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When it comes to Magic: The Gathering, the word ‘powerful’ is fairly subjective. It generally comes down to what decks require certain cards, or how frequently cards show up in a deck archetype. Of course, this list is subjective, and other players’ lists might vary wildly. Nevertheless, all of these cards were amazing in one way or another, making them a must-use across Magic: The Gathering decks.
Every card may feel overpowered to one player or another, and that's perfectly fine. The five cards listed here are incredibly useful, and while not all of them are ban-worthy levels of power, they're all cards that are worth running in your decks.
The following article was written out after spending a fair amount of time thinking about which cards were the most powerful over the course of the year, across different formats and deck builds.
What were the best Magic: The Gathering cards of 2022?
5) Tenacious Underdog
When it came to Standard, this was a must-use if you’re running Black in your Magic: The Gathering deck. Blitz was such an interesting keyword, and perhaps Tenacious Underdog uses it better than any other card to come out of Streets of New Capenna. Tenacious Underdog is a solid card that can be brought out at a low mana cost and can keep coming back over and over.
A 3 power, 2 toughness Magic: The Gathering card that can be played again for 2BB and paying 2 life, anytime it’s in the graveyard, is certainly an incredible option. You can keep playing and attacking with it, as long as you have the required cost. This card has singlehandedly forced numerous players to opt for graveyard hate cards, in order to stop it from returning and being a pest.
4) Reckoner Bankbuster
Reckoner Bankbuster was one of the most commonly used cards in the entirety of Standard for Magic: The Gathering in 2022. It was played across 77% of decks in general, and boasted an average of 3.2 appearances per deck. That’s a huge amount of decks that ran this card because it could. A 4 power, 4 toughness Vehicle that comes into play for 2 is pretty massive.
It has a Crew Cost of 3, which isn’t unreasonable. You could remove one of its charge counters for 2 mana and then tap it, which would allow you to draw a card. If it has no charge counters, you create a Treasure Token, and a 1 power, 1 colorless Pilot creature. This creature can crew Vehicles as if it had 2 more power, allowing it to crew this card by itself.
While it takes time to build up, it also facilitates card draw, and in a few turns, you have an amazing artifact creature that you can just bully your opponents with.
3) Hullbreaker Horror
If you were running a control deck in 2022, the odds are fairly high that you were going to include this rare Kraken Horror. It’s an amazing win condition, and it locks down the board. You can also play it on your opponent’s turn, since this Magic: The Gathering creature has Flash. Besides these points, it cannot be countered as well.
With 7 power, 8 toughness, it’s a strong Blue beater to just push damage through after locking down the board. Anytime you cast a spell, with this card in play, you can return a spell that you don’t control to its owner’s hand, or return a nonland permanent to its owner’s hand. You can counter a spell and bounce one of their permanents back out of play.
Whether you choose the only remaining blocker or an annoying token, Hullbreaker Horror offers major value. It should be noted that if you bounce a token back to a player’s hand, then that token’s gone forever.
2) Fable of the Mirror Breaker
This saga was overwhelmingly strong in 2022 when it came to Magic: The Gathering decks. Although it isn’t as strong as Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker, it’s fairly useful in other ways. To deal with it once it’s transformed, you have to remove the token that it creates, and the card itself. If this isn't done, more tokens will be created.
The saga itself creates a creature token that creates Treasure Tokens, lets you discard/draw, and then becomes a completely different card at the end, Reflection of Kiki-Jiki. Being a 2 power, 2 toughness enchantment creature, you can tap 1 and it to create a token of a non-legendary creature, except it will also have haste.
However, you will have to sacrifice it at the end of the next end step. There are far too many creatures that gain immediate value by making a copy of it. It allows you to generate value at every single turn. The longer that it’s in play, the safer your aggressive moves are. It’s an amazing card, but it’s certainly not the best card of the year.
1) Sheoldred, the Apocalypse
As many may have expected, the top card is Sheoldred, the Apocalypse. The mono-black Praetor is a 4 power, 5 toughness creature with Deathtouch. The moment she’s in play, you absolutely have to kill her right away. If you don’t, this particular card can make life incredibly hard for any player.
Whenever you draw a card, you gain 2 life and whenever an opponent draws a card, they lose 2 life. If you make your opponents draw cards, they will easily be defeated. Alternatively, you can build a control deck and simply wait for your opponent to defeat themselves.
If your opponent decides they want to keep drawing to find answers for her, they’re only going to harm themselves. This powerful card was featured in several decks across Standard and Commander, and a multitude of digital formats like Explorer. Sheoldred, the Apocalypse was easily the best Magic: The Gathering card of the year.
Interestingly, there were other cards worth mentioning, such as the format-warping Ledger Shredder, and the amazing Channel lands that came through Kamigawa: Neon Dynasty. For my money, though, these cards were powerful enough to be considered the best of the year, primarily in the Standard setting.
