Have cheap +1 CA draw spells really "aged out" of the format?

[3drinks]

I keep noticing a trend where more and more people keep saying that night's whisper|5dn and phyrexian arena|apc "aren't worth the slot" any more. Now, I'm a grinder, I'll sit back and generate value over time and cards like night's whisper (and the amazingly efficient Deadly Dispute) have long been staples of my play. I've always been of the mindset that not everything can be a bomb and you need to play the unsexy mechanical cards in order to actually play the sexy synergy cards. I find myself wondering, if maybe I'm wrong these days and all the Preordain|brc adjacent cards are "too low iMPACT" these days, as the kids say.

Why/why not? I think this is a good conversation to have and I can't wait to read it all.

[duducrash]

I still really like Night's Whisper, because we get it immediately. I dont like Arena as much as I once did because games are less turns nowadays. While in the past we had several rotations and draws, not so much anymore.I do Like Morbid Opportunist

[DirkGently]

You've mentioned 3 cards that do pretty different things. Night's Whisper is +1 card, but Phyrexian Arena is +??? cards, depending how long it stays in play, and Preordain is +0 cards with selection for 1 mana. Each of these sorts of cards could really be discussed separately.

Arena is probably the most "aged out" insofar as games have gotten faster, but I think it depends a lot on what your plan is for the game. If you're a slow grindy control deck, I think it's just fine. If you're an aggro or combo deck, probably no so much. It also depends on the meta you play within and how fast you expect games to be, if your opponents have their way. If you get can 3 upkeeps I'd say the card has done its job, at 4+ you've gotten extra value. And ofc you have to factor in games where you draw it late and it does nothing or doesn't get cast. Personally I still like it, but I do tend to play grindy control decks.

Preordain I think a lot of people like, but personally is the sort of thing I generally don't play unless my deck gets value from casting spells. It doesn't take a lot, but I want to get something beyond the selection. I think those sorts of small card selection spells perform better in 60 card because the scope is a lot smaller, and you're a lot more likely to be looking for a particular card right now. Whereas commander games are longer, threats are less apparent and more numerous. Most of the game you usually won't have something specific that you need - while some things might be better to draw than others, for most of the game, most cards you draw should be pretty useful, or else you probably shouldn't be playing them.

Night's Whisper is...fine? The two life doesn't hurt very much in this format, so that's good, but personally I'm not that big on small draw spells. If you build your deck around small draw and hoping to chain one into the other, you have to sacrifice a lot more deck space, and you run the risk of drawing too many or too few. Whereas with an engine, you've kinda solved the problem, to some degree, once you've drawn it. That also opens the door to using tutors to find those engines, whereas using a tutor for a night's whisper is a waste of mana. I can imagine night's whisper being viable in a deck that wants to end the game quickly and doesn't need very much draw, but those don't tend to be the sorts of decks that work in an average commander game.

[Mookie]

Hmmm... there are two reasons I'll call out why cards like Phyrexian Arena and Night's Whisper have fallen out of favor, at least in my own decks.

The first reason is synergy. I still run small draw spells in decks that have synergy for those spells - my Kess and Mizzix decks have a bunch of reasons to care about instants and sorceries, so they're happy to run Gitaxian Probe, Expressive Iteration, and Consider. On the flip side, my Teysa deck leans towards creature synergies, so it prefers Fell Stinger and Morbid Opportunist over Night's Whisper or Phyrexian Arena. Why run a card that 'only' draws two cards when I could run something that draws two cards plus does something else? The card pool has gotten deeper over time, so while it may have once been necessary to run all the 'premium' draw spells available, most decks now have more specialized options available.

The second reason is that play patterns have changed. As a baseline, if you want to play a land and cast a spell every turn, you need to be drawing two cards a turn... but most of my decks want to be casting 2+ spells per turn. That requires even more card draw - a deck that is primarily running +1 CA spells will need to cast one every turn, which is pretty inefficient (and inconsistent). As a result, most of my decks either run bigger draw spells (4+ cards) to refill their hand every few turns, or they run incremental draw engines that either don't require mana to operate or are otherwise extremely efficient.

I'll also call out that if you're running a commander that directly generate card advantage or can otherwise serve as a mana sink, you may not even need additional card draw. To me, the raw number of cards in hand doesn't matter as much as making sure I always have agency in the game, which usually means having 3-4 options to spend my mana on. More options beyond that number yields diminishing returns.

