Is serra angel the quintessential MTG card?

I haven't played that long, but when me and my friends started playing around in 2002, these cards were seen as very powerful cards.
I remember everyone especially had a hard-on for Phage since she has that instakill ability of hers. The least popular one was poor Mistform lol (still love him to this day though)

So yeah, these are my kind of quintessential MTG cards

To me it's Keldoran Warlord

I was just at EMP like 4 days ago, some of those early cards looked straight outta old school D&D. Fantastic exhibit.

For me it will always be Thorn Elemental with the 7th edition art. I remember getting a computer game that taught you magic and came packaged in a box with its art for christmas when i was a kid and it hooked me.

As a person who never played Magic or even particularly cared about it, here's a list of the most Magic cards:
- Black Lotus (obviously)
- Counterspell
- Time Walk
- something something Jace, something something that female fire mage that is a rip-off of Lina Inverse
- ???

I want this faggot dead. He impersonates everything that went wrong with MTG.

serra angel
shivan dragon
sengir vampire
craw wurm
fuck off blue

every time i see this card i get a little bit sad that it's basically been power crept by baneslayer angel and baneslayer still isnt a good card anymore

He really doesn't, but it seems like he does because of shitty flavor text (that every author has agreed is out of character) and Jace the Mind Sculptor.

Dark Ritual, hands down.

Savanah lion.

white knight

I reserve that right for Chandra.

There was a time when this was considered an iconic Magic card and everyone would have recognized the art instantly. Sad to see it go, along with the flavor text to Scathe Zombies.

I really wish they would release a gold bordered, non tournament legal version of one of the classic sets for people who just want to play with their friends like it was 1993 again, collectors be damned.

OFFICIAL ICONIC CARDS:

White: Wrath of God
Green: Grizzly Bear
Red: Lightning Bolt
Black: Terror
Blue: Counterspell

I was late to the party when it came to MTG, but I remember that my friends all talked about the Royal Assassin when it first came out.

When I think of MtG, the first thing I imagine is the first time I played against a Sliver deck.

Fuck Slivers.

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This card comes to mind whenever I think of mtg. Too bad it's worthless against any deck with bounce/removal.

>>White: Wrath of God
>Implying its not Serra Angel
>>Green: Grizzly Bear
>Implying it's not Birds of Paradise
>>Red: Lightning Bolt
Agreed
>>Black: Terror
>Implying it's not Dark Ritual or Nightmare
>>Blue: Counterspell
Right

3/5 you could do better, user

Good old Keldonischer Kriegsfürst.

This is my submission. And no, I don't think fucking Black Lotus when I think Magic. I don't own one, no one I know owns one. It was discontinued after the first two runs.

For me its Goblin Chariot. It was my first card and the flavor text is 10/10.

Thats the problem with what you are asking. It will be different for everyone based on their own experiences.

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It pains me to play casual these days with people who have strange, foreign cards with considerably higher power curves.

Stopped collecting over a decade ago.

Sorry for reinforcing the "Veeky Forums is bad at magic" thing, but can this guy assassinate himself?

Counterspell

I'm going to say yes

he needs to tap in order to kill a tapped creature, so...

How can the cards be out of character in a card game? I don't care how Jace acts in some shit novel I will never read. The Jace on the cards, IE: The Jace in the game, is a huge cunt.

No. He isn't a valid target for his own ability.

I only think of giant growth

Magic has you pick targets before you pay costs for a spell or activated ability.

It's a fair question, because not all games use that system.

If you can change the targets of an activated ability with a spell or ability, Royal Assassin can kill himself while attempting to kill another creature.

That produces believable flavor, IMO

There was an advertisement (probably in Nintendo Power) that had an Orgg in it. This hecker will always be the mascot to me.

Serra Angel is a good power uncommon for limited these days.

She's fair, but somewhat costly so she doesn't go into competitive constructed.

Her final resting place as solid limited minibomb is not the worst for an alpha card.

Also, would post all of the art of her to make her iconic art.

... I got my mom a Wonder Woman cup that did the same with Wonder Woman

If not the card you think about for MTG then most certainly the one you think about first when red as a color comes up. This and counterspell for blue are the quintessential spells for their colors.

