HELLO! I WRI... I... I MAKE...

BYE BYE


I know what you're thinking. "There's no such thing as an objectively best card, otherwise everyo--".

Well you're wrong! The perfect card exists! And it's Thalia, Guardian of Thraben.


a) Name a format. Go ahead. You can play her to success there.

Decks playing Thalia on mtggoldfish. We can see decklists featuring her in Standard, Pioneer, Modern, Legacy and Commander.

b) Despite a), she remains affordable thanks to plentiful printings!

Current prices on scryfall, around 1 USD. Feel free to proxy if that's still above your budget for a cardboard rectangle, but for a competitively played card, that's impressive!

c) Despite a), she is not an oppressive presence in any format.

ℹ️ Note

I'd put something here but that sounds like a lot of effort to prove so, like, just trust me on this one.

d) She's good pressure in the early game without unreasonably accelerating the formats she's in.

Right, I haven't even said what the card does yet. 2 mana for a 2/1 first strike that makes all non-creature spells cost 1 more -- cheap!

e) She keeps a check on non-creature combo decks, like Storm.

Thalia staring down Pyretic Ritual, a burst mana instant used in Storm decks. Wait, what's the definition of a combo deck again?

f) She's not an auto-include in every deck that plays white, because the effect affects the player controlling Thalia as well.

Thalia staring down Declaration in Stone, a white removal spell. I would have used Path to Exile, but if you paid for Thalia you can pay two mana for the taxed Path to Exile so that felt a bit weird.

g) She's got a variety of phenomenal artwork.

The Mina Harker alternate version of Thalia, from Magali Villeneuve

BW version of Thalia, from Cabrol

The original, from Jana Schirmer and Johannes Voss

Look at these! Incredible art all around.

Alright, that's all I got. Thanks for coming to my TED talk!!


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