Mana Drain!]] [[http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Silence Silence!]] The potentials of this Imprinting artifact are limited only by format, strategy, and your wallet/imagination. A prison deck variant running the Scepter and [[http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=26852 Orim's Chant (Instant - W - Target Player can't play spells this turn. Kicker W - If kicked, creatures cannot attack this turn)]] was able to claw out a foothold for itself in the metagame, as 2W every turn to "Time Stop" your opponent could spell the end of them if they didn't have any way to stop you from doing that repeatedly.
*** [[http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=417617 Dramatic Reversal]] untaps all nonland permanents you control. It's also a cheap instant that can be imprinted on Isochron Scepter. With a nonland mana generator, like [[http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=438796 Thran Dynamo]] for instance, you can get infinite mana and infinite cast triggers easily.
** [[http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=51633 Krark-clan Ironworks]] was [[PurposelyOverpowered deliberately designed]] by R&D to be a combo engine enabler. Paired with little creatures like the [[http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=46112 Myr Moonvessel]] and the [[http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=370520 Myr Retriever]], some very degenerate combos can quickly be enabled. Used in conjunction with the aforementioned Artifact Lands, you can quickly build up enough mana to retrieve a finisher like the [[http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=49771 Goblin Charbelcher]], which combos ''very'' nicely with the [[http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=47450 Myr Incubator]] that can help you purge the artifact lands from your library and give you more Myr Token creatures to feed to the Ironworks for more mana. For a time, Charbelcher actually became a completely disgustingly powerful combo deck archtype in ''Vintage'' (where you could run even ''fewer'' lands thanks to the 5 Moxen and the Black Lotus and the Lotus Petal), only held in check by spells like Force of Will and artifacts like the [[http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=4437 Null Rod]]. [[http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=50179 Myr Servitors]] also quickly become easy reusable fuel for the Ironworks in longer games.
*** Ironworks plus two Myr Retrievers, one in play and one in the graveyard, allows you to sacrifice one Retriever for 2 mana while getting the other Retriever back from the Graveyard, use the mana to play it, sacrifice that Retriever for mana to get the first Retriever again, play it, repeat ad infinitum. It equals an easy Storm counter buildup, and can cause other cards to trigger when the artifacts go to the graveyard or enter play. As an example of the former, toss in the aforementioned Disciple of the Vault to give your opponent a swift death. As an example of the latter, toss in [[http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=46160 Genesis Chamber]] to give yourself infinite 1/1 Myr Tokens, which you can use to generate infinite mana, or give your Arcbound Ravager infinite Counters, or mill your opponent to death with [[http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=51229 Grinding Station]], a combo that later received a ShoutOut on an Un-Set card [[http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=74271]].
*** After printing of [[http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=423842 Scrap Trawler]] in ''Aether Revolt'', players found out that combining it with Myr Retrievers, KCI and [[http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=135279 Chromatic Star]] (or other cheap artifact that draws a card upon being destroyed) gives the player access to [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8olqGdtZuvg variety of infinite loops]], allowing the player to draw his entire deck, make infinite mana and ultimately kill the opponent with endlessly returning [[http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=442796 Pyrite Spellbomb]]. The resulting decks, while very difficult to play, ended up dominating Modern tournaments throughout 2018 - combined with deck being simply annoying to play against, Wizards decided to bite the bullet and ban Ironworks from Modern.
*** The Krark-clan Ironworks deck is also infamous for the difficulty of interactions that it requires. Magic doesn't allow players to respond to (most) activated abilites that generate mana, due to the potential unfun scenarios that could happen if players could counter mana generation. The KCI Combo deck was filled with artifacts that could sacrifice themselves to generate mana and draw a card, and through rules abuse, players could sacrifice their artifacts on odd windows of time and generate interactions that even the most experienced MTG players aren't accostumed to. Since some of those interactions were crucial to some of the possible kill combos and to dodge removal, the KCI combo deck raised the bar of complexity in the Modern format way past what Wizards would find acceptable.
** Speaking of the Myr Retrievers, having at least 2 available and [[http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=244678 Heartless Summoning]] from Innistrad makes for a really cheesy potentially infinite Storm count. Your Retrievers are now 0/0 and instantly drop into the graveyard after summons, but that's okay, they can Retrieve each other and now have an effective summoning cost of (0).
