Alright, I'll do a more in-depth take since
@ISBPathfinder did. Can't have anyone else overanalyzing more than me!
False Cure -
I don't think he's even saying "this is a good combo with congregate", he just legit thinks that it's useful anti-lifegain tech. Obviously such a niche answer rarely finds a place except in the most inbred of metas. Most lifegain decks aren't gaining tons of life in the same turn anyway, they're gaining it continually in order to profit off triggers, so hosing them for a single turn isn't even a good answer against many lifegain decks, itself a niche archetype. Ridiculous. This can be a cute combo card (not a good one, ofc), but that's the only place anyone should play it imo.
Congregate -
Cards which only gain life are generally bad. Even in a casual meta, gaining a bunch of extra life doesn't change board state. This one can gain quite a lot in a more casual meta that builds up big clunky boards, so it's not the worst (it used to be fairly popular in fact) but it requires an overlap of playing a deck that makes such a thing likely - i.e. tokens - and also wants to gain a bunch of life, when there are far more compelling payoffs once you've created a wide board. Even a simple
Makindi Stampede // Makindi Mesas is going to cause a lot more impact. There are games where this will look good, but the reality is that you should be trying to find a way to end the game once you've built up your board, not prolong it. I'll give this pick a "not completely stupid" pass, but just barely.
Gem of Becoming -
6 mana for 3 cards - all of which have to be basic or basic-adjacent lands - is not a good rate. It's a terrible rate. Armillary sphere is bad too, but at least it comes out cheaply enough that fixing your mana is compelling for a budget deck. By turn 4 you really ought to be developing something more meaningful. Add in the strict color restriction and this card is extremely bad.
Unscythe, Killer of Kings -
It doesn't grant evasion. Its p/t boost is way below rate for this format. It's significantly color restricted. Exiling isn't going to matter when you give your opponent so much control over what it hits. Its only upside is making a zombie token if they block AND the creature dies, which rarely overlaps in strategy with equipment. This card has always been a huge disappointment and does nothing worthy of a 3c equipment with such a metal name.
Portent -
The only non-debatably good card on this list, I think ISB hit the nail on the head. It's a fine card, just weaker and more obscure than plenty of other very similar cards. Calling this underplayed is an extremely boring take imo. Unless you're playing a spellslinger deck where casting anything is valuable, this will be air in your deck - I'm not sure why ISB would call it "proactive", it doesn't do anything. Nobody's deck is going to be radically changed by including this card. Points for being kinda accurate, I guess, but still a terrible inclusion in this kind of list. My eyes glaze over just looking at it. The fact that this is the first entry on the list tells me there is a 0% chance he's smart enough to bait for engagement. This card is the anti-engagement.
Overwhelming Splendor -
8 mana is a lot. However, this card does have a pretty radical impact on the game for that price. It really is brutal if they can't get rid of it. I think it mostly runs afoul of being too expensive for cutthroat and too meanspirited for casual. That said, I think this is maybe my favorite inclusion on the list because at least it's a take and it's not stupid. Plenty of metas have "that guy" who runs away with the game because he's built too strong of a deck to be reined in. This is a card that says "Hey. Cut that out." Of course, it also doesn't do anything until you have enough mana to cast it, but it's the thought that counts.
Bringer of the Blue Dawn -
I'm with
@materpillar - this card isn't that bad. Sure, there are multiple 6-drops that blow it out of the water - even
Arcanis the Omnipotent, printed before it - but if you specifically want a repeatable draw engine on 5 in a 5c deck and you don't have anything more synergistic...I guess this is a choice. It's also got some nice old funkiness to it - check out those colorless colored mana symbols! However, being a 5c card means this is the most restricted a card can possibly be, and thus the least useful a card can be for anyone reading this article, and thus a fairly weak choice to include, on top of being generally mediocre. It's also nowhere close to black dawn's numbers on EDHrec, so I have no idea on what basis he's claiming this is "the most played in casual". No way anyone playing any bringers is playing cEDH.
