Your most hated cards

[DirkGently]

Off the top of my head, I think mine might be:

3) Expropriate. One card wins are awful. Extra turns are awful. Prisoner's dilemmas are awful. Hate it.
2) Mindslaver. Enemies controlling your turn is such an obnoxious effect. It also punishes you really hard for playing responsibly imo. If you've been sitting on removal in order to break up enemy combos or whatever, that removal is now going at your own stuff. Great. And of course there's the elephant in the room, that it can be used to permanently remove a commander pretty easily. Yuck.
1) Ruination. I've railed against this card a lot. I don't have a problem with nonbasic hate existing, the problem is that ruination is such brutal hate against nonbasics that it makes them essentially unplayable in a meta where it's commonly run. And outside of this specific card, running nonbasics is almost always a great idea. So it creates an obnoxious dynamic where you're forced to choose between running a terrible manabase, or (the correct option) running a bunch of nonbasics, and then every once in a while you just auto-lose to a single card. Plus it produces a bunch of smug people who think running trash manabases is superior because it lets them play around a single card. Vomit.

[Venedrex]

1. Winter Orb
2. Winter Orb
3. Winter Orb

Seriously though,

1. Winter Orb
2. Ad Nauseam
3. Demonic Consultation

Maybe throw in some Thassa's Oracle for "fun". Yuck.

I mean, if your going to combo, at least make it somewhat interesting, like Osgir, the Reconstructor, Ugin's Nexus, Pull from eternity, Isochron Scepter etc etc.

[folding_music]

everything in the second Unglued set, the serious misjudgment displayed by all involved

but honestly Ashnod's Altar; too unbound, too explosive, too good at countering the good-stuff removal spells with benefits i like x3 and aristo strats are already depressing enough cos they keep printing new pieces and it's always presented so pseudo-naievely, wow, players hate losing their own creatures after all!

big OP sorceries which win by themselves are horrible too but literally I've been suffering ashnod's altar for over 25 years

[TheGildedGoose]

Prisoner's dilemmas are awful.

I'm sorry, what? Isn't your pride and joy the ultimate manifestation of this?

Rhystic Study

Nothing else even comes close to tilting me in a game. I will do everything in my power not only to make sure you die first, but to make your gameplay experience as miserable as you're making mine.

[Mookie]

Obligatory EDHREC Saltiest Cards link.

Anyway... of all the cards in the format, Mindslaver definitely makes me the saltiest, with similar effects like Emrakul, the Promised End coming close behind. I feel like it punishes good deckbuilding - the more interactive or synergistic your deck is, the more likely you are to implode.

Beyond that, Winter Orb and its cousin Static Orb are pretty miserable. I'm not a fan of extra turn spells either.

As for things that don't traditionally fall on the salt list... Kadena, Slinking Sorcerer is the commander I despise playing against the most. Not because I think it's particularly oppressive or anything, but 'all your spells are free, cantrip, probably have flash, and add a ton of board complexity' makes it extremely unpleasant to play against if you're doing any sort of control / value-based strategy. Say what you like about Chulane, Teller of Tales, but at least it actually has to pay for its creatures.

I'll also call out Ink-Treader Nephilim as one of the few commanders I'll specifically refuse to play against. I'm usually fine with playing against planeswalkers or other non-legal commanders, but I make an exception for Ink-Treader, who is incredibly broken due to bad templating (contrast with Zada, Hedron Grinder).

[pokken]

Timesifter is pretty far up there in my least favorite cards to resolve; I tend to play low curve decks, so the odds are pretty severely in favor of me never getting to play again for 5 if I don't have removal or countermagic right then.

Kadena, Slinking Sorcerer is the commander I despise playing against the most.

Here here, Kadena is high on my hated list too. Mostly because there's really no way to interact with morphs outside of sweepers and once they're on the board they can punish you sweepers a significant amount of the time. And they were all free and cantripped, so sweeping does nothing.

Kadena is pretty much the epitome of whackamole commander where the only sane response is to constantly kill her, and I very much hate it.

[Cyberium]

Whenever I check out a deck list, the moment I see Thassa's Oracle et al, I leave. I don't necessary hate it, but the empty library wincon shows up so frequently it's becoming a symbol of boredom.

Expropriate, mostly because there's almost no way to defend against it, at the same time blue has so many ways to ensure it can go through.

Many landfall cards/effects. Similar to Expropriate, there are so many ways to drop more than one land per turn, yet at the same time there's almost no way to prevent a land drop. Cards like Tatyova, Benthic Druid is just awful, not to mention boring.

Chaos cards like Eye of the Storm. I love randomness, but prefer them to be chance encounter (like coin toss or shuffle-then-reveal-top-card, not losing control entirely and for many turns.