** [[http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=48573 Retract]] quickly got broken in as a powerful Storm counter enabler, being used in conjunction with large numbers of low-cost artifacts to let you cast and then recast multiple spells rapidly for one measly blue mana; it also limits the ability for multiple artifact lands to linger on the battlefield, and easily feeds spells and abilities that could exploit multiple artifacts entering or leaving play. In particular, formats like Legacy and Vintage make this spell into a powerful beast, as it could "untap" all of your Moxen at once (by unsummoning all your tapped moxen and letting you resummon them untapped)!
*** One potential combo setup involves Retract, Glimpse of Nature, and a steady supply of (0) artifact creatures, like the Phyrexian Walker, Ornithopter, and Memnite. Get UG mana, preferably from an artifact source you can re-summon, cast Glimpse, summon your free artifact creatures and draw cards. Now use the blue mana and cast Retract, pulling the artifacts back to hand, and do it again, getting more cards. Hypothetically you could find the space to float mana to cast Laboratory Maniac ''and'' draw your entire library out, winning on an empty deck. You could also use the repeated castings of free artifact creatures to build a tremendous Storm count, or get enough mana out of your library to drop the Krark-clan Ironworks and generate even more mana for a killing blow with, say, Fireball.
** [[http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=212631 Sundering Titan]] was a major force in [[http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=370432 Tooth and Nail]] decks, and is absolutely devastating where multiple basic land types are in play, especially in multiplayer matches. The Titan was also a beast in conjunction with spells and abilities that allow it to enter and leave play repeatedly, like [[http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=41148 Astral Slide]], Goblin Welder, Trash For Treasure, reanimation spells, Tinker, or [[http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=266078 Venser, the Sojourner]], and using [[http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=370534 Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker]] to create temporary token clones of it was just as devastating. To trample your opponents in the dirt further, his ability is worded such that the Titan allows you to destroy one of ''each'' basic land type when it enters ''or'' leaves play, so once the summons resolves your opponent is only going to hurt more trying to kill it, and even moreso if they share basic land types with you as you can hit ''their'' lands instead of yours. Furthermore, this ability ''does not target'' lands so it ignores Hexproof and Shroud. Currently the Titan is banned in official Prismatic and Commander formats due to its controllable massive land destruction effect.
** Speaking of [[http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=370432 Tooth and Nail]], it was the other premier deck archtype of the Mirrodin era, as the power it yields when cast with Entwine makes it disproportionately devastating and appropriate for a hefty 7GG. In its native Green, Tooth players could either dig up powerful, game-ending threats like [[http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=191312 Darksteel Colossus]], the aforementioned Sundering Titan plus Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker, or other flexible creature combinations that feature premier creatures like [[http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=370427 Eternal Witness]], [[http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=46702 Triskelion]] and a [[http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=50211 Mephidross Vampire]] whose ability allows Triskelion to regenerate its [=+1/+1=] counters as it machine-guns your opponent's creatures, the aforementioned Platinum Angel plus a [[http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=46550 Leonin Abunas]] who gives your artifacts (including the Angel herself/itself) Hexproof, or just about anything a sufficiently creative player could pair up for the Tooth to pull straight into battle from your library. As a matter of fact three entire mana engine variants of Tooth decks prevailed, some leveraging Urza's Lands alongside [[http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=130513 Sylvan Scrying]] and [[http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=43503 Reap and Sow]], some using Cloudposts, and others using Green's natural mana acceleration and [[http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=45454 Vernal Bloom]] to pump vast amounts of green mana out for the big spell. To give you an idea of how powerful Tooth and Nail is, it was the ''only'' other non-Affinity deck archtype type to flourish in Mirrodin Block/Standard until the artifact lands and Disciple were banned in that season.
** Due to the huge number of artifacts in Mirrodin block, [[http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=370525 Thirst for Knowledge]] could reliably draw a net of two cards. in older formats like Legacy and Vintage, its "drawback" of either discarding two cards (or discarding one Artifact card instead) after drawing three makes it extremely effective for canny players to feed their graveyards for Welder, Tinker or reanimation trickery, and the drawback is essentially non-existent if you're running Yawgmoth's Will.
* [[http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=46724 Mindslaver]] is a hilariously degenerate card which effectively allows you to break the game for your opponent, while also denying them a turn. While it's another case like Platinum Angel where the card isn't even particularly ''good'' in high-level play, in casual games the text might as well have been "destroy target friendship."

