In this week's article I decided to get scientific and compile a list of the 100 best cards in Vintage. Actually it wasn't so much science — rather it was a fun exercise in thinking about the specific pieces the cards we use to play Vintage Magic.
The initial idea of making a list that ranked the top cards in Vintage was initially the brainchild of my good friend Paul Mastriano who said that it would make for a really interesting exercise in thinking about Vintage to try and rank the best hundred cards — and subsequently we reached the conclusion that since people love reading (and disagreeing with) lists on the internet the list would likely make for an interesting and readable article.
Rather than simply ranking the cards as I thought they should be ranked which would be extremely biased and extremely subject to scrutiny I instead decided that I would conduct a poll and ask multiple people to individually score each card on a comprehensive list of cards on a scale of between 1 and 10.
Using a scale of ten it made a lot of sense to me to limit the number of people in my survey to an aesthetically pleasing ten since that would allow all final totals to be out of 100 possible points.
The next step was to select the people I wanted to use in the poll. Here is a list of the people I decided to poll and use in my list.
1. Me
2. Paul Mastriano (Former Vintage Champion)
3. Steven Menendian (Former Vintage Champion)
4. Mark Biller (Former Vintage Champion)
5. Patrick Chapin (Pro)
6. Matt Sperling (Pro)
7. Rich Shay (Vintage Ringer)
8. Nick Detwiler (Vintage Ringer)
9. Kevin Cron (Vintage Ringer)
10. Shawn Anthony (Vintage Ringer)
The way I administered the test was to simply read each card on the list and ask the subject to rate the card between 1 and 10 (with ten being the best and one being the worst and only whole numbers — no decimals). The criteria I asked people was to use when evaluating the cards was “How good is the card now and how good is it likely be in the future?” I specifically told each person “So you don't need to give Morphling high marks for being awesome ten years ago.”
There were no set parameters on what constituted a ten or a one on the list — rather the subjects were asked to rate cards in relation to one another and were largely left to their own devices to figure out how they wanted to score cards.
When I was giving the test there was a lot of: “What did I give card X? Well if card X was 6 then I'll give card Y an 8.”
Once I had 10 sets of scores I added them all together and made my list.
Also keep in mind that different people used different scales to evaluate cards — some people had many tens and some people had very few tens. Other people gave out very few ones and twos while others gave out many. So the total number of points is much less important than where cards rank in relation to one another — since everybody's scale tended to be relative to how they ranked other cards.
In the cases of ties for points I eliminated the high and the low score and took the highest average.
I changed one person's score on one card while making the list — as it was an extreme statistical outlier: One person gave Mox Pearl a one for what I can only assume was the purpose of making a dramatic statement about their feelings about the card. I changed that person's score on that card to five — which was two points less than he scored Mox Emerald and Mox Ruby and two points less than anybody else scored Mox Pearl in the poll.
THE TOP 100.
100. 36 points.
99. 36 points.
98. 37 points.
97. 37 points.
96. 38 points.
95. 38 points
94. 38 points.
93. 39 points.
92. 39 points.
91. 40 points.
90. 41 points.
89. 41 points
88. 42 points.
87. 43 points.
86. 43 points.
85. 44 points.
84. 44 points.
83. 45 points.
82. 45 points.
81. 46 points.
80. 46 points.
79. 47 points.
78. 47 points.
77. 48 points.
76. 49 points.
75. 50 points.
74. 50 points.
73. 51 points.
72. 52 points.
71. 52 points.
70. 53 points.
69. 53 points
68. 53 points.
67. 53. points.
66. 54 points.
65. 54 points.
64. 54 points
63. 54 points.
62. 55 points
61. 55 points.
60. 56 points
59. 57 points.
58. 57 points.
57. 57 points.
56. 58 points.
55. 58 points.
54. 58 points.
53. 59 points.
52. 59 points.
51. 60 points.
50. 60 points.
49. 60 points.
48. 61 points.
47. 61 points.
46. 62 points.
45. 63 points.
44. 63 points.
43. 63 points.
42. 64 points.
41. 64 points.
(What an insane coincidence that two cards with “of the void” in their name had the same points!)
40. 65 points.
39. 65 points.
38. 66 points.
37. 67 points.
36. 68 points.
35. 68 points.
34. 69 points.
33. 70 points.
32. 71 points.
31. 71 points.
30. 72 points.
29. 72 points.
28. 73 points.
27. 73 points.
26. 74 points.
25. 75 points.
24. 75 points.
23. 76 points.
22. 77 points.
21. 77 points.
20. 78 points.
19. 78 points.
18. 79 points.
17. 81 points.
16. 82 points.
15. 83 points.
14. 84 points.
13. 85 points.
12. 86 points.
11. 87 points.
10. 90 points.
9. 91 points.
8. 92 points
7. 93 points.
6. 94 points.
5. 95 points.
4. 96 points.
3. 97 points.
2 & 1. A perfect 100 points.
Hope you enjoyed the list!
Cheers
Brian DeMars
About Brian DeMars
Brian DeMars is a respected Magic deckbuilder, theorist, and Eternal expert. He won Grand Prix Boston-Worcester and made Top 4 of Grand Prix Indianapolis in 2012. He is also a member of Team R.I.W. and Team Meandeck.