Grab a chair, everyone. It's time for a history lesson.

In July of 1999, Wizards Of The Coast released Portal Three Kingdoms to very little fanfare in America. The third expansion of what was conceived as the “Magic For Beginners” block, P3K was heavily Eastern-themed, and included odd mechanics (Horsemanship, anyone?), dumbed-down rules, and cards that weren't tournament-legal. As this was the golden age of tournament Magic, you can imagine how well this went over with the card-buying public in the USA. Portal Three Kingdoms did fairly well overseas, but even the small North-American print run went largely ignored, and was rapidly forgotten about.

Things changed massively on October 20th, 2005, when Wizards announced that all cards from the Portal expansions were now tournament-legal. People in the Eternal world started madly scrambling for the stronger cards in the set, causing hits like Imperial Seal and Zodiac Dragon (which was the subject of a correction errata to restore intended functionality and prevent an infinite discard loop) to skyrocket in price due to the miniscule availability. People began to scour the sets for other possibilities.

Fast forward roughly three years. The Eternal community uncovers another gem:

With Master's Edition II, Wizards is capitalizing on another chance to bring some rare gems to the masses. I'm sure that by now, some of you are wondering what the big deal is. Let's take a closer look for an explanation.

Clearly a 1/1 for a converted casting cost of three mana is not the reason that this card is fetching sixty dollars a piece. (And it's uncommon to boot!) The devil is in the details of the special ability:

When Imperial Recruiter comes into play, search your library for a creature card with power no greater than 2, reveal that card, and put it into your hand. Shuffle your library

The reason this card is so amazing is that the ability is a comes-into-play ability. Before we continue, head over to Gatherer, and run a search for cards with the words “comes into play, search your library” in the test. Go ahead; I'll wait.

I'll bet you were under-whelmed by the ten results

• One card finds Plains…
• Yet another finds Dwarves!
• One grabs Auras. Fantastic.
• Two will find several cards of any type, but only allow you access to them at random.

It goes on like this. Basically, the standout card from this list is one with a heck of a tournament history – Goblin Recruiter. The goblin is so strong because he acts as a tutor for very relevant cards attached to a body. Just put him into play, and you're setting up your deck to spit out exactly the correct goblins you need in exactly the right order. That's it. You don't need to wait a turn to use the ability, or pay some arbitrary mana cost, or anything like that. Just table the guy. Let him be destroyed or removed immediately, but the damage is already done.

Imperial Recruiter doesn't let you do quite that much, but it allows you to tutor up the exact creature you need. This is really strong, considering that the next expansion to be released in the Classic Online world is Tempest. The pieces are coming together for an incredibly strong and simple combo in a hurry.

If you've been playing with paper cards for any serious length of time, go check your bulk rares box. I bet you'll have dozens of these. Alone, this card is nearly worthless. However, the Shadowmoor expansion recently gave us this guy:

The synergy between the two is nearly unprecedented. The scarecrow makes all cards involved in the game the color of your choice. Table this guy and activate the 'Stone targeting your opponent, and since all of your opponent's cards are now one color, you'll mill his or her entire deck in one fell swoop. For three colorless mana. Again, in case you missed it:

Two cheap artifacts will mill your opponent's entire deck all at once for three colorless mana.

Yeah…it's that good. But let's get back to the Eternal community to see why Imperial Recruiter has value here. Here is a recent Legacy list, with full credit to A Legend and MTGTheSource.com:

Imperial Painter

While this deck is a Legacy list, and while it is a showcase for the Servant/Grindstone combo, it wonderfully illustrates the power of Imperial Recruiter and shows why he is the true star of the deck. Recruiter makes the deck function as a toolbox-style control deck with a combo finish. Facing a deck heavy in dual and/or other utility lands, recruit up Magus Of The Moon to shut down your opponent's mana production. Grabbing Vexing Shusher allows you to get out from under control builds. Find Dragon Whelp for a finisher; grab Jaya Ballard for some firepower or removal. With a Painter's Servant out naming blue, Jaya's primary ability will target any permanent your opponent controls. (Your Red Elemental Blasts and Pyroblasts do the same thing, with the bonus of acting as counters for everything as well!) Or, you know, just grab a Servant for the win with a Grindstone out.

A deck with this much synergy is tough to beat. Imperial Recruiter is fantastic not only because he is an in-color tutor, but also because he is a body that can grab Sword Of Light And Shadow to help gain some life and re-grow other creatures. He really is the glue that makes this deck stick.

Granted, some of these cards are not available Online; Ancient Tomb and Grindstone hit with Tempest, but you'll be waiting for a very long time for City Of Traitors, and Red Elemental Blast isn't available (as of yet). However, Legacy doesn't have access to the already previewed Mana Crypt, and the majority of this combo build is online, so most of the holes can be patched. Painter/Grindstone combo will be a major player in Classic in the same way that Flash arrived on the scene. There are many ways to go about building the deck, but the mono-red vein shown here allows for some major innovation with one of the most dynamic creatures to ever see print Online.

Prepare for Imperial Recruiter. Competitive Classic players will be seeing him soon.