What are the most powerful/viable cards that you think are underplayed?

[Lurker101]

Sorry if this is in the wrong forum to post this in but i was just wondering what you all think are the most powerful/viable cards that don't ever see play or are underrated.

Alright, I'll start with cards I think are heavily underplayed and underrated and why:
Dimir Machinations: It's a potential budget tutor for those who want to play some sort of Long.dec variant. It transmutes (which I think is uncounterable) for YawgWin as well as several other powerful 3 mana cards. You lose some tutor flexibility when compared to Grim Tutor but you don't lose life and it has a potentially useful utility effect. If you can afford Grim Tutor it clearly is a better card but if you want a budget priced Yawg tutor that also happens to have another useful effect this is a great option.
Diminshing Returns I remember Smemmen making a decklist that abuses this card greatly on one of his starcity games articles where he was arguing for the unrestriction of Time Spiral. I don't have the link for it but it should be easy to look up.
Niv Mizzet + Curiosity combo So Niv-Mizzet isn't the easiest creature to cast but it could be easily be reanimated and this is a fairly simple 2 card kill. Worldgorger Dragon combo seems harder to pull off but it still sees play and is more vulnerable to common hat, whereas this doesn't rollover to graveyard hate and it just seems simpler.
Transmute Artifact So it's not Tinker but it's still solid. When combined with Su-Chi (another underplayed card IMHO) the cost difference shouldn't matter so much. I know people do play this/have played this in tier 1 decks but I still say it's underrated.
Moratorium Stone Never even mentioned, it's great cheap artifact disruption/removal card. Is it just that the black/white activation cost is too prohibitive? It can also be fetched by Trinket Mage.
Seedtime With the prevalence of FoW in the format I can even see this being main decked  and often ending up as a green time walk. This card is pretty busted in my opinion.
Skullclamp Such a great card but it only ends up in weird combo decks like Skullclamp Kobolds. I guess I can understand this one a little more because straight up aggro (where this does best) isn't as common in vintage and other decks have powerful draw engines of thier own.
Culling the Weak I think that in a similar thread Smemmen said this was the most broken card that will never see tier 1 play. I agree that it's potentially busted and there just isn't any space for this card in most decks (again except for strange rogue combat decks like Skullclamp Kobolds which I mentioned earlier.
Pulverize Alternative mana cost is sacrifice 2 mountains to destroy all artifacts? The only reason I could see why this isn't played is because basic mountains aren't too common in this format and most decks would end up destroying some of their own good stuff since most decks run quite a few artifacts. Still powerful IMO.
Nether Void Amazing black control card that, again, is never played. Is there a spot for this in Manaless Ichorid as disruption? Since that deck doesn't really play spells Nether Void would be pretty one sided.
Rushwood Legate Ok, I'm pushing it here a little bit but, like I said with Seedtime, blue is so prevalent you will often end up with a free 2/1 green creature. Probably more suitable for legacy if it's suitable for anything at all. I do think it is a good card.
Rhystic Study Mystic Remora may be better but this has no upkeep cost and acts like a Sphere of Resistance for your opponent unless they want to risk a free draw for you.
Urza's Guilt + Megrim + Dream Salvage I've got a deck built around this. I don't know if it's vintage good as Megrim isn't really good enough right now but it has potential. After I work on my Replicate decks some more I will post it.
Those are the main ones for me. There are a few other cards like Quicken, infernal tutor, Diabolic Intent and Treachery that look like they have potential.

[zeus-online]

Impulse - Not sure if i would just count it as a replacement for brainstorm...but it digs really deep!

Madness cards - If control slaver is really the top deck now, then i could see bazaar madness being good.

Night's whisper - Land, mox, whisper is pretty good i think, so as a 3-off it could be pretty good in just about any decks that can support that play.

Infernal contract - Drawing 4 cards is huge! Loosing half your life sometimes suck, but in the right deck it could be irrelevant.

Balance - This card just wrecks people, yet it is only played in some shop decks, a pity.

Mindtwist - ! Not sure if one could make a viable deck with 3/4 mindtwists, but the card is certainly capable of winning the game. It might just be worse then upping the count of duress effects though.

Fire/Ice - Kills Confidant, Welder, metalworker, magus of the moon, glowriders, mindcensors and a host of other annoying creatures...It pitches, it cycles, it turns off trinisphere/maze of ith - Could definetly see it work as a 2/3-of!

Yawgmoth's will - Urh..Just kidding!

/Zeus

Edit:

Disrupt - It's really good at slowing the game down, you'll be surprised how many times people walk into it!

[John Jones]

Mystic Remora- This card is the beats
Moat- This card can just win the game against a lot of decks.

