What does it mean to be the best card ever?

What is the greatest Magic: the Gathering card ever? We’ve been voting for ages now, but the criteria is still up in the air. Are we asking about the strongest? The prettiest? The coolest? The funniest? I’d like to propose the following:

The best Magic: the Gathering card ever is the one with the most functional and healthiest design and development within the context of the game of Magic: the Gathering.

“Healthiest” rather than “Most powerful” means that a card should make the game a better one for being in it, not a worse one. Cards like Black Lotus, Ancestral Recall, and Time Walk are polling popularly for sheer power level and name, but these are not well designed or developed cards. They’re too powerful, warp the game, and needed to be removed from it as a result. Black Lotus may be wonderful on its own, but if it were to actually be allowed, it would be bad for Magic: the Gathering as an experience. This doesn’t just apply to the Power Nine. In Standard recently, Smuggler’s Copter had to be banned for just being far too strong at what it did. This would lead someone to conclude that Smuggler’s Copter is a very good card, and in the context of an individual game, it is, but it was bad for the Standard format and thus had to be removed for overall health. This isn’t to say all bans mean the card itself is a problem. Felidar Guardian and Splinter Twin are both banned due to their ability to go infinite with other, specific cards, not because they’re individually too powerful.

For this reason, it should be safe to say that any card that has been banned primarily for raw power (rather than combo potential) is right out. This isn’t to say you can’t argue with the ban list, but that if you’re going to agree that Modern and Legacy are better without Deathrite Shaman, then you need to accept that Deathrite Shaman is bad for the game, and thus not an appropriate card to vote for.

Along similar lines, certain cards that are acceptable in older formats still aren’t the healthiest, just don’t need to be banned. Lightning Bolt and Path to Exile are both obviously a bit stronger than they should be, and running them is basically required in Modern if they’re in your color. They’re not destroying the game and I would never argue they need to be banned, but they’re still strong enough that it’s unreasonable to not run them, which lowers deck diversity and and makes the game just a bit less interesting. Of course, a Best Card Ever does need to see play, or it’s not actually good at all, and there’s a fine line here between what’s banworthy like Deathrite Shaman, what’s a bit too good like Snapcaster Mage, and what’s great but fine like Young Pyromancer. This part is mostly subjective, but it’s something to keep in mind while voting.

The last thing I want to talk about is mana cost. Mana cost is an important part of Magic: the Gathering design and what makes the game tick entirely. If the card in question isn’t being played for its mana cost (including a card that counts cost like Aether Vial or a card that just reduces costs like Goblin Warchief), then it’s not the good card. Emrakul, the Aeons Torn and Griselbrand have a lot of big numbers, but as players reliably avoid paying their costs, the power doesn’t lie in them. If you use Show and Tell to play Emrakul, the Aeons Torn, that’s not a point for Emrakul. It’s a point for Show and Tell. Show and tell is the power here. Emrakul may look nice, and may be the best finisher with Show and Tell, but Show and Tell, Sneak Attack, and similar cards can work great with any heavy hitter.

So, when voting in the @mtgbracket , I implore you : Consider both health of a game and a card’s individual balance when deciding what you want to call the “Best Card Ever.”