best card

[Oversoul]

And what sort of deck would find Wood Elemental useful? Are you going to tap four of your lands and then sacrifice three more for a mere 3/3? Four mana for a 3/3 is already bad...

Presumably, you could make it more efficient by going to a higher number. But how? Tap four lands and sacrifice ten more for a nice, big 10/10? If you have 14 lands in play, there are tons of other cards that can potentially win you the game without utterly wiping out your board position.

Great Wall is a horrible card because it costs three mana to do absolutely nothing (even more of nothing than Snowfall). That is better than paying four mana to hurt yourself. Great Wall is a 3/3 four 2W under Opalescence, which is not at all bad.

Wood Elemental is a black mana with Songs of the Damned and not much else.

 

[Spiderman]

Well, off the top of my head, you can play Second Sunrise to get all of the lands back (or Harvest Wurm for one) (and I think there's another spell that lets you get lands back into play), and/or combo it with anything that uses counters (Power Conduit, Spike Rogue, whatever).

 

[Oversoul]

Second Sunrise/Wood Elemental is seven lands plus an additional Forest for each +1/+1 counter the Wood Elemental gets when it comes into play. That is a waste of a turn and a perfectly useful Second Sunrise.

Harvest Wurm isn't bad, but something like Rogue Elephant can throw the single land into your graveyard for only one mana and attack for more.

How would you combo it with stuff that used counters? It doesn't seem plausible to me.

Even if you did manage to make a deck that was able to turn the weakness into a strenght at least in part, it would not make Wood Elemental a good card. Train built a deck that made use of Sorrow's Path. Sorrow's Path is ordinarily pretty horrible. One could build a Great Wall deck too. Unless such decks are actually competitive, they only serve to illustrate the ingenuity of the creator, not the power inherent in the terrible card being used.

If Wood Elemental isn't the worst card, then what is?

 

[Spiderman]

it would not make Wood Elemental a good card

I didn't think that was what we're arguing - what I was differing with you is that it's not the worst card. And I don't know what that is since I don't know half the cards out there. But I can find a use for Wood Elemental, so I would say the worst card would be one where you can't find a use at all, either by itself or combo-ing with other cards.

 

[Killer Joe]

If there was a CPA Award for the person most likely to ressurect "DEAD THREADS" it would be YOU, my friend!

As of right here, right now the best card in magic is:

TIME STOP

No, it's very mana cost friendly but its effect is ABSOLUTE!

Worst card: Hypnox

 

[Oversoul]

Spidey, it is kind of a pointless argument if I talk about how bad Wood Elemental is and you suggest that it is not the worst card because some card out there somewhere is worse.

If you were to name some card that you think is worse, I would be able to either agree with you or continue to assert that my pick is worse.

Some cards that are often thought of as being the worst card in the game...

Wood Elemental
Sorrow's Path
Great Wall
Wintermoon Mesa
Pale Moon
Adventurer's Guildhouse (and friends)
Carnival of Souls (people hate it, but it's been used in tourneys)
Shelkin Brownie
Saprazzan Raider
Snowfall
Glyph of Delusion
Greener Pastures
Break Open
Leeches
Mudhole
Deep Water

...and a lot of others. There are plenty of bad cards in the game. You get the idea...

 

[Spiderman]

Spidey, it is kind of a pointless argument if I talk about how bad Wood Elemental is and you suggest that it is not the worst card because some card out there somewhere is worse.

If you were to name some card that you think is worse, I would be able to either agree with you or continue to assert that my pick is worse.

You're right, of course, this is all particular to one's opinion. However, worst seems to mean the absolute bottom of the barrel, the #1 card that you can't do anything with in Magic, and Wood Elemental doesn't seem to be it. If it were possible, it would be interesting to see what the majority of Magic players would say is the worst card, given a specific definition of "worst"; even though it's all someone's opinion, if the opinions start adding up and leaning towards a particular card, one would have to say that would certainly look to being the "worst" card.

But of your list, I actually have Shelkin Brownie and he stands out as being "worse" than Wood Elemental (not the worst, mind you). And even though it's supposed to combo with those other cards from Scourge, that 8 cc 1/1 guy is a good candidate too

 

[Oversoul]

Scornful Egotist can also be a 2/2 for 3 though. That's even better than Gray Ogre, which also lacks the ability to combo with those other cards from Scourge...

Shelkin Brownie is pretty horrible though...

 

[Rooser]

You clearly forgot Melting on that list, Ovvy.

Also, Shelkin Brownie is awesome and this article is proof.

 

[Oversoul]

Oh yeah, can't forget Melting.

Ertai's Trickery is another favorite...