[PrimevalCommander]

I want to make one comment about one-shot draw compared to over-time draw that has me questioning the MAX SYNERGY mindset that I have acquired.

Story Time:
My meta is typically removal light, which allows me to do very well being one of the only players at the table running much interaction. However when my friend from back home comes to visit, he is like me, and plays a plethora of removal. He has a very specific strategy of not using removal to target threats, as many players do. He focuses almost all of his energy in targeting Draw Engines. This strategy has been particularly good against my decks now that rely on having an engine in place to start churning value. Instead of casting Harmonize or Painful Truths and getting on with things, I'm casting Elemental Bond and Morbid Opportunist, which has MUCH higher potential to draw cards. However if these cards were to eat a quick removal spell, then I gain no cards and struggle in the early game.

Now turnabout is fair play, and I have returned the favor whenever possible. However he also really likes commanders with "Draw a Card" printed on them, and I like a little more of a challenge than that. So he recasts his commander and chugs right along while I'm put quite a bit further behind. This is a self-inflicted limitation where I find card advantage engines in the command zone very linear. Commander says [do thing] to draw cards, so [do thing] as many times as possible until I win is a bit anticlimactic unless it is a really unusual thing I'm doing.

Moral of the story, I'm wondering if adding a Rishkar's Expertise and Stinging Study to some of my decks as a hedge against this strategy is better for my plan, but probably the real answer is just have a higher awareness of this issue and plan my turns accordingly. Also don't overextend, because I expect the board to be wiped once or twice every time he it in the pod.

I'm still soft on Night's Whisper just because I like my draw spells to give me a bit bigger boost, unless I'm specifically wanting to play many low cost spells for storm, graveyard fill, or other specific purpose. Give me Stinging Study to draw 6 and power me through the mid game instead of drawing 2 looking for that next land drop in my land light hand that I should have mulliganed away.

[TheGildedGoose]

It depends on whether your deck wants to be sculpting its hand, developing its mana, or establishing a board state early on. Cantrips and other small draw effects are best in control and to a lesser extent combo that typically want to spend their time getting a good hand together.

[Sinis]

I've always been of the mindset that not everything can be a bomb and you need to play the unsexy mechanical cards in order to actually play the sexy synergy cards.

A set of people I know call these 'vegetable cards'. You have to play them; you might not want to, but you gotta or things aren't going to go smoothly.

I'm torn on them. I tend to like my memories of them in 60 card formats (like Brainstorm in Legacy), and some of the mechanical bits carry over well (like contributing to Delve, etc.). But, I find cantrips are not as effective in Commander because 100 card singleton is just less consistent and the smoothing out from a Ponder (or emergency dig from Impulse) is not going to be as significant.

As for CA+1 cards like Night's Whisper... they have to be in the right deck. If I'm playing a slow grindy control deck and I'm not spitting out that many cards each turn, Night's Whisper or Read the Bones are my weapons of choice. They get me the kind of advantage I want while being relatively tempo-low. People continually crow that Phyrexian Arena is dead, but... I still play it in the decks that are planning on playing a long game, and it still draws me more than a Painful Truths in those situations.

For proactive decks that want to just dump cards onto the table and get into the game right away, 'higher impact' spells are more worth it. Promise of Power, Rishkar's Expertise, and 'big reloads' are definitely the way to go, and cards like Sign in Blood aren't going to do enough. I think because ramp decks fall into this category and are tremendously common, you have people who undervalue cantrips and CA+1 cards because they happen to not be good for that deck. Ramp decks are going to want the huge reloads; you can't fuel effective throughput on a Burgeoning with a Night's Whisper.

[3drinks]

...The card pool has gotten deeper over time, so while it may have once been necessary to run all the 'premium' draw spells available, most decks now have more specialized options available.

The second reason is that play patterns have changed...

So while we used to run Sign in Blood, Night's Whisper, Read the Bones, we really need to be getting a +2 out of non-permanent draw to keep up with today's power creep, if I'm reading this right. And my magic boomer ass is resisting that change cause "BaCk In My DaY, this is how we always did it". You're not really wrong, I've noticed how much Morbid Opportunist out-performs any draw that isn't a Damnable Pact, and for far less mana than any of them. To this end, I should be playing Painful Truths over Night's Whisper in 3c+ decks...but I think what you're saying and I could be reading too far between the lines here, is that Night's Whisper and their ilk generally speaking aren't bad because they still do the thing, but they have a lower ceiling to similar newer cards and so in an optimization mindset the new is better. But sticking to the ol' tried and true doesn't necessarily mean you're playing a bad deck.

