Premium Deck Series: Fire & Lightning Review (Part 1 of 2)
A year ago, Wizards of the Coast released to some fanfare a new product line, the Premium Deck Series. Consisting of an all-foil theme deck, it was aimed at a very interesting segment of the market: casual players with an interest in pimp cards. Its Slivers tribal theme had zero Standard appeal however attractive the cards, but there was a welcome audience amongst the cube set who frequently enjoy using foils, foreign cards and alternate printings (promo, textless, etc) to make their creations stand out.
If Slivers fell far short of being an overwhelming success (you can still find them quite easily today for around $20), it was perhaps a failure in scope than it was in concept. Like most tribes, the Slivers have their adherents within the Magic community, but they are far fewer than say the Goblins or Elves. Having found that the right premium cards can command a large markup (see: From the Vaults), they returned to the drawing board and came up with an answer: don’t go deep, go broad.
Rise of the Eldrazi: Leveler’s Scorn Review (Part 2 of 2)
At last, the final piece of the Rise of the Eldrazi puzzle is about to fall into place, with this review of the remaining intro pack deck Leveler’s Scorn. As you may recall, we began our set review with the underwhelming Leveler’s Glory, and so there’s a bit of poetry in our coming full circle here. Not only is the other Level Up deck ready to take its place on the field of battle, but as it happens Sam will be piloting Leveler’s Glory against it. Here are our notes from this head-to-head matchup of the leveling mechanic.
News: More on the Event Decks
For those looking for more information on the forthcoming Event Decks early next year, additional information has been released on the mothership. It seems there will be two of them: one mono-Red, the other Blue/Black. Could this be the start of a return to the powerful precon?
Rise of the Eldrazi: Leveler’s Scorn Review (Part 1 of 2 )
Question: So if Leveler’s Glory warrented little but scorn, does that mean Leveler’s Scorn will be deserving of glory? Certainly it has all the necessary makings, using Blue’s Level Up creatures instead of White’s, and with Black for its superior removal capabilities. But as we’ve seen, the Rise of the Eldrazi decks tend to follow the ‘meandering muddle’ style of construction- a few cards for this strat here, a few cards for that strat there- and seldom hew any one path particularly well. It’s been something of a mixed bag at best, and as we begin to concluse our visit to Eldrazi-infested Zendikar, we have high hopes we can end on a high note.
Rise of the Eldrazi: Totem Power Review (Part 2 of 2)
As touched on in the deck analysis, we had some doubts about Totem Power from the outset. It seemed reminiscent of Deadspread from Scars of Mirrodin- a deck that highlights a mechanic for its own sake, when that mechanic isn’t particularly well-suited to building a deck around. Totem Armor is an intriguing twist on the periodic attempt to make creature auras playable (typically by mitigating the inherent card disadvantage), but aside from the Kor Spiritdancer and a couple role-player cards, there really didn’t seem all that much distinguishing this deck from just a generic creature deck with a few decent auras.
Knowing that the truth often emerges on the field of battle, I sat down with Sam who opted to meet Totem Power with the Blue/Black Leveler’s Scorn. Here are the results of that matchup.
Ertai’s Meddling: Myr of Mirrodin (Scars of Mirrodin)
Welcome back once more to the second installment of Ertai’s Meddling for the Scars of Mirrodin! In today’s column we’ll be taking apart the mono-White Myr tribal deck, and reconstructing it in an improved form. Like the previous Meddling, there will also be a twist thrown in to boot, based on the feedback from the Phyrexian Poison article. We’ll get to that later, but for now let’s review the rules of Ertai’s Meddling.
There are two fundamental rules this series has adopted, and they are as follows:
The goal of Ertai’s Meddling isn’t to make the best possible deck regardless your collection or wallet. Rather, by leaving out Rares and Mythic Rares, we look to improve upon the deck with cards most players may already have, or at least have easy access to. It’s often bemoaned- and correctly so- that to compete in Standard today you need to have fairly deep pockets to be able to build most decks. For many players who don’t have Pro Tour aspirations, however, a preconstructed deck and a little bit of tuning will yield up a deck that’s perfectly competitive for casual, table-top play. That’s our goal- take what’s been give to us in the deck, strip out its weaknesses and then build up its strengths.