1) Ruination. I've railed against this card a lot. I don't have a problem with nonbasic hate existing, the problem is that ruination is such brutal hate against nonbasics that it makes them essentially unplayable in a meta where it's commonly run. And outside of this specific card, running nonbasics is almost always a great idea. So it creates an obnoxious dynamic where you're forced to choose between running a terrible manabase, or (the correct option) running a bunch of nonbasics, and then every once in a while you just auto-lose to a single card. Plus it produces a bunch of smug people who think running trash manabases is superior because it lets them play around a single card. Vomit.

Isn't the drawbacks you mentioned (such as having a terrible mana base) enough limitation for Ruination? Every MLD spell needs a good set up before being cast, Ruination almost always requires the player to run mono-red or with heavy artifact mana, I'd think it balances out.

[Jemolk]

You know, hate is kinda a strong word, and even with most cards I wouldn't want to play or play against, I don't see them enough to really draw out that degree of emotion. Most of the stuff everyone's mentioned can be annoying (though I don't actually mind Rhystic Study), but the only cards I think I could say I genuinely hate are Vorinclex, Voice of Hunger and Iona, Shield of Emeria. Both versions of Jin-Gitaxias would probably be on this list too if I ever saw them appear, but fortunately I now play primarily with people who show some restraint in deckbuilding. One-sided stax pieces are the absolute worst things to ever see print.

[DirkGently]

Prisoner's dilemmas are awful.

I'm sorry, what? Isn't your pride and joy the ultimate manifestation of this?

Lol, I wondered if anyone would call me out on that as I was typing it. I decided not to add a qualifier onto my sentence in order to preserve the symmetry but I guess I got blown tf out.

I think what I dislike about expropriate's prisoner's dilemma is that there's no great reward for "doing the right thing" and choosing money. Your reward is that MAYBE you don't lose the game right away. If the table rallies together to take down Phelddagrif, they can remove me from the game. So I really need to make sure they don't cooperate, whereas the expropriate player doesn't really care that much. It also requires no setup or thought to create the dilemma, it's a great value card no matter what gets chosen. Phelddagrif needs to be built consciously to create the dilemma, with most of the cards in the deck contributing.

I think there are probably other key differences I could sus out if I spent more time thinking about it. But yeah, prisoner's dilemmas aren't necessarily bad, just when they're mindless to use and absurdly powerful regardless of what gets chosen.

1) Ruination. I've railed against this card a lot. I don't have a problem with nonbasic hate existing, the problem is that ruination is such brutal hate against nonbasics that it makes them essentially unplayable in a meta where it's commonly run. And outside of this specific card, running nonbasics is almost always a great idea. So it creates an obnoxious dynamic where you're forced to choose between running a terrible manabase, or (the correct option) running a bunch of nonbasics, and then every once in a while you just auto-lose to a single card. Plus it produces a bunch of smug people who think running trash manabases is superior because it lets them play around a single card. Vomit.

Isn't the drawbacks you mentioned (such as having a terrible mana base) enough limitation for Ruination? Every MLD spell needs a good set up before being cast, Ruination almost always requires the player to run mono-red or with heavy artifact mana, I'd think it balances out.

I don't think that kind of "balance" is healthy for the game. It's kinda similar to a card like this (obviously this wouldn't be possible in normal magic but bear with me):

Ass Cancer
Sorcery
Win the game.
If this is in your deck, all your spells cost 1 more and your feet always hurt.

Is it balanced? I mean maybe the winrate averages out, but those kind of massive swings, especially on a pretty cheap card, I think create really unfun experiences on both sides. Running a crappy manabase isn't fun. Losing to a single card that you have very few ways to interact with isn't fun. Die in a fire, Ruination.

[Treamayne]

It's hard to pick specific cards, so I'll say "many of the above" and add that I also hate (cards not yet listed)
- Memnarch - not that he comes up often, but I have never seen him (CZ or 99) without an inf mana combo to try stealing the whole board. Wow, you're clever! Nobody's ever done that before! GAFL
- Smothering Tithe - okay, not a bad card and has really needed help for a long time. I don't think I have had a game in 9 months were somebody didn't cast this; usually before T4, often using a tutor to get it. I'm just so sick of seeing this . . .
- Eldrazi/Annihilator - I'm not sure if these are making a comeback, or I am just that unlucky, but I have had an unfortunately high proportion of games with these making an appearance again. Often in the CZ, since a Mono-brown manabase is so much easier than it used to be.

Isn't the drawbacks you mentioned (such as having a terrible mana base) enough limitation for Ruination? Every MLD spell needs a good set up before being cast, Ruination almost always requires the player to run mono-red or with heavy artifact mana, I'd think it balances out.

I can't speak for @DirkGently, but that is not how I have seen Ruination played. Actually, I think the most common I've seen is Rx and RXx decks dropping Ruination T3 or 4 "to punish the people using fetches to get non-basics early" right before they drop a fetch they were sandbagging to get a nonbasic.