[Troy_Costisick]

Heap Doll - Can take a dredger and all the BFBs from a graveyard

Blood Moon - Probably not as good as Magus, but a lot harder to remove

Deglamer - Can get rid of DSC as well as other threats long enough to win

Gaddok Teag - Just waiting to get abused

Firespout - Used a lot in Standard, but not so much in Vintage.  This is the card to use if R/G Beats and GobLines ever take off

Trickbind - Uncounterable Stifle for only one more mana

[reaperbong]

oldies but goldies...

Diabolic Vision - digs 5 deep for 2 mana, i think it's the most overlooked replacement for Brainstorm so far, it's closest to Brainstorm and it's even from the same classic Ice Age, i love it.

Copy Artifact - does anyone remember when this was restricted? I'm sure it could be put to good use, once i get my Colossus or Nought down i like to make a few copies just in case haha, Dominates Multiplayer vintage if anyone besides myself plays it.

Maze of Ith - remember when this was restricted? well i still play this, great with a few Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoths in the deck. Tarmy? naw.. Confident buggin you? naw.. Colossus alternate win condition? nope no thanks..

and speaking of Nether Void, i run two in my Nether-LD deck, this and one Dark Confident won the game a few weeks back for me against pre-restrictions Tropical Storm and Painters-Grindstone decks. Just shut them down like nothing while just one Confident attacked for the whole game haha. didn't even need to sack one Wasteland

[Xyre]

If people miss Ponder and don't like Impulse's inability to shuffle, Omen from Portal 2 does the same thing as Ponder for 1 more mana. It's a fairly significant difference, but the effect is strong regardless. Plus, unlike a surprisingly large part of the Portals, Omens are $.50.

Also, I'm surprised that Divert and Extract, two single-U instants from Odyssey, aren't played as much as they deserve. The first is Misdirection minus the card advantage loss, and the latter destroys decks with singleton win conditions or YawgWin.

[arctic79]

Sylvan Library --I've seen some strong players abuse this card so well in the past and I think it might see some favour now.

Diabolic Vision --I totally agree, it's always been one of my favorite dig cards.

[Lurker101]

I also would add Djinn Illuminatus to my list. It can do completely busted stuff if you can get it on the table. I have a replicate deck that tries to abuse this in the Vintage Improvement forums.

[Holmes]

I also see that Seedtime is played lot less than it deserves.
Maybe it now got a little splash damage from restriction of Brainstorm, but it is still very powerful. I thought that any deck with Tarmogoyf would want to abuse it for extra beats after EOT Brainstorm or something.

[SiegeX]

Ghost Quarter for bazaar's, factories, academy's, critical dual lands.   And with alot of mana bases today not packing basic land, Ghost Quarter can often be Strip Mine 2-5

[Red Irish]

Hmmm, how about Oona + Painter's Servant in a Painter/Slaver control deck?

[Thegreatgonzo]

Gamble looks great. Basically it's a tutor your opponent needs to counter. In the worst case it's an unrestricted entomb.

[Troy_Costisick]

Gamble looks great. Basically it's a tutor your opponent needs to counter. In the worst case it's an unrestricted entomb.

Think that card would work in a Belcher deck?

Peace,

-Troy

[gold eyes]

  There are a few cards on my list i run most of these in one deck or another but have not seen them alot.
-tolaria west (i love the uncounterable search)
- manamorphose (mana fix with a card draw)
- shadow of doubt ( anti search opponent with card draw)
-lat-nam's legacy (most people have never even heard of this card but i love it it shuffles back one card in your hand into your deck then draw two cards next upkeep)
lim-dul's vault (sets up next five draws) 

[redmage419]

I've gotta agree with gold eyes. Lim-Dul's Vault is one of my favorite "dig-deep" cards of all time. 2 life + 2 mana digs through over 1/4 of your remaining library; the fact that you can keep on going makes it insane.

[Lurker101]

If people miss Ponder and don't like Impulse's inability to shuffle, Omen from Portal 2 does the same thing as Ponder for 1 more mana. It's a fairly significant difference, but the effect is strong regardless. Plus, unlike a surprisingly large part of the Portals, Omens are $.50.

Also, I'm surprised that Divert and Extract, two single-U instants from Odyssey, aren't played as much as they deserve. The first is Misdirection minus the card advantage loss, and the latter destroys decks with singleton win conditions or YawgWin.

Agreed also what about Portent from Ice Age? It's been discussed but is it too slow? Also Omen but the extra  makes a big difference.

[samurai_socks]

Deleted.