...I'm wondering if adding a Rishkar's Expertise and Stinging Study...

I must have missed this card in the avalanche of spoilers cause I should be playing that in Dargo. five to draw a new grip at instant is a good rate, and I don't muck with my companion to do it. I don't do much with high mv dudes, but this would be the deck it out performs in.

[Mookie]

To this end, I should be playing Painful Truths over Night's Whisper in 3c+ decks...but I think what you're saying and I could be reading too far between the lines here, is that Night's Whisper and their ilk generally speaking aren't bad because they still do the thing, but they have a lower ceiling to similar newer cards and so in an optimization mindset the new is better. But sticking to the ol' tried and true doesn't necessarily mean you're playing a bad deck.

Yeah, pretty much this. Pure card draw is still fine, it just has a lower ceiling. On the flip side, it also has a higher floor. The downside of synergy is variance - if you don't have all your synergy pieces together, then the cards that are reliant on them to function will underperform, or not do anything at all.

• If you run Night's Whisper, you're going to draw two cards every time - it has almost zero variance (ignoring if you're on low life or Notion Thief).
• If you run Deadly Dispute, you'll get two mana and a treasure at instant speed, which is a higher upside... but you can't cast it at all if you don't have something to sacrifice.
• If you run Morbid Opportunist, then some percent of the time you'll go crazy with it and draw 4+ cards... but sometimes it will die before you draw any cards with it, or maybe you just don't have any other creatures to sacrifice.

A well-built deck will maximize the probability of cards reaching the ceiling and minimize the probability of those cards underperforming, but it's impossible to reduce the fail rate to zero. As a result, while I would say synergistic cards generally have a higher expected value, it's reasonable to run less synergy-dependent cards if you're particularly risk-averse or in a meta with lots of disruption. Alternatively, just run tutors instead. I think power creep has resulted in the standard rates for draw spells going up a bit over time (compare Night's Whisper vs Expressive Iteration), but it's still possible to run the older options.

[pokken]

Night's Whisper behave a lot more like Ponder than it does like Phyrexian Arena

Personally, I am extremely high on "1-2 cmc spell that fixes low land hands" because having low land hands is the most unfun thing in the game--it means you might just not be playing.

These are things like Sensei's Divining Top, Ponder, Night's Whisper, Tithe, Oath of Nissa, Satyr Wayfinder, even Wall of Omens.

Whether I run these cards and how many I run depends mainly on:

1) How well they synergize
2) How much other draw I have (e.g. if I'm on a commander that draws cards, I might rather play Nature's Lore and Three Visits, or even Izzet Signet)
3) My overall density of quality cards (if seeing my top 3 is going to likely be crappy in the late game, I might steer more toward straight card draw that scales better)

That's a roundabout way of saying it depends on the deck, but it uh, depends on the deck?

How to sequence turns 1-5 or so is pretty much the driving factor to every deck design for me. I want to play spells or do something meaningful (play a tap land, even) every single turn--so I use a lot of cards like Ponder and Night's Whisper to fill in gaps.

But these cards balance a lot with ramp+expensive draw for me - if you've got a lot of really powerful draw spells, it's usually better to ramp than play cheap draw spells.

If you're playing Lands.dec, it's usually better to play engines (more Life from the Loam // Crucible of Worlds) for your land fixing than getting down to Preordain (though Brainstorm is often Ancestral Recall in fetch.dec. so should be played for synergy).

With very broad strokes, I play more one shot early game card draw the less I am interested in ramping in the early game. I tend to have two broad styles of deck:

* Fix my lands in the early game and ramp in the mid game (usually after a sweeper) -- Varina, Breena and Ephara mostly follow this approach (looking to sculpt their hand early and then Crypt of Agadeem or Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx or Cosmic Intervention or something to bridge to end game mana)

* Accelerate in the early game and fix hand with bombier card draw in the mid game -- Tivit, Maelstrom Wanderer want to accelerate out of the gate and then cast the commander and other bombs. Less early game sculpting, more vomiting hand.

(There's of course the caveat that stuff like Rhystic Study and Sylvan Library are usually right to play in either scenario, I tend to skip those cards as I just don't like goodstuff that much)

[PrimevalCommander]

SPOILER

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To this end, I should be playing Painful Truths over Night's Whisper in 3c+ decks...but I think what you're saying and I could be reading too far between the lines here, is that Night's Whisper and their ilk generally speaking aren't bad because they still do the thing, but they have a lower ceiling to similar newer cards and so in an optimization mindset the new is better. But sticking to the ol' tried and true doesn't necessarily mean you're playing a bad deck.