** The poster card for the new Simic abilities was [[https://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=482844 Growth Spiral]], a seemly-innocuous common that works as a slightly better [[https://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=470710 Explore]]. However, the fact that Growth Spiral is an instant allows players to keep mana open for counters and interaction while ramping. At worst, it reads "Pay 2 Mana: draw a card," which makes it better than most ramp spells, which in late game can be interpreted as reading, "Pay (some) Mana: do absolutely nothing that will help you right now." All of that might have been a minor factor if it wasn't for...

** [[https://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=460928 Karn, the Great Creator]] caused headaches in Vintage and Modern. On Vintage, it disables all of the Moxen and Lotuses that are the core of the format, which led to a quick restriction. However, it was on Modern that he sparked the biggest controversy: combining Karn with [[https://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=50527 Mycosynth Lattice]] stops the opponent from being able to tap their lands for anything, ''including mana''. While it seems like the combo would be slow due to costing 10 mana, Karn can tutor Lattice from the sideboard with his -2 ability, and even if you don't have enough mana to cast a Lattice, you can tutor [[https://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=212709 Liquimetal Coating]] instead and use it on your opponent's lands, which then become targetable by Karn's +1 ability to become 0/0 creatures that immediately die - effectively Strip Mining your opponent once per turn. Ultimately, Lattice ended up paying for Karn's sins and got banned on Modern.

** [[https://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=476412 Underworld Breach]] zig-zags in power between formats. Standard? Good card, but not enough things to do with such a powerful recursion effect. Pioneer? [[https://articles.starcitygames.com/premium/lotus-breach-a-pioneer-primer/ Easy combo enabler]], to the point the card had to be banned. Modern? The combo is also possible there, but it competes with a field in a way higher power level, so it doesn't seem too problematic. Legacy? Add [[https://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=47599 Brain Freeze]] and Lion's Eye Diamond to get Breach banned from another format. And of course, being reminescent of Yawgmoth's Will doesn't help at all. In Commander? Arguably even ''more'' powerful than Yawgmoth's Will due to not having the caveat of exiling anything that goes to your graveyard. The aforementioned Brain Freeze and Lion's Eye Diamond combo is both possible and legal in Commander, along with an even easier combo with [[https://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=489956 Pyrite Spellbomb]]. Breach + Lion's Eye also enables any number of evil things you'd love to do with your graveyard. Breach very quickly became one of the poster children for degenerate combo in Commander.

** Certain Landfall cards by themselves are very broken if they're in your starting hand, especially if they're used as mutation food for certain creatures from Ikoria:
*** [[https://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=491705 Ruin Crab]] is a 1-mana Blue card that's very easy to bring out. If it's in the starting hand, its Landfall ability can very easily mill your opponent's deck into oblivion, particularly if it's in a mill-heavy deck.
*** Being a 3-mana Green card, [[https://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=495205 Scute Swarm]] is not as bad as Ruin Crab above, but it's still a very broken card by virtue of the fact that as soon as you have six lands, you will start having a swarm of them the very second you start adding more lands.

