This one's just for fun, party people. We all know what the top power cards are, but imagine you started in 1993, took a 20+-year hiatus from MTG, and suddenly you were learning about the innumerable cards that have been produced since 1995 (which is my personal experience, incidentally). What would be the Top Five most ubiquitous and powerful cards produced since Alliances (i.e. Force of Will)? Here's my initial assessment after a few months of memorizing all that I can on "Gatherer" and spending a ridiculous amount of money trying to catch up on MTG: Yawgmoth's Will, Tolarian Academy, Gush, Tinker, and Cavern of Souls.

For extra context, I'll just say that Homelands basically "inspired" me to give up on MTG because WoTC seemed to indicate with that particular set that there would never again be any real game-changing cards for Type 1. Coming back to the game over 20 years later I'm so impressed with some of these power-Vintage "broken" cards and I'm just curious as to how you kids would rank them. Note that I could have mentioned something like Tarmagoyf, Show and Tell, or Mentor, but I stand by my Top Five for the moment.

Tolarian Academy, Trinisphere, Wasteland, Cavern of Souls, every creature that was errata'd to be a human.

1. Yawgmoth's Will
2. Tolarian Academy
3. Monastery Mentor
4. Lodestone Golem
5. Trinisphere/Jace the Mind Sculptor

I'm going for raw power here. I think it is too early to determine if Monastery Mentor is one of the most broken.

Yawgmoth's Will
Tolarian Academy
Mind's Desire
Trinisphere
Tinker

I think any of the above unrestricted would conpletely warp the metagame. Mentor/Pyromancer might be doing that already, though.

1. Force of Will
2. Sphere effects
3. Golgari Grave-Troll (and the entire dredge deck)
4. Oath of Druids / Flash (and the 10000 enormous creatures that have been printed)
5. Jace, the Mindsculptor / Other Planeswalkers and the Power Creep of Creatures.

While in '95 certainly some of the most powerful restricted cards were printed, barely any of the cards that really define our format had been printed yet.

I would actually rank tolarian Academy higher than ywill. And I think bridge from below, the delve spells and mental misstep definitely should earn on spot in the list as well.
It's hard just picking 5 cards abstractly. I think you should more focus on a list of cards that have warped the format fundamentally since then.

Are we calculating the integral a of the power functions of cards over time to determine this?

@JuzamJim Lodestone Golem is no where near the first 2 cards you listed; it's not even funny. I've beaten turn 1 Lodestone Golem plenty of times, and Yawgmoth's Will almost always wins the game or gets the opponent so far ahead playing out the rest of the turns is trivial.

@spook I actually explicitly calculated the Wiener integral over the whole metagame space considering each card as a continuous functional representing its individual power.

Stupid analogies aside, obviously this is nothing more than watercooler talk.

Yawgmoth's Will
Tinker
Lodestone Golem
Gush
Tendrils of Agony

I'll go with what I see as the current pillars of the format. The cards that anchor almost every deck in the format. Almost any other card has replacements or nearly-as-good substitutes; these really dont.

Gush
Yawgmoths will
Mishra Workshop
Bazaar of Bagdad
Thalia, Guardian of Thraben

There is a lot of bleeding between the first two categories, though.

@vaughnbros said:

1. Force of Will
2. Sphere effects
3. Golgari Grave-Troll (and the entire dredge deck)
4. Oath of Druids / Flash (and the 10000 enormous creatures that have been printed)
5. Jace, the Mindsculptor / Other Planeswalkers and the Power Creep of Creatures.

While in '95 certainly some of the most powerful restricted cards were printed, barely any of the cards that really define our format had been printed yet.

I'd argue they'd all been printed already.

@nedleeds What do you mean?

The prompt specifically mentions Alliances and Force of Will being an option.

He means without Black Lotus, Moxen, Acall/Time Walk/Twister, Bazaar, Dark Ritual, and Workshop, that cards mentioned here would not be nearly as broken as they are.

Would be fun to compile a poll on this.

Yawgmoth's Will
Tolarian Academy
Tinker
Mental Misstep
Monastery Mentor

Fetchlands
Oath of Druids
Brainstorm
Mental Misstep
Wasteland

@vaughnbros said:

@nedleeds What do you mean?

The prompt specifically mentions Alliances and Force of Will being an option.

He said since Alliances. But I disagree with your statement

"barely any of the cards that really define our format had been printed yet."

The cards that make Vintage unique were printed before even Alliances. Force of Will is a Legacy staple. The fast mana, big blue, tutor and the busted Arabian and Antiquities lands are what define Vintage. Everything else revolves around them. Academy is busted because of artifact mana, Will is busted because of fast mana and rituals all printed before 1995.

@nedleeds That's fine you can disagree. The only cards that were printed at that point that really see regular play in our format at this point are lands, power, and a some other fast mana. Nearly everything that you play with that mana didn't exist yet. The namesake card in every deck, storm, dredge, gush, oath, ect. didn't exist.