[Lurker101]

What about Final Fortune? I totally forgot about this card until earlier today.  for an extra turn? Also, if you don't win on that extra turn you should not have won anyway. Seems appropriate in red based decks.
Also Savor the Moment for a cheap extra turn with a drawback that can be avoided fairly easily in the right deck.
Mindleech Mass could be a good oath target.
Lastly Twisted Justice, this is a great answer to cards like DSC and oathed up creatures but is probably way too slow and expensive, still a decent card.
Goblin Recruiter: Lets you stack your deck if you're playing anything goblin based.

[AngryPheldagrif]

What about Final Fortune? I totally forgot about this card until earlier today.  for an extra turn? Also, if you don't win on that extra turn you should not have won anyway. Seems appropriate in red based decks.
Also Savor the Moment for a cheap extra turn with a drawback that can be avoided fairly easily.
Mindleech Mass could be a good oath target.
Lastly Twisted Justice, this is a great answer to cards like DSC and oathed up creatures but is probably way too slow and expensive, still a decent card.

Final Fortune: RR is a prohibitive mana cost, and no, not many decks can consistently win on one turn's notice.

Savor the Moment: UU1 is hardly cheap considering that is more expensive than other powerful sorceries such as Tinker. And no, the drawback can't be 'avoided fairly easily.' Mana is a finite resource that you burn a lot of with Savor. It's just a glorified cantrip.

Mindleech Mass: Terrible Oath target. It doesn't win the game or prevent the opponent from winning the game immediately upon coming into play.

Twisted Justice: 4UB is as expensive as Yawgmoth's Bargain and Mind's Desire. The difference between a hyper-narrow answer in Justice (which seriously wasn't even very good in DRAFT) and a game-winning bomb is fairly large.

[andrewpate]

Gamble

is played in the Legacy deck 43 Land.  That deck runs only a handful of cards (mostly Exploration) that need to stay out of the graveyard, so it's basically Demonic Tutor for .  Should such a Vintage deck emerge, it will doubtless be an auto-include.  But laying a land and casting it first turn is a 17% chance of losing the card you retrieved, a not-irrelevant risk.  It could be good to find something like Worldgorger Dragon, but the problem with Dragon is not the difficulty of assembling the combo quickly.  Gamble doesn't really fill a void there.  The decks that abuse tutors the most are combo, and they a)mostly need every card in their hand and b)have enough chances to get screwed off a crappy Necro/Draw 7/etc. that they don't typically want a tutor with a random element to steal their Yawgmoth's Will.

In short, it's really one of those things like Mox Diamond or Land Tax:  strong, but homeless, since the best decks to abuse it aren't good enough.

[zeus-online]

Gamble looks great. Basically it's a tutor your opponent needs to counter. In the worst case it's an unrestricted entomb.

Considering that i rarely counter tutors, why would i need to counter gamble?
The only reason i could think of is if it's played by a shop deck with either crucible or welder in play.

With all the great tutors in the format i think it's hard to justify playing gamble.

For underplayed cards i think people should look for utility cards and can-trips...but keep in mind that they should be just as good or nearly just as good as currently played cards.

/Zeus

[Xyre]

One card that deserves more play in aggro-control decks is Samurai of the Pale Curtain. It makes Ichorid a degree easier for U/W Fish (more so than Jotun Grunt), because it turns off both Bridge from Below and Ichorid. It forces the Ichorid player to invest more resources in developing a solution like reanimating Angel of Despair, which allows the Fish player to divest some of its less-interactive cards like Force. And it makes Cabal Therapy more costly for the user.

The largest problem, of course, is the WW cost.

[Lurker101]

What about Final Fortune? I totally forgot about this card until earlier today.  for an extra turn? Also, if you don't win on that extra turn you should not have won anyway. Seems appropriate in red based decks.
Also Savor the Moment for a cheap extra turn with a drawback that can be avoided fairly easily.
Mindleech Mass could be a good oath target.
Lastly Twisted Justice, this is a great answer to cards like DSC and oathed up creatures but is probably way too slow and expensive, still a decent card.

Final Fortune: RR is a prohibitive mana cost, and no, not many decks can consistently win on one turn's notice.

Savor the Moment: UU1 is hardly cheap considering that is more expensive than other powerful sorceries such as Tinker. And no, the drawback can't be 'avoided fairly easily.' Mana is a finite resource that you burn a lot of with Savor. It's just a glorified cantrip.

Mindleech Mass: Terrible Oath target. It doesn't win the game or prevent the opponent from winning the game immediately upon coming into play.

Twisted Justice: 4UB is as expensive as Yawgmoth's Bargain and Mind's Desire. The difference between a hyper-narrow answer in Justice (which seriously wasn't even very good in DRAFT) and a game-winning bomb is fairly large.

When said that way I agree, I do think Savor could work somewhere though.