Uyo, Silent Prophet -
Probably my second favorite. It has some real threat-of-activation against enemy spells. Who wants to cast some time magic while Uyo's controller has 4 mana up? And if you kill her, she can just copy that removal spell back at your own stuff. The biggest problem is that the THREAT of activation is a lot better than the REALITY of activation, since bouncing two lands is a very steep cost. You'd better have a deck built to capitalize significantly around this ability, and that probably means having her in the command zone with a lot of ramp and time magic of your own. Overall she's not bad, but she is niche. Worse than his choice, though, is his writing - "-1/-1 for its cost"? That's a ridiculous metric for commander, a format where
Serra Ascendant is rarely played despite breaking the "normal" p/t curve into tiny, tiny pieces. Relating to landfall is cute, but probably just...draw more cards so you have more lands, rather than replaying them? Who plays murder in 2022? FoF is pretty long in the tooth too.
From a writing perspective, though, its the last sentence that really grinds my gears - "And yet there are only 1,919 decks registered with this copy powerhouse, and I've played it in a few decks over the years!" What the hell is that structure? The second part doesn't say anything in relation to the first. The first bit implies that its being underplayed, and then the second part SHOULD say something which contributes to this assertion, given that it starts with "and"...but it doesn't. In fact what the hell is the point of that last bit at all? It says absolutely nothing useful to anyone. You, personally, a person I don't know or care about, has played this card "in a few decks over the years"? It's not as though your personal deckbuilding preferences say anything statistically relevant to whether this card is underplayed. If you said you played it in every deck you'd ever built, at least that would be noteworthy. If you'd played it in a few decks in the last month, that would at least be somewhat unusual. But you've played it in a few decks over the span of years? Who the hell could possibly care about that?
Okay, sorry, I'm done.
Chandra, Flame's Catalyst -
This is a planeswalker deck planeswalker and it looks it. I didn't even need to read him confirming it to be sure. It's so obviously mediocre. The +1 is trash, and the -2 isn't great since you have to pay for it. I mean
Jace, Vryn's Prodigy // Jace, Telepath Unbound has the same effect and he costs TWO. The ult looks strong until you realize that wheeling your hand means it's much harder to guarantee you'll be able to go off with the temporary omniscience. "She is one of the best game-winning planeswalkers ever printed" dude are you for reals. This is just pathetic.
Bringer of the Black Dawn -
Dude. You seriously included 2 five-color cards in this list? From the SAME CYCLE? This was the point of no return for me. This guy clearly has absolutely no clue what he's doing, in terms of strategy or writing. These cards are simply not useful to people reading this list. This list is a waste of time.
Sarkhan Vol -
If you have sac outlets, this guy is fine. Otherwise, meh. There are a hundred safer cards you can run to grant haste if that's what you need, so you'd better have some real payoff for the theft effect imo. This isn't a terrible choice compared to the ones before, though. Talking about type 4 is irrelevant, and its hilarious to call it "the best haste-granting planeswalker ever printed" as though that was a hotly-contested category. Considering how low the bar is, this one merits a nice pat on the head and a "good boy".
Kaho, Minamo Historian -
The fact that you have to reveal your plans to everyone makes this significantly worse than it otherwise would be, but honestly it's a fine card for a slower meta. Again with Murder, lol. This guy knows there are dozens of better options for creature removal in black, right? Kgrip loses a lot of power by being revealed too. I'm pretty sure he did the math wrong on EDHrec given that 322 currently include it in the 99, but maybe it was lower when he looked at it. He's obviously very wrong about the cards staying exiled, and honestly I also want to knock points off for listing this as merely #3 if he thought it worked that way. Like, put
Nexus of Fate under this and you have a 1-card win condition that doubles (triples?) as an
Ertai, Wizard Adept or
Visara the Dreadful.
Avatar of Fury -
I love RK Post's work. That's where this card's upsides end, though. I've already elaborated on why this card, and his writeup for it, is terrible. More stupid comparisons of p/t to mana value like we're grading limited chaff from 2003.
Serra Ascendant is not a terribly popular card. That tells you everything you need to understand about french-vanilla creatures in commander. Listing this at #2 is deeply embarassing.
Ogre Arsonist -
This card at #1 is so hilarious. I never would have guessed it a million billion trillion years. I don't really need to explain why it's trash since ISB already did and, let's be honest, it's obvious just on the face of it.
Ravenous Baboons only has 250 uses on EDHrec and its a full mana cheaper with an effect that's equally good 99% of the time, and still sucks. LD rarely comes up in my experience, but I do feel better having the option, so the obvious spot for it is in the landbase or on flexible removal like
Karn Liberated. Having a card that only does that one thing, and does it badly...well, honestly, for this list, it's kind of a perfect finale.