Hall of Shame Nominations: Arabian Nights

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BigBlue

Guest
Deadline for Nominations is Sunday 8/3 at Midnight EDT.

Here is a list of all the cards.

Abu Ja'far
Aladdin
Aladdin's Lamp
Aladdin's Ring
Ali Baba
Ali from Cairo
Army of Allah
Army of Allah
Bazaar of Baghdad
Bird Maiden
Bird Maiden
Bottle of Suleiman
Brass Man
Camel
City in a Bottle
City of Brass
Cuombajj Witches
Cyclone
Dancing Scimitar
Dandân
Desert Nomads
Desert Twister
Desert
Diamond Valley
Drop of Honey
Ebony Horse
Elephant Graveyard
El-Hajjâj
Erg Raiders
Erg Raiders
Erhnam Djinn
Eye for an Eye
Fishliver Oil
Fishliver Oil
Flying Carpet
Flying Men
Ghazban Ogre
Giant Tortoise
Giant Tortoise
Guardian Beast
Hasran Ogress
Hasran Ogress
Hurr Jackal
Ifh-Biff Efreet
Island Fish Jasconius
Island of Wak-Wak
Jandor's Ring
Jandor's Saddlebags
Jeweled Bird
Jihad
Junun Efreet
Juzam Djinn
Khabal Ghoul
King Suleiman
Kird Ape
Library of Alexandria
Magnetic Mountain
Merchant Ship
Metamorphosis
Mijae Djinn
Moorish Cavalry
Moorish Cavalry
Mountain
Nafs Asp
Nafs Asp
Oasis
Old Man of the Sea
Oubliette
Oubliette
Piety
Piety
Pyramids
Repentant Blacksmith
Ring of Ma'ruf
Rukh Egg
Rukh Egg
Sandals of Abdallah
Sandstorm
Serendib Djinn
Serendib Efreet
Shahrazad
Sindbad
Singing Tree
Sorceress Queen
Stone-Throwing Devils
Stone-Throwing Devils
Unstable Mutation
War Elephant
War Elephant
Wyluli Wolf
Wyluli Wolf
Ydwen Efreet
 
M

Melkor

Well-known member
Not a lot of truly Hall of Shame worthy cards to pick from. I tempted to say Mountain, I mean, what is it doing there? Oh well, I'll nominate something later . . .
 
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BigBlue

Guest
My nomination for Arabian Nights is...

Pyramids. It's Rare... It's expensive at 6... and then it costs 2 to activate for 2 different "mediocre" abilities...

I can't envision when it would be useful - it's just too expensive...
 
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DarthFerret

Guest
Ack...I have to second Bigblue's Nomination, simply because I had already chosen that card from this set before this thread was even started. For pretty much the same reasons as above. (I beleive there is a card with buyback in later sets that acts pretty much the same way as this artifact does, but the name escapes me.)
 
Oversoul

Oversoul

The Tentacled One
Pyramids is pretty bad. I mean, it totally and very effectively hoses someone who's trying to play a bunch of late game land destruction or enchant all of your lands for some reason, but no one ever does that. It's too situational and could have costed 0 and still not been particularly good.

I don't see what's so bad about the other nominations. Camel would be incredibly bad for a creature if it didn't have banding, but even a 0/1 with banding can be useful. It's still bad, but worst in the set?

I nominate City in a Bottle. At the time, it must have seemed like a perfectly reasonable idea. And I hesitate to nominate something that looks like it has this kind of potential. I mean, it's highly selective (nothing that isn't from Arabian Nights is affected, making it easy to build a deck in which your own cards aren't affected). It's cheap. It's extremely destructive and preventative. But we're talking about the smallest expansion set ever and probably the one with the smallest print runs too. So despite the potent effect it has on Arabian Nights cards, this really seems to be the epitome of a card that does nothing and doesn't really combo with anything.

It's a rare in an ancient and expensive set and it's still only worth a few bucks. City in a Bottle just might be the ultimate crap rare.
 
Shabbaman

Shabbaman

insert avatar here
Pyramids is bad. City in a bottle is awesome though. Imagine yourself playing this on turn 2 in a Arabian nights draft.
I nominate Aladdin's lamp. For 10 mana, you get NOTHING. Then, for X, you can choose from the top cards which card you want INSTEAD of drawing a card. By the time this card will have a significant effect you could have fireballed your opponent to death, and it still doesn't net you card advantage. Pure suckage.
 
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Spiderman

Administrator
Staff member
Man, there's quite a few good to great cards here. Hard to pick out the unworthy...

I'll nominate Metamorphosis. Because if you had the mana to cast the creature to be sacrificed in the first place, you should have enough mana to cast the creature you're gonna cast with Metamorphosis in the first place.
 
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BigBlue

Guest
Recap:

Aladdin's Lamp - Shabbaman
Camel - Ransac
City in a Bottle - Oversoul
Metamorphosis - Spiderman
Pyramids - BigBlue, DarthFerret
Sandals of Abdallah - Budget Player Cadet

Commentary... In no particular order...