[Troy_Costisick]

Gamble

is played in the Legacy deck 43 Land.  That deck runs only a handful of cards (mostly Exploration) that need to stay out of the graveyard, so it's basically Demonic Tutor for .  Should such a Vintage deck emerge, it will doubtless be an auto-include.  But laying a land and casting it first turn is a 17% chance of losing the card you retrieved, a not-irrelevant risk.  It could be good to find something like Worldgorger Dragon, but the problem with Dragon is not the difficulty of assembling the combo quickly.  Gamble doesn't really fill a void there.  The decks that abuse tutors the most are combo, and they a)mostly need every card in their hand and b)have enough chances to get screwed off a crappy Necro/Draw 7/etc. that they don't typically want a tutor with a random element to steal their Yawgmoth's Will.

In short, it's really one of those things like Mox Diamond or Land Tax:  strong, but homeless, since the best decks to abuse it aren't good enough.

It would probably be better in a Belcher deck with a Welder in play.

Peace,

-Troy

[andrewpate]

[Gamble] would probably be better in a Belcher deck with a Welder in play.

Peace,

-Troy

That's not terrible, but since Belcher decks will often have to use nearly every card in hand while setting up, Gamble would mostly be additional copies of Goblin Charbelcher that cost more to play (and only work if you have an active Goblin Welder), and I guess it can also generate two extra mana by tutoring for Black Lotus (also with Welder).  As in the examples I mentioned, I just don't see these being solutions to any big reasons why Belcher struggles and think that the deck probably has better options available.

[dataclone]

CardName: Hermit Druid
Cost: 1G
Type: Creature - Human Druid
Pow/Tgh: 1/1
Rules Text: G, T Reveal cards from the top of your library until you reveal a basic land card. Put that card into your hand and all other cards revealed this way into your graveyard.
Set/Rarity: Stronghold Rare

Hermit Druid has a powerful effect for 1GG but the card sees zero play in vintage. It is a one card engine:
Hermit Druid->Narcomoeba + Dread Return ->
Sutured Ghoul or infinite creatures with Karmic Guide+ Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker + Sky Hussar

World tutor is pretty nice tutor for both combo piece and utility in a hermit deck.

Angry Ghoul Bob Maher 2002 Pro Tour Houston 1.x

4  Bloodstained Mire
4  City of Brass
2  Darigaaz's Caldera
4  Forsaken City
4  Llanowar Wastes
1  Mountain
2  Reflecting Pool
1  Tarnished Citadel
1  Underground River
2  Anger
1  Avatar of Woe
4  Hermit Druid
1  Krosan Colossus
2  Sutured Ghoul
2  Verdant Force
2  Cabal Therapy
4  Duress
4  Entomb
4  Exhume
1  Krosan Reclamation
4  Mox Diamond
2  Reanimate
4  Vampiric Tutor

[Ancestralx]

Mystic Remora!!
Regrowth
Fire and Ice
Demonic Consultation

[reaperbong]

I'd be surprised to learn that people don't use Demonic Consultation, that's one of my all time favorites cards. I put it in every deck along with Vampiric, Demonic and Mystical Tutors.. Sure it'll lose you a game now and then but hey that's why it's called a demonic consultation right? 

[thorme]

I've seen plenty of mono-u lists - especially with the recent format changes - but I have yet to see one with Commandeer.  Seems like in mono-u with the cards to support it, there are lots of juicy targets that Mis-D can't touch.

I also definitely agree with those that have mentioned Manamorphose.  That's not seeing nearly enough play in Storm decks.

[nataz]

just a quick FYI -

meatbert over on the SCG forums had this list a while back.


Free Painter
3 Polluted Delta
3 Flooded Strand
3 Underground Sea
2 Tropical Island
3 Island
1 Black Lotus
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Pearl
2 Grindstone
4 Painter's Servant
1 Yawgmoth's Will
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Vampiric Tutor
4 Merchant Scroll
1 Time Walk
4 Commandeer
4 Force of Will
4 Gush - Edit: How could I leave out Gush!
4 Misdirection
2 Cunning Wish
1 Ancestral Recall
4 Brainstorm
1 Mystical Tutor
1 Fastbond
1 Regrowth

sideboard:
1 Research/Development - Extirpate on Servant
1 Extirpate
1 Deglamer - Oath, Chalice@1
1 Rebuild - Chalice@2
1 Echoing Truth - Warrens
4 Leyline of the Void - Flash/Ichorid
3 Pithing Needle / Ichorid

1 Tinker
2 DSC
or
Pithing Needle #4
Chain of Vapor
Hurkles Recall

Link:
Commandeer is finally broken!

http://forums.starcitygames.com/viewtopic.php?t=309877