Ertai’s Trickery: The Mad Machinist’s Mash-Up (Part 5 of 6)
At last we are ready to assemble the Mad Machinist’s Mash-up! Over the past week, we’ve taken the cards from three different Artifact-based precons (Planechase’s Metallic Dreams, Archenemy’s Assemble the Doomsday Machine, and Duel Decks: Elsepth vs Tezzeret’s Tezzeret deck), and pared away cards in search of making a cohesive whole.
As we said in the beginning, we won’t always make the same choices that you might, and we’re certainly not against being wrong on occasion, but the end result should be a deck that blends the strengths of all three, capable of holding its own even moreso against Elspeth’s deck in the Duel Decks. In our next (and last) installment of this Trickery, we’ll be taking the Mash-Up to battle against her mono-White deck. So let’s go deckbuilding!
Scars of Mirrodin Intro Pack Decklists Out!
You can find then here.
The full Ertai’s Lament reviews for each deck will be coming soon!
Anthologies: Green/White Deck Review (Part 1 of 2)
It all might seem rather quaint now, but in 1998 Wizards of the Coast released a boxed set in commemoration of the five year anniversary of the game of Magic. Designed to showcase cards from each set, it was filled with spells and creatures from Alpha to Urza’s Saga and contained two 60-card preconstructed decks: Green/White, and Black/Red. Blue mages who like to complain that design works against them can no doubt take heart at their own absence here.
These days it’s a bit diffcult to find at reasonable cost, but students of the history of the game will perhaps derive as much enjoyment of the book that comes with the set as from the decks. Nevertheless, we here at Ertai’s Lament like to put on our time-travelling cap from time to time and fling ourselves back through time to some of the earlier sets, and getting our hands on Anthologies proved well-nigh irrestistable.
Ertai’s Trickery: The Mad Machinist’s Mash-Up (part 4 of 6)
Once again we return to the lair of the Mad Machinist, and continue our Frankensten-like work on a hybrid deck combining the best elements of three different preconstructed decks! In the past three episodes of Ertai’s Trickery, we’re looking to build a powerhouse Artifact deck out of the 180 cards afforded us by Planechase’s Metallic Dreams, Archenemy’s Assemble the Doomsday Machine and the Tezzeret deck from Duel Decks: Elspeth vs Tezzeret.
In earlier articles, we’ve narrowed the colour scheme down to Blue/Black, and have made early rounds of cuts on our removal, and selected cards that would give us a steady dose of card advantage.
By the end of today’s column, we’ll have our second round of cuts comeplete, and ready to start deckbuilding! All that remains are critters, counters, and miscellany, and we’ll hit them all today!
Zendikar: Kor Armory Review (Part 2 of 2)
As luck had it, the last deck Sam hadn’t played yet in opposition to the deck I was featuring was Rise of the Vampires, which was the exact deck I played when Sam selected Kor Armory. And so it came to pass that we would be having ourselves a rematch of sorts, mono-White against mono-Black, with each shoe firmly on the other foot. We shuffled, played a friendly to establish play order, and laid into it. Here are our notes.
Ertai’s Trickery: The Mad Machinist’s Mash-Up (Part 3 of 6)
Welcome back to the next installment of our latest series, Ertai’s Trickery! Our goal is simple: make a solid 60-card deck out of a very limited card pool: Planechase’s Metallic Dreams, Archenemy’s Assemble the Doomsday Machine and Tezzeret’s deck from Duel Decks: Elspeth vs Tezzeret. In past episodes we settled on a colour scheme and began to look at removal. Next, we’ll be looking at ways to get the most out of the 60 cards we settle on.
Announcing Our Contest Winners!
First of all, let me thank everyone who participated- it was a lot of fun, and there were an impressive number of chits in the hat to draw from once we were ready. We’ve had a lot of great comments which I hope continue, and a lot of interest in what the site’s about!
For those that didn’t win, don’t worry- we’ll be having a Scars of Mirrodin Intro Pack giveaway just around the corner. But today belongs to those lucky three that did, and without further ado, here they are!
For the winners, we’ll be in touch shortly and have your prizes in the post this week.
Thanks again to Moonlight Comics in Frankfort, KY for their generous prize support!
Zendikar: Unstable Terrain Review (Part 2 of 2)
Welcome back! When last we left Zendikar, we were picking apart the Blue/Green Unstable Terrain, which used an army of Landfall-enabled beaters to dominate the red zone. With Sam challenging behind the Red/Blue Pumped Up, we put Terrain to the test, and here’s how it did!
Ertai’s Trickery: the Mad Machinist’s Mash-Up (Part 2 of 6)
Welcome back to the next installment of Ertai’s Trickery! We’re back in the machine shop, exploring the considerable number of trinkets and artifacts we’ve salvaged from Metallic Dreams, Assemble the Doomsday Machine, and Tezzeret with an eye to assembling the most powerful, most lethal, and most foe-crushing collection of 60 cards we can, before leading them to bloody retribution against that most nettlesome, meddling Planeswalker, Elspeth! Muahahaha!!!
*cough*
Sorry, got carried away there for a moment. Anyway, in our last installment we made all the easy, colour-based cuts. Since the Mad Machinist’s Mash-Up is going to be Blue/Black, we’re now down to only those cards that will work within that framework, but we still have way too many for a deck. It’s time for the next round of cuts, and some difficult decisions.
Zendikar: Kor Armory Review (Part 1 of 2)
In one of the earliest articles on Ertai’s Lament, we took a look at a classic gem- 1998’s Call of the Kor from the Stronghold set, and traced the development of the Kor through to their recasting as the embattled, travel-hardened nomadic inhabitants of the plane of Zendikar.
Kor Armory was a mono-coloured deck in a set that featured two of them, standing in stark contrast to the mono-Black Rise of the Vampires. Like Vampires, it has the expected Weenie/swarm approach, and is noteworthy for being almost completely tribal (a mere one Creature card out of place).
Ertai's Lament 