I'd say bolt is more iconic, because its name is not just the game action it has you do.

MtG as a franchise isn't as iconic as yugioh or pokemon, so noone really thinks of a specific card when they think of the game.

/thread

I'll never understand the border change.

I couldn't survive without dark ritual.

The cards are an abstraction of a story, not a story themselves, you goofball.

>it's all creature types at once
>so they had to put the wall text on there
This amuses me.

>print old sets

I wish they would too. I'd make some janky Unlimited/Arabian Nights/Antiquities cube.

>impersonates
personifies

I never had the chance to try limited in those sets. The first few cubes would be pretty interesting while everyone tries to figure out some janky synergy.

also this

Im gonna agree with you user. Serra angel is one of my favorite cards because of its power level and simple design. Its a good barrometer; I would redesign the whole game so that this card is poster child of uncommon power level.

>Magic has you pick targets before you pay costs for a spell or activated ability

not even close

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They used to have "marquee cards" you'd see plastered over MTG stuff, such as Juzam Djinn, Hurloon Minotaur, Jester's Cap, etc.

shit picture is way smaller than I thought it was. For anyone who doesn't recognize this thing from memory, it's relentless rats.

Black Lotus, Serra Angel and Lightning Bolt are the Exodia, Blue Eyes and Dark Magician of Magic.
As in they're the most iconic cards for people who were around gen 1. But neither is truly the IP's mascot like Pikachu is for Pokemon

Why? He looks cool and telepaths are awesome

It really is better graphic design/UI.
It just isn't as flavorful or unique.

this! omg Grizzly Bears was awesome. I got into Magic with a computer trial demo disc that featured a red and green deck that you could play as against the computer. Grizzly Bears was my jam.

Here's the thing. Way back when, the definitive blue wizard was this guy called Ertai. Ertai was a smarmy, cocksure, quippy fellow who counters spells and doesn't give a fuck.
This set a precedent for counterspell related flavor text to be quippy and smarmy which held over even after Jace became the archetypal blue mage, even though Jace is a stuttering loser who just wants to solve puzzles all day.

Additionally, Jace, the Mind Sculptor turned out to be one of the strongest planeswalkers (and even one of the strongest cards) ever printed, and it portrays Jace in a badass combat pose wielding some ultimate magic that will certainly wreck your shit.
Even though Jace hasn't won a single fight in his life without getting his own mind blown to hell, I'm pretty sure. He's definitely one of the weakest planeswalkers since pretty much everyone shrugs off mind magic with enough focus or after only a few moments of reverie.

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magiclibrarities.net/963-rarities-playtest-cards-english-cards-index.html

There's no easy way to link the specific image, but the (Serra) "Angel" card in question is the first on the page of white cards.

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Same. Also want to see less of Gideon noble bright.

Why are Magic players always the biggest mouth breathers in the entire table-top hobby?

You can't even count, is that why you don't play fun games?

I just got some major nostalgia for the first standard season I was a tourneyfag for. Odyssey/Onslaught was a special time.

Surprised no one posted this yet, it's been the Blue-Eyes White Dragon of Modern for a longass time now.

I dunno, I always think Ornithopters.

Vraska the Unseen is good but hardly that popular, user

That's a good joke, that is a damn good joke. I like you user, but no I meant this one.

But it's exactly right. Don't be the posterboy for

>Veeky Forums is bad at magic

please learn the rules or at the very least look the card up in gatherer

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Red is easily Lightning Bolt and I'm leaning towards just Counterspell for Blue (good old, straight to the point Counterspell) even though it's not in Modern.

For "defining card" i guess black lotus or lightning bolt or something.

I started playing during rtr, but I only played commander for a while, and one of my friends had a bolas deckbox, so I usually think of bolas and Ulamog the Infinite Gyre, because he seemed extremely impressive in every aspect.

Plus I saw him a lot from my other friend's braids deck

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>CTRL+F
>This isn't mentioned

Veeky Forums let me down

Eh, the 'blue card' for me is divination. Maybe I play limited too much.

For me, whenever i think of MTG i think of the omrstplrlcnswmtcthtalcnee

Or the really big guy

I imagine that would actually have been a popular and memorable card, so props to the market research team.

art rampage was my favorite un-mechanic

Holy fuck, these