Yeah, pretty much this. Pure card draw is still fine, it just has a lower ceiling. On the flip side, it also has a higher floor. The downside of synergy is variance - if you don't have all your synergy pieces together, then the cards that are reliant on them to function will underperform, or not do anything at all.

• If you run Night's Whisper, you're going to draw two cards every time - it has almost zero variance (ignoring if you're on low life or Notion Thief).
• If you run Deadly Dispute, you'll get two mana and a treasure at instant speed, which is a higher upside... but you can't cast it at all if you don't have something to sacrifice.
• If you run Morbid Opportunist, then some percent of the time you'll go crazy with it and draw 4+ cards... but sometimes it will die before you draw any cards with it, or maybe you just don't have any other creatures to sacrifice.

A well-built deck will maximize the probability of cards reaching the ceiling and minimize the probability of those cards underperforming, but it's impossible to reduce the fail rate to zero. As a result, while I would say synergistic cards generally have a higher expected value, it's reasonable to run less synergy-dependent cards if you're particularly risk-averse or in a meta with lots of disruption. Alternatively, just run tutors instead. I think power creep has resulted in the standard rates for draw spells going up a bit over time (compare Night's Whisper vs Expressive Iteration), but it's still possible to run the older options.

This is a well written post. The bolded represents my current dilemma where disruption has altered the play pattern of my synergy pieces and shown me the flaw in that plan, variance. I think I can overcome this with some slight strategy changes before I make any sweeping changes to my card choices. I probably do need at least one or two big hand-refills in some decks, so I will look at that.

[Sinis]

The bolded represents my current dilemma where disruption has altered the play pattern of my synergy pieces and shown me the flaw in that plan, variance.

That's a really good point that Mookie made and you highlighted. There's something to be said about reliability. Morbid Opportunist won't get you much if it gets wiped right after, or you didn't draw your sac outlets and there isn't a whole lot of carnage going on.

[aliciaofthevast]

Idk drinks. I sure am not gonna give up my preordains any time soon....

You've been struggling with this a long time though, and I guess that's why the allure of PreDH really reasonates with you. I hope you figure out what you want, I miss playing with you more! 😁

[NZB2323]

I think both Night's Whisper and Phyrexian Arena are good cards for Kaalia of the Vast where you want to be filling your hand and can cheat cards into play. They also both curve nicely with Kaalia.

Cheap +1 CA draw spells are great in my Nymris, Oona's Trickster deck where I want to cast a spell during each opponent's turn to get a free draw out of it. I play Ponder, Preordain, Opt, Ancestral Vision, Brainstorm, Thought Scour, Consider, Visions of Beyond, and Treasure Cruise.

Phyrexian Arena has always been worse than Necropotence, and now it's also worse than Black Market Connections. Now, there are so many card draw spells and decks play multiple colors, where the only deck I play it is my Ghen, Arcanum Weaver deck, but even there it's worse than Liliana's Contract and Mesa Enchantress. And the deck wants to discard cards to reanimate with Ghen with cards like Faithless Looting, Cathartic Reunion, Thrill of Possibility, and Wheel of Fate.

The same goes for my Neheb, the Worthy deck, where the draw is discard-based:

• Scrapwork Mutt
• Containment Construct
• Geth's Grimoire
• Stromkirk Occultist
• Syphon Mind
• Neheb, Dreadhorde Champion
• Waste Not
• Phyrexian Dragon Engine
• Castle Locthwain
• Geier Reach Sanitarium
• Ox of Agonas

My Tymna the Weaver//Ravos, Soultender deck has 2 commanders that provide card advantage, and it mainly plays evasive creatures so ideally I'm trading 3 cards per turn off of Tymna and getting 1 back from my graveyard with Ravos. The other card draw it runs is:

• Archivist of Oghma
• Black Market Connections
• Yawgmoth, Thran Physician
• Battle Angels of Tyr

And my Edric, Spymaster of Trest deck certainly doesn't need more card draw.