* [[https://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=574587 Sheoldred, the Apocalypse]] is an influential Mythic in Standard ever since her introduction to the format. A 4 mana 4/5 with deathtouch is already a good threat that's hard to answer, but she gains you life when you draw cards and causes the opponent to lose life when they draw cards. The incremental life gain helps you stabilize against aggressive opponents, while the life loss pressures the opponent as they try to draw into answers. You basically had to answer Sheoldred on the spot or risk her creating a shift in advantage that can put you on the back foot. Sheoldred is a big reason why Black became a very strong color in Standard, and there have been a couple of bans to other Black cards in Standard to keep it in check.

* There are several cards that force all players' life totals to a set amount, cutting games dramatically short and potentially ending in anticlimactic defeats for most, if not everyone involved. Such cards include [[http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=83531 Biorhythm]] and [[http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=74034 Sway of the Stars]]. All[[note]]Except Worldfire, which sets ''everyone'' to one life[[/note]] are banned to prevent "sudden death" games.

* [[https://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=416787 Expropriate]], one of the most powerful Council's Dilemma cards. You and the opponents vote to give you extra turn(s), or control of a permanent of your choice. This doesn't target, so if anyone votes "money" you're getting something good regardless of how this card is responded to. You're essentially given an extra turn at minimum, and a powerful permanent from each opponent; if anyone gives you more extra turns you're in an even better winning position.

** There are two things that make Hullbreacher particularly egregious. The first was that, being printed in a Commander-focused set, it was all but seen as a quick cash grab for Wizards. The other was that it was a nearly 100% better upgrade to [[https://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=571364 Smothering Tithe]], which's an extremely powerful card, but kept in check due to costing four mana, not actually stopping draws, and mainly, being white, historically the weakest color in the format. Seeing such a powerful effect being given to a blue card made many white players feel like Wizards were [[YankTheDogsChain yanking their chain]].

* [[https://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=571440 Dockside Extortionist]], a card that allows you to create Treasure tokens equal to the number of artifacts and enchantments your opponents control. In a 1v1 game, this is less impactful unless one player has an artifact or enchantment-themed deck. In Commander, there are three opponents for the card to interact with and using mana artifacts to ramp is extremely common. Almost every deck that runs red mana runs this card for the sheer value it generates for only two mana; players can easily double or triple their mana off of a single Dockside Extortionist. Even better, red is a colour typically balanced around needing little mana; giving them access to loads of it usually guarantees ''someone'' is in for a world of hurt.
* [[https://scryfall.com/card/dmu/107/sheoldred-the-apocalypse Sheoldred, the Apocalypse]] has a deceptively powerful ability-- you gain two life whenever you draw a card, and your opponents lose two life whenever they draw a card. Black has the ability to draw cards or force other players to draw ''en masse'', usually at the cost of life, a problem which this card entirely eliminates--[[https://scryfall.com/card/cm2/77/sign-in-blood Sign in Blood]] suddenly becomes either "Target player draws two cards and gains two life" or "target player draws two cards and loses six life", and [[https://scryfall.com/card/m21/117/peer-into-the-abyss Peer into the Abyss]] becomes a 'You Lose' card. Combined with cards like [[https://scryfall.com/card/c16/257/howling-mine Howling Mine]], [[https://scryfall.com/card/con/136/font-of-mythos Font of Mythos]] and [[https://scryfall.com/card/9ed/312/teferis-puzzle-box Teferi's Puzzle Box]], a deck with Sheoldred at the helm can make players lose over a quarter of their starting life ''at their draw step''.
* Lost Caverns of Ixalan introduced a card that's a must-include in basically any Typal/Kindred deck: [[https://scryfall.com/card/lci/258/roaming-throne Roaming Throne]]. For 4 mana, you get a golem with Ward 2 that becomes another creature type when it enters the battlefield, and whenever a creature of that chosen type has an ability that triggers, it triggers an additional time. Got a triggered ability that generates tokens? Doubles that. Card draw on damage? Doubles that. Death triggers? Doubled. Got an effect that can duplicate this? You're getting that trigger thrice.