I can't think of a single instance in the last decade where I saw it cast mid-to-late game as insurance to push through a WinCon (it's other supposed use)

[JovialJovian]

Smothering Tithe and Rhystic Study have the same flaw in my eyes, they basically force the person playing them to constantly annoy the rest of the table with reminders to pay the tax. So though they are powerful cards, I hate playing with them or against them.

[Dunharrow]

Tooth and Nail
Derevi, Empyrial Tactician
Ad Nauseam

I really don't like spells that say "I resolved this spell, so I win".
I also don't like Derevi because of the way it pairs with a brutal stax deck and because of the lack of commander tax. Philosophically, should be banned, but there is no call to ban it because it doesn't see that much play (because of all the hate).

[3drinks]

Rhystic Study

Nothing else even comes close to tilting me in a game. I will do everything in my power not only to make sure you die first, but to make your gameplay experience as miserable as you're making mine.

My gosh, this, all of this. Because despite your best intentions, there's always that guy™ that just freerolls someone else the win because "I'm never gonna pay the 1", or "it's just extra cards, it's not that great." I'm never gonna be OK losing games because you have terrible threat assessment.

[ConstantMists]

Cyclonic Rift is the winner. While some of those previously mentioned cards are problematic, none of them win the game for you out of nowhere. Cyc Rift should never have been printed. All other cards that have similar effects either affect everyone or are sorcery speed. The combo of one-sidedness and instant speed is just flat out wrong.

[Sporegorger_Dragon]

Rakdos Charm. It's a great card, nothing wrong with it, but I hate it personally.

Nothing like having your token dreams be crushed by a two mana instant, and to add insult injury by your own tokens to boot.

[PrimevalCommander]

Expropriate
Thassa's Oracle
Tergrid, God of Fright // Tergrid's Lantern
Annihilator 4 (though I play it on rare occasion)
Emrakul, the Promised End
Mycosynth Lattice never seen anything fair done with this card

From a design perspective, I really HATE the Theros Gods. Indestructible Enchantments that can be tutored and cheated as Creatures?!?! What were they thinking on that one. Probably the hardest permanent type to deal with, make it Indestructible, and make it fetchable with Worldly Tutor and Natural Order and able to be reanimated or Karmic Guide or Living Death. One of the worst designed card cycles in recent memory. I groan when I see a Theros GOD in the command zone.

[materpillar]

If I was asked to ban one card from this format I'd immediately boot Craterhoof Behemoth. I've personally witnessed this card turn otherwise exciting and interesting boardstates into a wet fart of "oh… hoof… coooooooool story bro…"

I'd follow that up with Ulamog, the Infinite Gyre. I hate annihilator with a burning passion. It incentives attacking the weakest player because that's who the annihilator will likely hurt the most. Annihilator also tends to be extremely seingy. It usually cripples the receiving player or does nothing because you swing into a bunch of tokens. Kozilek, Butcher of Truth at least dies to common removal. Mono-R is kinda Chaos Warp or bust.

Chulane, Teller of Tales and Korvold, Fae-Cursed King (to a lesser degree) can both die in fire.

Expropriate is also a pain. Card would be way more tolerable if people stopped voting time but it seems like someone always does.

Expropriate
Thassa's Oracle
Tergrid, God of Fright // Tergrid's Lantern
Annihilator 4 (though I play it on rare occasion)
Emrakul, the Promised End
Mycosynth Lattice never seen anything fair done with this card

From a design perspective, I really HATE the Theros Gods. Indestructible Enchantments that can be tutored and cheated as Creatures?!?! What were they thinking on that one. Probably the hardest permanent type to deal with, make it Indestructible, and make it fetchable with Worldly Tutor and Natural Order and able to be reanimated or Karmic Guide or Living Death. One of the worst designed card cycles in recent memory. I groan when I see a Theros GOD in the command zone.

A man after my own heart.

[Toshi]

Field of the Dead! Yes, there have been more broken cards mentioned so far. But because of the fact that you can run this in literally every deck, too many players do so. I just don't want to have to deal with the same card in each game by default.

I generally hate dull and omnipresent win cons such as Expropriate, Thassa's Oracle, Craterhoof Behemoth, Genesis Wave, Torment of Hailfire, Gray Merchant of Asphodel, Exsanguinate, Diluvian Primordial and Sepulchral Primordial.
Yes, i have designated decks for a few of them, but i hate to see them included virtually anywhere, just because they are that good and more or less plug & play. Include them in a meaning- and/or flavorful way and i won't complain though.

Aside from their atroucious card design Smothering Tithe, Rhystic Study and to a lesser extend Mystic Remora (because more often than not, people can't afford to pay extra) make the game tediously slow.
I traded/sold all but one of them away, cause i couldn't stand playing them myself anymore.

