My Top 5 Reprints in Magic Origins, Part One

Part One of my Standard Pauper review of Magic Origins has been published over at PureMTGO, and I am hard at work on Part Two, which will cover all of the reprints in the set. As is fitting for a set that is looking back to the origins of some of the game's iconic Planeswalkers, Magic Origins features 42 reprints at Common, not including the additional ones in the sample decks. So I thought this week I would take a couple of posts and examine my top five favorite reprints from the set, at least from my initial evaluation. Also, just for reference, I'm ignoring any reprints that we currently already have in the Standard Pauper cardpool.

1. By far my favorite of the reprints is Celestial Flare. With so many White protection spells (such as Gods Willing) in the format right now, it's wonderful to at last have a removal spell that sidesteps them. Celestial Flare is also our only real answer against Hexproof creatures, making it an invaluable weapon to have in our arsenal.  While the double White casting cost can be prohibitive, mana fixing remains good enough that most of the time that won't be too much of a problem. Additionally, it can be risky to rely only on this for removal, as it does absolutely nothing against utility creatures that don't need to attack or block to be effective.

2. Nantuko Husk last saw print as an Uncommon in 9th edition, so the fact that it's returning as a Common in Magic Origins is a big boon to the format. There is somewhat of a tokens subtheme in the set already, and with the excellent token generators that currently exist in Standard Pauper, it should be trivial to pump up this creature to enormous size. The fact that it's also a 2/2 for 2B is also noteworthy, since it's already borderline playable even without its ability. We haven't seen much in the way of Aggro in Black as of late, but I suspect that this card will change that. It's certainly powerful enough to be worth building around.

What other cards are you excited to see back in Magic Origins? Let me know in the comments below. Next time, I'll finish up with the rest of my Top 5 Reprints in Magic Origins.