Rise of the Eldrazi: Totem Power Review (Part 1 of 2)
Ahh, enchantments… what a long and sorrowful tale they tell. Ever the bridesmaids, and quite seldom the bride, it is a sad commentary on the state of the permanent that it’s rather big news when one makes Constructed play (see: Eldrazi Conscription). Far more useful in limited where their glaring weakness is somewhat reduced, they nevertheless magnify the risk-versus-reward element prevalent in the game. Their effects are often quite solid, but generally not quite enough to outweigh the vulnerability they leave their player with to being two-for-oned in response to their casting.
Very early on the player base came to this realisation, and Wizards has tried many times to offset their inherent risk of card disadvantage. Some have been splendid successes (see: Rancor), but for the most part they’re considered largely unplayable. But Wizards’ R&D keeps trying, and for Rise of the Eldrazi they came up with a new iteration: Totem Armor.
Contest: Ertai’s Meddling for Scars of Mirrodin!
As you’ll see below, today we’ve begun rolling out the Ertai’s Meddlings for the Scars of Mirrodin preconstructed decks! For those newer to the site, Meddlings are occasional features begun during M11, where after thoroughly reviewing a deck, we then look to build upon it and improve it with other cards. Having fast become one of our most popular features, we thought we’d go ahead and thank our readers by holding another giveaway.
Like past contests, we’ll be using the ‘raffle’ system to determine our winner, but unlike past contests there’s only one way to get your name in the hat: comments on each of the five Ertai’s Meddling for Scars decks. For each comment left, you’ll be entered to win. As always, comments don’t need to be the great American novel, but should at least show you’ve read the piece or are adding to any discussion around it. We’re quite lenient at what qualifies, but what we want to avoid is a post of “Looks great, I agree” and nothing more, just for the sake of entering.
And the prize? We’re glad you asked, because we’ve got a little twist there as well.
The lucky winner, drawn at random at the close of the contest, will recieve one Scars of Mirrodin Intro Pack of their choice. In addition, they will also get all of the singles needed to convert their deck into either one of the two Meddling decks featured in each article. If we add it to either version, you’ll win it.
We don’t have a close date yet as the Meddling articles are still in production, but we’ll set the deadline as three days after the final of the five SOM Meddlings is posted. Good luck to everyone, and thanks for all your enthusiasm around the Meddlings!
Ertai’s Meddling: Phyrexian Poison (Scars of Mirrodin)
Welcome back to another edition of Ertai’s Meddling, the ongoing series where we take a deck we’ve reviewed, strip out its weakest elements and look to rebuild it faster, better, stronger. It’s been awhile since we last Meddled (when M11 was new), so let’s take a moment to review the ground rules we’ve set down for the Meddling series:
Whoops! What our clumsily-rendered Goblin friends are trying to tell us there is that unlike past Meddlings, we’re throwing Rule #2 right out the window for Phyrexian Poison. Our first deck concept will be Scars and M11 only, as before. But the second- which is normally a mono-coloured version- will be something completely different: a Standard variant! There are two reasons for the change here. First, Infect is a new mechanic without a great deal of cards supporting it yet, and a mono-Black Infect deck would be a rather poor construct. And second, there are just so many great cards in the format right now that synergise well with Infect!
Rise of the Eldrazi: Eldrazi Arisen Review (Part 2 of 2)
Like an old Godzilla movie, our matchup today was to be a true battle of the gargantuan as Edlrazi Arisen wages war against Sam and the Red/Black Invading Spawn. As both decks are weak in the early game to ramp for late game might, neither one of us could expect to get a quick kill, leaving plenty of time and space for the worst each deck had to offer to be thrown at the other.
Sam and I sat down to battle, and here are the notes from our titanic clash.
Ertai's Lament 