Every now and then i am annoyed by uniquely good cards. Cyclonic Rift and Teferi's Protection being prime examples.
Coastal Breach, Consuming Tide, Crush of Tentacles, Devastation Tide and Flood of Tears are all "good enough" at what they do. Being an instant would be a major upgrade, as would being asymmetrical or having a smaller plan B mode - Cyclonic Rift checking all these boxes is utterly absurd.
Same goes for Your Temple Is Under Attack, Grand Crescendo and the likes in comparison to Flawless Maneuver and Teferi's Protection...

[Igzex]

3: The Eldrazi. Each and every single one of them. I have had so many unpleasant experiences with them to the point that they are my berserk button and the player who just summoned one is going to gravely regret tapping out for it.

2: Aetherflux Reservoir: Ah yes, hostage situations the most casual fun times you can have with friends. That said, it becomes one of my top 3 favorite cards when I happen to have a Deflecting Swat in hand.

1: Strip Mine: BUT IT DEALS WITH PROBLEM LANDS yeah sure that's why you run that card and you absolutely have no plans to use it more than you need to. That's why you used it on a plains controlled by someone who had the audacity to hit you for 2 of your 40 lifepoints while the next player shrugged and played their Kessig Wolf Run or whatever.

[RowanKeltizar]

1. Cyclonic Rift
2. Armageddon
3. Notion Thief
4. Time Warp

Cyclonic Rift has to be the winner for me. I have removal for Rhystic Study or Smothering Tithe in all my decks. Most people in my group know these to be prime threats and so they usually don't stick around too long. But there is really not much you can do about a Cyclonic Rift and it happens to be in a color that ensures it resolves. Blinking creatures or Teferi's Protection is about the best you can do (if that resolves). Maybe a sac outlet and reanimation, but outside of some niche non-blue answers, it's going to go through and it's going to hurt or just outright lose you the game.

I was 100% sure this card was going to get banned shortly after it was printed because of how one-sided it is but nope. Sure, I use it in one deck, my most competitive but even then there is rarely a scenario where I don't feel guilty for casting it. Generally, I'm just not much of a fan of purely onesided effects. They aren't good card design for multiplayer.

Mass land destruction has to be the obvious close second. I would actually even prefer one sided land destruction so at least I can legitimately concede. Forcing the game to go back to turn 0 is just too painful, especially if you are topdecking which is all too likely.

Notion Thief is just an abomination. I really hate it. Definitely plays into the too good to be printed one sided effects.

And lastly extra turns. I've been known to just walk away from a game where someone just keeps chaining extra turns without actually doing much. One extra turn, fine. But multiplayer just isn't the place for these cards IMO. The worst is extra turns with walkers.... you might as well go do some errands while your opponent plays solitaire.

[RedCheese]

I dislike a lot of the cards mentioened here, the type of cards i trully hate are Extra Turn spells. Expropriate been the worst among them. Turns already take too long and your opponents getting extra ones just anoys me.

[DirkGently]

1: Strip Mine: BUT IT DEALS WITH PROBLEM LANDS yeah sure that's why you run that card and you absolutely have no plans to use it more than you need to. That's why you used it on a plains controlled by someone who had the audacity to hit you for 2 of your 40 lifepoints while the next player shrugged and played their Kessig Wolf Run or whatever.

Lol has that actually happened to you?

I don't know that it's fair to hate a card because someone once had very poor threat assessment. Any removal effect can be used badly but that doesn't mean removal is bad. In a multiplayer environment, strip mine is extremely fair imo. Sacrificing a land is a significant cost for the result.

[BaronCappuccino]

I try hard not to hate any particular cards, trying to foster an anything goes mindset, but when I'm across from extra turns or stax, I can't deny faking the enthusiasm.

[Treamayne]

1: Strip Mine: BUT IT DEALS WITH PROBLEM LANDS yeah sure that's why you run that card and you absolutely have no plans to use it more than you need to. That's why you used it on a plains controlled by someone who had the audacity to hit you for 2 of your 40 lifepoints while the next player shrugged and played their Kessig Wolf Run or whatever.

Lol has that actually happened to you?

I don't know that it's fair to hate a card because someone once had very poor threat assessment. Any removal effect can be used badly but that doesn't mean removal is bad. In a multiplayer environment, strip mine is extremely fair imo. Sacrificing a land is a significant cost for the result.

I don't know about @Igzex, but I have definitely seen that scenario - more than a few times. That's why I dislike the Strip Mine effects and favor the Tectonic Edge\Wasteland. Just seeing strip mine, I have to conclude they plan to use them against basics if they can.

[Igzex]

Lol has that actually happened to you?

Yes. > : (