Metamorphosis? Ransac combo'd it very nicely against me in Mindmaster w/ the Rukh Egg... If I had a wish for an improvement on it, it'd be that it searches a library for it's new card - like Transmute Artifact does in Antiquities... That'd seem more like a Metamorphosis (but is that what cocoon does - it's been a while since I saw that card). It also grants you the required mana + 1 and gives it to as all 1 color - so in a multicolor deck it's a mana translator if needed... I'm not saying it's great or even good, but it's useful...

City in a Bottle: Yep, bad card... I can only think of 1 use - and it came in Mindmaster... You can stalemate a game if need be - and if you have a rukh egg in play, it'll win you a limited event since the token will be the only thing surviving (tokens don't have expansion symbols). This is one of those cards where outside of the expansion it's mostly useless (see Apocolypse Bell or whatever in Homelands too). It is one I considered too... It does in fact suck a lot...

The Sandals of Abdallah suck... So bad they were replaced by War Barge in the Dark (which is only better because it's not killed when the creature dies - and combos w/ Merfolk assassin in the same set). At least w/ Blue it was easy to give an Island if need be... but it's not a good card.

Camel - W for a 0/1 Bander which is immune and grants immunity to Desert... Cheap banding is always cool... Desert was a C11 in the set - meaning a lot of Deserts were running around in the expansion... probably almost one per 2-3 packs... I'd rather have the Camel than a Desert Nomad... To me Camel is ok... not good or great, but ok...

Aladdin's Lamp... yeah, it sucks. probably even worse than Pyramids... :)
 
Ferret

Ferret

Moderator
Staff member
I would vote for Camel. If somehow Deserts kept getting printed or WotC decided to create Desert Lands (like Snow Lands) it wouldn't be so bad.

-Ferret

...this was not easy since there were actually quite a few good cards in the set...
 
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BigBlue

Guest
Desert - It's not broken... It's a pretty decent card really. I wish I had some to play with. I use them a lot in Shandalar...

If they printed new ones, it'd be damn cool...

Oasis, it's counterpart is ok, not as useful since it doesn't produce mana, but the ability is more universal too...
 
Mooseman

Mooseman

Isengar Tussle
City in a Bottle may be a bad card, but it kept me from winning an AN Mindmaster game...... I do not like this card......... :D
 
Oversoul

Oversoul

The Tentacled One
I've killed people with Aladdin's Lamp many times. Being expensive can be a good thing. Especially because back in the day, there was only one card with a higher casting cost (Polar Kraken) and the Lamp was perfect for things that took advantage of high casting costs. Also, its ability is pretty good and has allowed me to find cards that I needed to win. But mostly, it was nice to have something like it precisely because it was so expensive. This took a card that would have ordinarily been complete crap and gave it a niche role that it was actually good at.

Forcing a draw or comboing with Rukh Egg for the win in an Arabian Nights draft (or Mindmaster, which really shouldn't count because anyone can make up a format where some terrible card happens to be good) really doesn't seem like it makes up for a card being completely and utterly useless in all other situations, but whatever.
 
Shabbaman

Shabbaman

insert avatar here
I'm not sure what you mean. At first I thought you were confused with Aladdin's ring, but apparently you're not. You're saying that it's good if you have oozes of mana. I say you'd be better off drawing a fireball in that case. Why is it good to have a high CC? All I can imagine is Xenic poltergeist.
 
Oversoul

Oversoul

The Tentacled One
Xenic Poltergeist is just one example. There are several cards that do the same thing. I used to use Toymaker a lot for some reason (not that it's the best thing, it was probably just something I had my hands on back then and liked). There's Karn, Karn's Legacy, etc. And then there are cards that do other things besides turn artifacts into creatures, such as Infernal Genesis.

And yes, if it's just "I have tons of mana, so which card is better?" Fireball is easily better than Lamp in most situations. But Fireball isn't a bad card by any stretch of the imagination. In order for that comparison to reflect poorly on Lamp as the worst card in AN, it would need to be a comparison with another terrible card in AN, like Pyramids.
 
Ferret

Ferret

Moderator
Staff member
I had a roommate that only built 60 card decks. He had an Aladdin's Lamp and a Library of Alexandria that he would use to maximum effect. His hand always seem to have the right card when he needed it...

-Ferret

...He was one of the few people that could make a solid three colour deck consistently...
 
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BigBlue

Guest
Nominations are closed.

Voting will begin shortly.

As far as artificial formats changing the use of a card - It only takes limited vs constructed to see some cards have more value...

There are plenty of cards which are pretty much useless in constructed, but in Limited work really well... just like there are plenty of cards which combo great in constructed - or work better when you can have 4 of them... If a card is useful in 1 format, to me it isn't hall of shame worthy... Draft is a viable format. Mindmaster isn't so much... because it isn't sanctioned.

Truthfully, we could pick the ante cards from the early sets, since they are all completely and utterly useless anymore. But we haven't even had 1 of them nominated, there was no rule against nominating them... but, it's sort of unfun I think to nominate them - which is why they've been left alone.
 
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