My Top Ten Favorite Magic Cards #6

When I first looked at Meloku the Clouded Mirror, I thought it wasn't very good like the rest of the moonfolk. Returning a land to your hand to only make a 1/1 seemed like a big setback for small payoff. However, once I saw Meloku in Mono-blue control decklists and tried him out for myself, I was quite impressed. The ability to make so many flying tokens so quickly could end the game very quickly and allowed a lot of great strategic play. This is one of my favorite parts of Meloku: it requires skill to know how to use most effectively--when to play it out of your hand, how many lands to return to your hand, how many tokens to use offensively versus defensively. It's an easy card to push too far and mess yourself up when someone casts hurricane. While Meloku speaks to the Timmy in me with its ability to amass an army of fliers, Meloku sings to the spike in me who enjoys trying to figure out the optimal play and outsmart my opponent.

This doesn't even get into the cool synergies that Meloku has with hand-size matters cards, discard, anti-land destruction tech, and cards that allow you to play multiple lands in one turn. These uses would be the main way to use this in multiplayer, since messing with your manabase is generally not such a good idea in such long games. Accordingly, my fondest memories with this card are when I was using it as a finisher in my Mirridon/Champions standard mono-blue control deck. Winning a game with Meloku and an army of tokens would be such a satisfying end for a control deck, both in its speed and in the skill required. Also, Meloku can beat Mayank at chess.