Top 10 Most USELESS Magic Cards

I dunno, 2/2 first strike for 3 is of course not very good especially by modern standards, but "most useless" that card is not. It's still a 2/2 first strike creature after all. Wood elemental, which is lower on the list is far worse, and so is Egotist (which is at its best 2/2 for 3 without first strike). The fact that it has an ability that it's kinda irrelevant most of the time doesn't really make it most useless, there's worse creatures than that.

Master of Arms is still a 3 mana 2/2 with first strike, strictly better than any 3 mana vanilla 2/2

Gonna agree with the chorus here. Master of Arms is definitely not useless. There's a difference in saying its ABILITY is useless vs the whole card being useless. A 3 mana 2/2 with First Strike may not be amazing, but that baseline alone puts it leagues above everything else on this list. Genuinely no reason to include it, especially since the useless ability happened due to a rules change, which means the card isn't even being judged fairly for the intended design space it originally had.

Scornful Egotist is definitely the best card on the list. The reason it has such high CMC is because Scourge (The block it originated from) had a mechanic where CMC matters (Such as the card "Torment of Fire") so being able to "cheat out" an 8 CMC card for 4 mana was actually somewhat useful. The card is still terrible, but does have some niche use with cards that care about CMC

How is Master at Arms the worst of all of these? Even if its ability does nothing these days, it's still a 2/2 with first strike for 3 mana. Not great by any stretch of the imagination by today's standards, but at least it's something. Even without its ability, a first striker with that power and toughness for that CMC wasn't terrible for the time it was printed in. It is terrible now, but so are many other (very similarly statted) cards from back then. Bad card, but not nearly as bad as most of the others on this list. Surely not deserving of the top spot in a top 10 list of useless cards.

Aw face it guys, it's just a 1/1 for 8 mana! Not only that, bu-ALL HAIL THE GREAT LORD EGOTIST!!!

Nine-Ringed Bo is meant to interact with the Soulshift mechanic from original Kamigawa block to prevent it from triggering and getting your opponent a spirit back when a creature with Soulshift dies. Mudhole was meant to turn off Threshold which was in Odyssey block.

I think the more accurate title of the video would be "Top 10 Most WORTHLESS Effects and Abilities of Magic Cards." That way, I can see why Master of Arms is number 1. Regarding Scornful Egotist, it's meant to synergize with cards that work better with higher mana values, like Rush of Knowledge and Calibrated Blast. But considering cards with higher yet self-reducing costs exist that have strong abilities, like Earthquake Dragon and Shadow of Mortality, it does become useless in hindsight.

Like, which would you rather have in your deck, Great Wall or Master of Arms? An actively useless Enchantment or a 2/2 First Strike?

Scornful Egotist DOES have a use. In the set it was printed (Scourge), several cards cared about mana cost, and this got you an 8 cost for 3 mana. For example, with SE on the board, Torrent of Fire would deal 8 damage to any target, or Rush of Knowledge would let you draw 8 cards. It still wasn't that good (Both of those cards cost 5 mana, meaning it's a total of 9 mana for either effect, even if you can play it turn 5 with no acceleration), but it did do the thing it was meant to do.

That #1 is... contentious. The card as a whole is ok, it's just the activated ability that serves no purpose. Certainly better than the #2 that actively hinders you.

I do not understand how master of arms is "useless". Sure, it's ability is bad nowadays, but it's still a 2/2 body with First Strike for a reasonable cost. It actually adds to the board. Would you play it? Of course not. But it's still so much better than so many other cards that do nothing for your board state (like Fasting)

I think the point of Break Open is to mess with morph creatures that have a triggered ability when turned face up that is only useful when used at the right moment. Not much use for a Voidmage Apprentice if it's flipped when the stack is empty. Of course, they'd get even less use out of it if you just Shock it instead. Costs a mana less too.

Mudhole is good in izzet delver decks against lands decks trying to put together Marit Lage with Life from the Loam, Dark Depths & Thespian Stage, and other dredge decks that mill themselves then use Splendid Reclamation to put themselves way ahead in the curve. I'm surprised One With Nothing wasn't on this list.

It's kinda disappointing that Wizards didn't errata Master of Arms to make its ability prevent the creature it tapped from dealing combat damage this turn, since that's clearly what it was meant to do.

Master of arms at the very least allows you to tap a creature you need tapped for you to use an spells that interact with tapped creatures. You could have a scenario where you need to tap Atraxa who has vigilance so you can flash in wandering emperor so you can exile them. It might be niche but it has an actual USE.

I should note why Egotist exists — Scourge had a “high CMC matters”, with cards like Ancient Ooze, Dispersal Shield, Rush of Knowledge, Kurgadon, and the Dragon aura cycle all benefiting from playing creatures with CMC 6 or more (or “mana value” in today’s parlance I guess, still not gonna get used to that), so Egotist actually had a purpose in the Limited environment as an enabler for those cards you could cheat in with Morph. Also can’t see why Master of Arms, a 2/2 first strike for 3, is ahead of something like Wood Elemental which is perhaps the worst Magic card of all time.

eldraine and the modern horizons block need their own apocalypse chimes

Mudhole was printed back when Block Constructed was still a thing, and when one of the stronger lands in the block -- Riftstone Portal -- only did something if it got itself into the graveyard somehow. There was also a cycle of lands that sacked themselves for effect when you hit threshold (Cabal Pit, Cephalid Coliseum) and could be recurred by the reprinted Cartographer. Mudhole didn't need to cost that much mana and didn't need to be a rare, but it wasn't an unreasonable card at the time it was printed.

I'm surprised that One With Nothing isn't on this list. It's not a mistake but that's usually the go to "useless" Magic card.