** Phyrexian mana presents an unique problem related to reprints, most notable with Surgical Extraction. Due to its unique style and flavor, it can't be reprinted aside of sets with Phyrexians or in supplemental sets. Most people would expect those reprints in a Masters set, but since Wizards stopped them at Ultimate Masters, there's not a good expectation for the next reprint of powerful Phyrexian mana cards. This has caused Surgical Extraction to shoot up in price, up to $40 a single copy.

* [[https://scryfall.com/card/vow/248/skull-skaab?utm_source=mw_MTGWiki Skull Skaab]] is an interesting inversion: its ability creates a decayed Zombie token, but only if you Exploit (sacrifice a creature when you play another creature with the Exploit keyword to trigger an enters-the-battlefield ability) a non-token creature, making it somewhat underwhelming in Constructed formats. However, it would have been very broken in Draft and other Limited formats where, if the ability allowed you to exploit tokens, it would have been extremely hard to deal with using a limited card pool, whereas most well-made Constructed decks can deal with people chaining Exploit effects over and over. Thus, in Alchemy, you can now exploit Skull Skaab’s Zombie tokens and instantly replace them, making the abilities have almost no cost, since the change doesn’t affect Limited.

** Another classic unbalanced land is [[http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=202433 Strip Mine]], which is restricted in Vintage and banned almost everywhere else. Land destruction should be a little harder to come by than having a mana-producing non-Legendary Land on the table.

* And, since it's been mentioned, [[http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=201311 Mind Twist]] itself. An obscenely undercosted discard spell, it was so loathed that it won a player poll of cards to be excluded from ''Fifth Edition'' by a substantial margin. It proved particularly unpleasant when pulled out early in the game using Dark Rituals and combined with one or more copies of [[http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=109725 The Rack]]. It was the third card to be banned outright in all tournaments for being overpowered (Time Vault and Channel being the first two), and the first to be banned entirely for what it could do by itself, rather than any combos including the card. Nowadays it is unrestricted in Vintage and is banned in Legacy. It occupies a rather strange place in terms of power level - in Vintage, there are better things to do with Dark Ritual than getting rid of three cards from your opponent's hand, but in legacy, an early game mind twist off of fast mana can completely ruin many decks. Hymn to Tourach is a slightly less unfair version - while it is still deeply unfair at two mana and can easily mana screw an opponent by making them discard two mana sources, it is not nearly as devastating in conjunction with fast mana, and can't wipe out their entire hand out of nowhere later on.

** [[http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=201236 The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale]] is a horribly nasty card to drop on any "weenie" deck built around cheap creatures.