And then my Gruul Morophon, the Boundless infinite Kavu deck uses this for card draw:

• Ragavan, Nimble Pilferer
• Mirri's Guile
• Wall of Blossoms
• Thrill of Possibility
• Pygmy Kavu
• Harmonize
• Return of the Wildspeaker
• Rishkar's Expertise

So in short I think that Phyrexian Arena and Night's Whisper make sense in some decks(like Kaalia), but they're hardly staples. Necropotence, Black Market Connections, Ragavan, Nimble Pilferer, Esper Sentinel, Treasure Cruise, Visions of Beyond, Beast Whisperer, and Rishkar's Expertise are staples, but even those aren't always the best card draw option for the deck, depending on who the commander is.

[darrenhabib]

I haven't played night's whisper or phyrexian arena in at least 5 years, probably more. I'm not hating on them but I personally don't think they are impactful enough in the games that I play. Commander at any level is almost certain to have at least one of the players go off, meaning that nickle-and-dime isn't guaranteed to be good.
There is of course lots of exceptions where these cards will be good, grindy control decks for example.

I do play the blue cantrips like Ponder in some decks, but they are not auto includes at all, more do they have synergy with the rest of the deck? That is cards that benefit from instants or sorcery, filling the graveyard, draw, etc.

[ukkuhrmakhai]

I think they are still valuable as consistency tools. I can say at least in my meta the decks that have cantrips and Night's Whisper style cards win more often than those that don't. I think part of that is my meta pretty good about answering the early game so people tend to go off in the mid game where these kind of spells are more powerful.

There is so much low cmc goodstuff and synergy pieces now in every color that it's far too easy to cut stuff like Night's Whisper because the ceiling isn't high enough. Why play Night's Whisper in a BW deck when you could have Archivist of Oghma which will probably draw 2+ cards and gain life instead of losing it? However, while an early Archivist of Oghma is clearly potentially more powerful than an early Night's Whisper, it is also not consistent and less powerful in the late game when you are looking to refuel.

Any specific +1 CA card is going to see a lot less play given the number of options being printed that may have more synergy with a given deck but playing a card that draws you two every time is still worth even when there is a card that might draw you 4.

There are more commanders that give card advantage now so it can be tempting to cut these kind of cards from those decks however I find these cards are often still valuable to ensure hitting land drops when the commander is killed to be able to recast them.

Phyrexian Arena is suffering from different problems. Not only is it getting power crept by the alternatives Black Market Connections and it was never the most powerful card to start with but there are more wraths being played that hit enchantments now. Arena used to be almost guaranteed to survive until the end of the game once it resolved since it didn't get hit by the wraths and no one wanted to spend spot removal on it. Now, with Cyclonic Rift, Farewell, Hour of Revelation, ... you probably are only going to get 2-4 turns before it gets removed.

[RxPhantom]

I don't like the idea of anything being aged out of this format. The very enfranchised among us are aware of the constant drive toward optimization, but I don't find this to be the guiding principal for most of the real world player base. I still see people play Temple of the False God and other fallen stars. And it's fine. Play what you want.

As to the real subject of this thread, I only play incremental draw spells in Kykar, Wind's Fury since it almost always comes with some added value. Tangentially related, everyone should play Keep Watch.

[3drinks]

Yeah, I mean, I cannot fathom why anyone still gets tripped up on Temple of the Obvious Trap yet anyone with 34 lands jams this in and it inevitably is their third land drop and they don't see what the issue is.

I think, RX, what I'm gleaming from this isn't so much the cards have aged out, but the way the game is played. Like, I wanna still grind out a nice and relaxed two hour game. But the zoomers of today just wanna go go go and it seems like they're after game quantity over game quality.

Keep Watch is dope though, I'd play that. It's a reasonable cost and will always at least cantrip. And you can turn it offensive if needed since it doesn't care who is attacking. What a tremendous xu monarch card.

[Sinis]

I don't like the idea of anything being aged out of this format.

I don't like the idea either, but, I think it's inevitable and already happened in some cases. When I first started playing, Explosive Vegetation|ONS was a green staple. It was just a good card in a slower format.

Now, not only is the format faster, approximately one bajillion things are exactly like Explosive Veggies, but with some minor upside or option. Hunting Wilds finds nonbasic Forests, and can make them creatures if you're flooded. Circuitous Route can find Gates, which get more powerful every time they print new Gates. Vastwood Surge can get you +1/+1 counters if you're flooded. Migration Path cycles. The latest, Invasion of Zendikar isn't a sorcery, but can be flickered by certain effects and has an option for a 4/4 vigilant mana dork.

More critically, we are at saturation for this effect. Only three years ago, I had a deck that wanted to run every 4-mana ramp-2 spell available in r/g (available here), and it would look very different today. I'm not even sure it would play Explosive Veggies.

