#magic 2012

Phantasmal Dragon (Magic 2012) - Wayne Reynolds

Diabolic Tutor

The wise always keep an ear open to the whispers of power.

Demystify

Behind every mage is a trail of shattered lies.

Generally speaking, I don't include reprints in these, but if there's one exception in all of this, the Titans would be the ones to get it. They were iconic to that entire era of magic, ruling standard and showing up in other formats. Of these, Sun Titan stands out to this day as the one that held up the best fifteen years later. Well, and Prime Time. But Prime Time is a bit too good for its own good. If it makes me groan when it hits the table, it's probably not a favorite.

Anyway, Sun Titan is still a pretty good card with a lot of applications in 2025, and thanks to many reprints in commander precons, it's also one of the most affordable mythics out there. The original art is iconic, but it has had a few great ones since, too.

Swiftfoot Boots was from M12! Fixed Lightning Greaves was a great addition to the game and has become such an important part of commander an entire suit of equipments inspired by it and Greaves are typically referred to as "Boots".

Skinshifter was so impressive for young me. A 2 mana 4/4 trample with other evasion! Of course, it dies a lot and is rarely worth the extra mana to invest every turn, but it's still a very flavorful design of a druid Shaman changing shapes to different animals.

Grand Abolisher was also from M12! Great at protecting combo, it has had quite a history since its release in many formats. It does feel very white too.

The Empires triad! Gotta love a dream explicitly stated on the cards, it does deliver on it if you actually manage to assemble the three of them. Of course, that rarely actually happens and still leaves plenty of time for opponents to disrupt it before actually winning. But who cares about actually winning if you've managed to pull it off?

Two-mana clones with downsides is one of my favorite areas of design we rarely see. Being two mana makes a clone not only playable, but quite strong, since that means you can almost always copy something that costs more than the clone itself. Of course, for a few years, this also doubled as legendary creature removal for no reason, but that's just fun trivia nowadays.

Garruk got a new card for M12, despite it being a core set! the ability to come down and immediately draw a few cards or pump out 3/3s made it a staple for commander for a long while, up until we started getting more Rishkar's Expertises and other Returns of the Wildspeaker.

Sundial of the Infinite has a very, very unique effect and is quite a puzzling card to put in a core set. Makes one think about how the game works, that's for sure!

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Cool - Giant Spider*

“The wild is always changing, but it does have a few constants.” —Garruk Wildspeaker

Topi’s Daily Card #894:  Quicksilver Amulet