* [[http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=184751 Dual]] [[http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=184752 lands]], [[http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=184748 which]] [[http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=184750 have]] [[http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=184749 almost]] [[http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=201402 no]] [[http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=201406 disadvantage]] [[http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=201405 save]] [[http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=201400 for]] [[http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=201403 landwalk]] (indeed, since Landwalk isn't exactly a game-winner, their dual type is just as likely to work out as a ''benefit'', for example the ones that count as Islands are all affected by [[http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=159177 High Tide]] even if they're used to produce their non-blue mana type). Wow, color doesn't exist anymore. Thankfully, more modern lands that can produce more than one type of mana have some drawback on them to balance them out (for most of them, they come into play tapped; if they're above Common, you can generally get them into play untapped if you meet certain conditions, such as having another type of basic land under your control or paying 2 life).
* Another classic unbalanced land is [[http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=202433 Strip Mine]], which is restricted in Vintage and banned almost everywhere else. Land destruction should be a little harder to come by than having a mana-producing non-Legendary Land on the table.
* Of course if your lands can't destroy other lands, they can just lock them down. Enter [[https://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Discussion.aspx?multiverseid=19767 Rishadan Port]], which can tap other lands and all the sudden your opponents can't use their multicolored mana lands to cast spells and because it's a land it can also be untapped to tap more lands. It got to the point where ''every deck'' had four copies of the port if only to prevent other ports from locking down lands.
* And on the theme of unbalanced Lands, [[http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=201236 The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale]] is a horribly nasty card to drop on any "weenie" deck built around cheap creatures.
* Continuing on with powerful lands we have [[https://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?printed=true&multiverseid=29896 Cabal Coffers]], which was another attempt to make a balanced high mana land that wasn't broken like the Urza lands were. It required an investment cost and only generated mana equal to the number of swamps you control, something back in Odyssey block was hard to power though. Even in it's inception it helped make Mono-Black Control viable by enable game ending life drains. It only became more powerful as more sets came out, especially when [[https://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?printed=true&multiverseid=131005 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth]] came out from ''Planer Chaos'' and made ''all lands swamps'', and since Cabal Coffers wasn't legendary you can pump out even more mana then any of the Urza lands ever could.
* Also from ''Odyssey'' comes [[https://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?printed=true&multiverseid=30013 Deserted Temple]], because what's more powerful than a land untapper then a land untapper ''that's also a land that can also be untapped by other land untappers''?
* And of course, one can't talk about unbalanced Lands without bringing up one of the most powerful methods of ''unbalancing'' Lands, the almighty [[http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=1624 Land Tax]]. Sometimes referred to as White's [[http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=382841 Ancestral Recall]]. An ''endless'' Tutor card for just 1 mana, it enables all kinds of weird multicolour decks, allowing any player with a way to get rid of Lands to draw four cards per turn instead of one (since the normal draw is not skipped), thin out their deck of Lands to get to their spells, and pull off all kinds of shenanigans with cards like [[http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=4628 Scroll Rack]] (the combo that got Land Tax banned: since Land Tax shuffles the deck, putting the lands on top after using Scroll Rack does not require you to see them again as it normally would) or [[http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=413729 Sylvan Library]]. And soon a little thing called [[http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=212628 Zuran Orb]] came along to give the Land Tax deck something to feed all those spare lands to for fun and profit. Land Tax has had its fair share of time on restricted and banned lists, though nowadays it is fully legal in every format it can be played in.

** Black in general had a ''ton'' of turbo mana cards that allowed them to power out costly stuff, though often at the cost of requiring other resources like life, sacrificing or discarding. It took til the lead up to 8th edition with Onslaught Block for them to shift turbo mana to Red after Odyssey block gave black far too many ways to easly pump out tons of black mana.
** The most infamous was [[https://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?printed=true&multiverseid=29896 Cabal Coffers]], which was another attempt to make a balanced high mana land that wasn't broken like the Urza lands were. It required an investment cost and only generated mana equal to the number of swamps you control, something back in Odyssey block was hard to power though. Even in it's inception it helped make Mono-Black Control viable. It only became more powerful as more sets came out, especially when [[https://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?printed=true&multiverseid=131005 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth]] came out from ''Planer Chaos'' and made ''all lands swamps'', and since Cabal Coffers wasn't legendary suddenly you had five lands that can pump out a crapton of mana.

* The turbo mana instant [[http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=205422 Dark Ritual]] has been around since the beginning and just like there is almost no deck that doesn't benifit from Black Lotus, there is almost no deck that runs black that doesn't benefit from having Dark Ritual in it. It allowed decks to set up stuff far earlier, and multiple copies can be chained off to make more mana, and can then be reused from the graveyard to fuel even more shennigans. It had it's turns being banned or restricted to curb degenerate decks such as Necropotence but despite this, managed to survive til ''Mercadian Masques '' block before it was finally phased out of Standard reprinting.

** Black in general had a ''ton'' of turbo mana cards that allowed them to power out costly stuff, though often at the cost of requiring other resources like life, sacrificing or discarding. It took til the lead up to 8th edition with Onslaught Block for them to shift turbo mana to Red after Odyssey block gave black far too many ways to easly pump out tons of black mana (most infamously [[https://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?printed=true&multiverseid=29896 Cabal Coffers]]).