The Best Magic: the Gathering Plays of All Time

Magic's had some amazing moments over the past 30 years. Here are the best plays ever caught on tape!

#MTG #magicthegathering

[profdouglas]

As iconic as most of these plays are, the tendrils play should be further up as a “best” play because it is skillful manipulation of information and intent, not just lucky topdecks and a strong reaction

[Zdarkete]

The class with which Kibler bites down his frustration and offers the handshake is unmatched. One of the greatest.

[asms]

I would have also included LSV's Settle the Wreckage bluff in this list because it's one of the best mind games that's ever been caught on camera.

[karatehh]

battle of wits is by far in a way the craziest thing ive ever seen happen in a pro magic setting. Him sitting in front of his 240 card deck so quaint with an emrakul sitting across from him is priceless😭😭😭

[eXJonSnow]

Feels like more a "most iconic plays" list instead of a "best plays, " since some of these are pure luck. Still a good vid, nonetheless

[SlasherGaming]

8:15 "..the testicular fortitude to just go through with that play.." A1 commentary from Cedric 🤣🤣

[bobboberson]

The actual greatest play is the "anatomy lesson" play by Tomohiro Kaji vs Celso Zampere. In top 4 of Pro Tour Charleston 2006 decklists were public, so he memorized his opponents' decklists. In the finals vs Zampere he casts mimeofracture, which allows him to search his opponent's deck. Since he knew Zampere's exact decklist, he counted out the cards knowing that any missing cards were the ones Zampere had in hand. Kaji won the match and thus the pro tour.

[pga]

Cool to see all the lucky draws.... but I wanted to see more 300 IQ plays! The storm one was awesome.

[windy]

The icing on the cake to the Ignite Memories moment is that on Nassif’s turn, he goes;
Lotus Bloom from exile off suspend
Rift Bolt from exile
Rite of Flame
Grapeshot
Ignite Memories for five. The exact same storm count of Memories he just survived.
And what was Chapin’s hand?
Two copies of Bogardan Hellkite (and 8-drop) and a Dragonstorm (a 9-drop), leaving him dead to the exact same spell, at the exact same Storm count Nassif survived.
Man, Time Spiral-Onslaught standard, the time when Dragonstorm was a competitive, top-tier card. What a world.

[ryandietrich]

The Patrick Sullivan match is my favorite magic video of all time. But what makes it the absolute best, is the commentary provided by Cedric and Patrick Chapin.

Mr. Chapin, in that moment showed how brilliant he is, not just for recognizing the situation, but so eloquently describing it to us in real time.

Mr. Chapin then goes on to talk about how people should study Mr. Sullivan’s performance. I argue people should also look to possibly the greatest coverage and analysis provided by Mr. Chapin.

I love this video and rewatch it any time I need something to inspire me.

[blastedman]

Patrick Sullivan vs Ross Merriam literally got me into Burn as an archetype. Long live Price of Progress!

[GamerFlair]

The Justice/Long scene is painful to watch. Like literally, right at the start you can see there is at least one if not more cards that are upside down. In an unsleeved deck.

The cards are very marked. This is kind of just classic old school magic, it was alot about being good at cheating. Part of the reason for the really aggressive shuffling of your opponents decks was to try and "unmark" the cards by changing the marks on them. Check the way Long looks at the back of the cards as he repeatedly counts his deck, before casting a prosperity for nowhere close to the number of cards left in his deck. His not checking to make sure he doesn't deck himself, his checking for how deep the bloom is to make sure he draws deep enough to get it.

The whole act, whilst not super useful in this setting, maintains a character that helps cheating. Theres a huge amount of misdirection happening that in a non-final setting would allow a huge amount of manipulation to happen with card switching etc.

[asms]

The Patrick Sullivan RDW game is the textbook example of why RDW has a low skill floor but a high skill ceiling. Yeah it's easy to dump your hand and full swing every turn, but predicting and navigating around your opponent's interaction so your tiny little shitty creatures and burn comes out on top requires top tier game knowledge.

[kylegleason]

4:02 The effeciency of shaking two hands at once.

[NeoSamurai]

It was cool to see some of these moments, though I’ll be honest, it wasn’t what I expected based on the title. Many of these moments were memorable, but mostly just because of RNG, ie the right card being top decked, or lucking out on ignite memories. Based on the title, I would have expected videos of high skill plays, like the burn game, LSV’s Settle the Wreckage bluff, or the Selsnya/Golgari Charm play. I hope we can get a video like that! I bet there are some great ones many people don’t remember.

[RayearthIX]

Though some of these are "good plays", a lot of these are more "heart of the cards" moments rather than plays, as they are just the player getting lucky and top decking the exact card they needed.

[traviscochran]

I know it's not pro play, but Frank Karsten's 5-0 Fact or Fiction pile Blood Oath bluff into the repeat for lethal on the Card Market channel is one of the craziest moments I've seen in Magic.

[TheMailman]

23:00 watch Mike Long count cards for mana, then pop a card right back into his hand.

Classic Mike Long

[Frogunity]

The french commentary in the Long-Justice final is hilarious man : "You think they'll still talk to each other after this?" "I don't think so" 22:47

[jorism]

How is Frank Karsten's fail to find with gifts ungiven not in here?