Anyway, I don't want it to be the case that cards get aged out, but it is definitely a reality that they do.

[Mookie]

From a theoretical standpoint, I'll nitpick that nothing will ever become completely unplayable unless it's actually banned. Explosive Vegetation is still playable, but the decks it goes in have become more niche - i.e. decks that actually want 5+ variants of that effect, or decks with a strict budget restriction, or decks only running old-border cards.... etc. It doesn't go in optimized decks anymore, but not every deck in the format has to be optimized.

[onering]

Explosive vegetation always felt like a bad Skyshroud Claim even back in the day, unless you ran it solely for budget reasons. It was 4 mana to go up a card, and speed up 2 lands, but being limited to basics and being slow always hurt it. Kodama's Reach and Cultivate were better most of the time, and the former was released only a couple years after EV, while Cultivate came not that long afterwards. I'd personally argue that most of the 2 mana ramp spells, even rampant growth, were better even back then because they could be cast on turn 2 which was often a draw-go turn and got the ramp party started earlier. Certainly if you could get your hands on them and had duals (or shortly thereafter shocks), Natures Lore and Three Visits were better because they essentially cost 1 mana since their land came in untapped, and that also meant you could use them to immediately fix your mana or chain into a second ramp spell or a rock.

Basically, I don't think it aged out so much as it was always kind of just overrated, and the plethora of better variants that have since been printed for people to wise up to that.

[Dunharrow]

I think any +1 CA on turn 2 is worth playing. Helps you hit your lands in the early game. Good late game draw too.

I know synergy is fun but you can't do it if you don't have mana.

I always think of my Phenax deck. I threw in Preordain, Serum Visions and maybe Ponder?, and Night's whisper and maybe a blue 2 mana draw spell?
Deck runs way better now.

[Sinis]

From a theoretical standpoint, I'll nitpick that nothing will ever become completely unplayable unless it's actually banned. Explosive Vegetation is still playable, but the decks it goes in have become more niche - i.e. decks that actually want 5+ variants of that effect, or decks with a strict budget restriction, or decks only running old-border cards.... etc. It doesn't go in optimized decks anymore, but not every deck in the format has to be optimized.

I mean, I don't disagree that we can all just play jank, and that might mean playing Explosive Vegetation instead of some superior variant. Emphasis mine: If we are playing suboptimally or even suboptimally within a particular frame of power that we're willing to play, that one card is better than another is pretty immaterial.

Basically, I don't think it aged out so much as it was always kind of just overrated, and the plethora of better variants that have since been printed for people to wise up to that.

I agree that it was (perhaps) overrated and overplayed, but, that's beside my point: You would want a truly colossal number of 4-mana ramp-2 spells to end up with Explosive Vegetation in your deck. If we're talking 'probably better' if you have a half-decent mana base, there's Skyshroud Claim, Hunting Wilds, Ranger's Path, Circuitous Route, Migration Path, Vastwood Surge, and Invasion of Zendikar // Awakened Skyclave.

Maybe better depending on the deck: Expand the Sphere.

I'm saying that people who were playing Explosive Vegetation probably shouldn't be now, and I would venture that EV is actually unplayable. It's like, the 8th variant of this card, and one probably doesn't want to play that many functional copies.

[Cyberium]

Arena let you draw cards during upkeep, which suits strategies that negates your draw step. (Such as Necropotence, Taigam, Sidisi's Hand, etc.)

[toctheyounger]

I don't believe they have been aged out, but you do have the luxury of being more selective and having a much wider pool to draw from. There are now cantripping options, topdeck manipulation options, ramp options and such for virtually any deck that wants it. Even white doesn't miss out these days. I think in general it's a good thing.

Of the examples given, Phyrexian Arena is the one that I think is probably the most obsolete. It's slow even in a battlecruiser format, and the raft of options that do more is big enough you really shouldn't need it. The only conceivable reason to play it is as a preDH thing or a phyrexian flavor thing. There's better stuff now. Frankly, there probably has been for quite some time.

There's plenty of examples of stuff that has stood the test of time though. Things like Ponder and Preordain, Lim-Dûl's Vault, and Faithless Looting are still very, very good. If you're in the colors you ought to be using them in most cases, at least if you're wanting to do 'the thing'. They're the oil for your squeaky wheel, and they're worth including. I'm sure there's more, but these are the standouts to me. You almost want them whenever you can get them.