Staple or Stinker with Taylor

Can a Yu-Gi-Oh! expert correctly identify which Magic cards are hot and which are not? We put Taylor to the test and gave him some tricky cards to evaluate. Tune in to find out how expertise in one game translates to another—or doesn't!

Here's our long-form Magic video of the week. If you still crave more material to watch, make sure to check out our shorts on YouTube!


Testing Taylor

The team picked a few particularly tricky cards for this challenge. Read all about the biggest staple of them all below!

A Short History of Necro

Necropotence first appeared on the highest competitive stage of Magic at the same time when that stage was first created. Leon Lindbäck made it to the semifinals at the inaugural Pro Tour in 1996 with the following build. Note that a few of its stranger card choices are due to the event's unique format: A modified form of Standard, then called "Type II" like the diabetes, required players to include a handful of cards from each legal set across their main deck and sideboard.

Necro by Leon Lindbäck, Top 4 at Pro Tour #1, 1996
Main DeckSideboard
  • 4
  • 3
  • 4
  •  
  • 1
  • 4
  • 4
  • 4
  • 1
  • 4
  • 2
  • 2
  • 1
  • 1
  • 1
  • 1
  •  
  • 2
  • 4
  • 17
  • 1
  • 1
  • 1
  • 1
  • 1
  • 1
  • 2
  • 1
  • 1
  • 1
  • 3
  • 1

Although Lindbäck was the sole player to reach the playoffs with "The Skull" then, the following months became known as the "Necro Summer" of 1996. Here's a more typical representative of the era, taken from that year's World Championship. There "only" three Necro decks placed in the Top 8, possibly because those eight were determined by eighteen rounds of Swiss, of which just six were Standard.

Necro by Scott Johns, Top 8 at Worlds 1996
Main DeckSideboard
  • 4
  • 4
  • 2
  •  
  • 3
  • 4
  • 3
  • 4
  • 4
  • 4
  • 3
  • 1
  • 1
  •  
  • 2
  • 4
  • 18
  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • 2
  • 4
  • 2
  • 1

Hymn to Tourach was subsequently restricted to one copy per deck, along with Strip Mine, but that did little to reign in the power of the dark side. At the very next Constructed Pro Tour, Necro claimed first, second, and third place.

Necro by Paul McCabe, Champion at Pro Tour Dallas 1996
Main DeckSideboard
  • 4
  • 1
  • 2
  •  
  • 2
  • 3
  • 4
  • 4
  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • 4
  • 4
  • 1
  • 1
  • 1
  •  
  • 2
  • 2
  • 1
  • 18
  • 1
  • 4
  • 3
  • 1
  • 1
  • 1
  • 3
  • 1

Necropotence rotated from Standard not long after, but the card wasn't done yet. At the very next Constructed Pro Tour, the first to feature the Extended format, Necro again came in first.

Necro by Randy Buehler, Champion at Pro Tour Chicago 1997
Main DeckSideboard
  • 1
  • 4
  • 4
  •  
  • 2
  • 4
  • 3
  • 3
  • 4
  • 8
  • 4
  • 4
  • 3
  • 4
  • 2
  • 4
  • 2
  • 4
  • 2
  • 1
  • 1
  • 3
  • 2
  • 3
  • 3

Necro took a hiatus during the infamous "Combo Winter" of 1998/99. But once the most egregious of the overpowered combo cards were banned from Extended, it returned to its former glory with a Pro Tour finals appearance.

Necro by Brian Davis, Finalist at Pro Tour Chicago 1999
Main DeckSideboard
  • 2
  •  
  • 4
  • 2
  •  
  • 18
  • 4
  • 4
  • 4
  • 4
  • 3
  • 4
  • 4
  • 3
  • 4
  • 2
  • 2
  • 2
  • 3
  • 3
  • 3

However, this same event became notable for a more insidious use of Necropotence: A small team of innovators realized how good the card was at helping assemble even a quirky three-piece combo. They took the "Pebbles" trio of Goblin Bombardment plus Enduring Renewal plus zero-mana creature and earned one Top 8 finish.

Necro "Pebbles" by Tony Dobson, Top 8 at Pro Tour Chicago 1999
Main DeckSideboard
  • 4
  • 4
  • 2
  •  
  • 4
  • 4
  • 3
  • 3
  • 1
  • 1
  • 4
  • 4
  • 4
  •  
  • 4
  • 4
  • 4
  • 4
  • 3
  • 3
  • 1
  • 3
  • 1
  • 2
  • 2
  • 4
  • 2

What even they did not realize: They shouldn't have bothered with this quirky three-piece combo because by this time there already existed a still quirky but far superior two-card combo! It merely required one blue enchantment to be followed by one blue sorcery later. This enchantment also happened to give you 20 life, which made it painfully easy to find the second combo component with Necropotence. Once players discovered Illusions/Donate, it quickly became the definitive best version of any Necro deck in history.

Necro Illusions/Donate by Scott McCord, Finalist at Grand Prix Philadelphia 2000
Main DeckSideboard
  • 4
  • 4
  • 4
  •  
  • 4
  • 3
  • 6
  • 4
  • 4
  • 4
  • 4
  • 4
  • 4
  • 4
  • 3
  • 2
  • 1
  • 1
  • 3
  • 2
  • 1
  • 3
  • 4
  • 2

This Necro deck, dubbed "Trix" according to the fashion of the day, never saw the bright light of the Pro Tour stage, in none of its iterations. It proved so powerful that it soon led to the banning of Dark Ritual and Mana Vault. However, the deck still ran fine enough on the mana acceleration of Mox Diamond, so eventually, after all these years, Necropotence was finally banned itself. Without Necro, Illusions/Donate was never the same, but the duo would still go on to win the very next Extended Pro Tour in a monoblue shell.