Ertai’s Meddling: Deadspread (Scars of Mirrodin)
Thank you for joining us today as we release the next installment of the ever-popular Ertai’s Meddling series! Today we’re putting Scars of Mirrodin’s Deadspread firmly in our sights, and seeing if we can’t salvage what is a promising mechanic from the somewhat mediocre intro deck it’s been given. As ever we’ll be invoking the rules of Ertai’s Meddling, to make sure that our finished product is something fun and easily obtainable for everyone. That means:
Deadspread was the showcase deck for the new Proliferate mechanic, and had a lot of promise. Get some conters on the board, proliferate like crazy and finish off your decimated opponent. At least, that was the plan! As you might expect, the execution was perhaps a little shy of the mark.
So as we begin, what do we have to work with? Here are the strengths and weaknesses we identified in our analysis and playtesting of the deck:
Here, too, are the raw materials that we have to begin with:
For this Meddling, we’ll be making one version of the deck. Frequently Meddlings in the past have made an improved version of the deck, then used its components to make a mono-coloured variant. This won’t work well for Deadspread– as the first set in a new block, it’s tools aren’t fully developed yet, and we need all the Proliferate we can get. A second deck could be made that would abuse all the charge-counter artifacts we have to play with, but for today’s purposes we want to arrive at a very tightly-focused proliferate deck that makes the mechanic work.
Worldwake: Fangs of the Bloodchief Review (Part 1 of 2)
Last August we began our review of Rise of the Vampires, the Zendikar Vampires-themed Intro pack, by noting that the tribe was something of a last-minute addition to the set. “The model was successful enough,” we continued, “that Wizards would go on to recur it in Worldwake, which featured an updated version of the concept.” Rise’s strategy was precisely what you’d expect from such a deck- a fast, aggressively-positioned creature rush backed up by removal to blow your opponent away before they had a chance to solidify a board presence.
Perhaps they grew weary, though, after having the sand kicked in their face one too many times, for Worldwake’s Vampires headed to the gym to beef up a little before being boxed up and shipped. Make no mistake- there are far more similarities than differences between the two, but there are differences indeed and they are telling. Although we’ll be reviewing Fangs of the Bloodchief, we’ll also be exploring how this deck diverged from the last, for therein lies the message of Worldwake: things are getting worse.
Worldwake: Flyover Review (Part 2 of 2)
In our previous column (Flyover Part 1), we approached the review from a different angle, breaking through the ‘fifth wall’ and presenting a review as seen from the inside. It was enjoyably received, but alas there’s little we can do comparably for the playtest segment of our review. Here, most everything’s transparent from the start!
To test Flyover’s aerial goodness, I was joined by Jimi, who had selected Brute Force as her weapon of choice. Here are the notes from our review.
News: New ‘Magic Beyong the Box’ Article Up!
If you’ve had your fill of our special (and extra-lengthy) Flyover “meta-review” and are hungry for more precon coverage, head over to the new and exciting Quiet Speculation for my new column on rekindling a precon romance. Take those old precons off the shelf, try something new and fall in love all over again!
Worldwake: Flyover Review (Part 1 of 2)
Every deck wants to tell you something. It seems obvious, but you’d be surprised how many people look through a stack of cards and don’t seem to pick up on what it’s trying to do. To be fair, it’s not always easy to see, but there are certain broad-based themes that can go a long way towards helping you grasp the concept behind a deck, and in today’s feature we’re going to do something of a meta-review. Not just a straightforward Ertai’s Lament review, but a breakdown of what we’re looking for, and how we arrive at the conclusions we do.
The subject of today’s deconstruction is Flyover, a Blue/White assemblage from Worldwake. Away we go!
An Open Invitation to the Great Designer Search Contestants
Welcome, aspiring designers!
Thanks to Eric “Mr. Suitcase” McCormick (@thewachman), we’ve been getting some attention from the Great Designer Search 2 on account of the fact that the latest design challenge involves designing an intro pack!
As it happens, in the past month we’ve written several columns on what makes good and bad intro decks for Quiet Speculation that might be worth a read:
Five Reasons Why Intro Packs Matter
Five Elements of the Best Precon Decks
Additionally, we have reviewed the Intro Packs for a number of sets, including all sets in the current Standard environment (we’re in the midst of Worldwake presently). If you feel our analysis might offer some insight, feel free to browse the archives!
Finally, we are happy to offer aid in fine-tuning your deck(s) prior to submission by running your deck through a “precon gauntlet” and reporting our findings directly to you. Deck stress testing will be offered on a first-come, first-served basis, and can be tailored to what you’re looking for. Send us a message on Twitter (@ErtaisLament) and we can discuss this option further.
We’re proud to be a part of the Magic community, and delighted to be of any help we can for this worthy challenge!
Worldwake: Rapid Fire Review (Part 2 of 2)
We’ve reviewed Zendikar. We’ve covered Rise of the Eldrazi. And even before these we had immediate coverage of Scars of Mirrodin and Magic 2011. Finally, with the tackling of Worldwake, we’ll have every Standard-legal set sorted out before Mirrodin Besieged is released early next month. It’s a pleasing realisation, even as the mind wonders that at the current rate of review if we’ll ever actually run out of precons while waiting for new ones!
It’s in that spirit of exploration that Jimi and I took out customary places opposing one another on the battlefield that is the kitchen table. Deprived of her preferred option (Rapid Fire), she instead sought to console herself by smashing it with a mono-Black flurry of Vampires.
Here are the notes from our confrontation.
2009-10 Precon Championships: The Finals
Hello and welcome back to our continuing coverage of the 2009-10 Preconstructed Deck Championships! Today your patience will be rewarded, for after three exciting rounds of contests, we are closing in on final victory and the glory that comes from being the last deck standing!
Early action was furious and full of surprises. The Duel Decks- an early favourite- found themselves stymied at every turn. Of the four in contention, only Phyrexia was able to advance past the first round. The Coalition, Garruk, and Liliana all faced punishing upsets at the hands of decks who had never had so much as a sniff of a mythic rare between them.
Worldwake: Rapid Fire Review (Part 1 of 2)
Just as Shards of Alara introduced terms for three-colour blends into the game for decks composed of a colour and its two allied colours (ie- Black plus Blue and Red = ‘Grixis’), so too did Ravnica just a few years before. In Ravnica’s case, these were two-colour blends, and based on guilds in the set’s setting there was a term for every possible combination. Interestingly, of the ten guilded colour pairings, only Boros has truly survived into the modern-day common parlance. That’s not to say the others have faded to utter obscurity, but rather when we talk about the rise of Blue-Black in today’s Standard meta, we’re quite unlikely to hear the word “Dimir” used.
Now as then, Boros decks tend to maximise the strengths of both colours using cheap creatures backed up by a burn package. When the designers of the Worldwake Intro Decks sat down to sketch their landscape of what the set’s decks would look like, they decided it was time for another Boros construction. There had been one in Magic 2010 (We Are Legion), but you had to go a little further back to find the last few as two of Alara block’s three sets released three-colour decks (the last set- Alara Reborn- went back to a two-colour model, but without a Boros amongst them). Lorwyn block had given us Battle Blitz, while Time Spiral block had featured Endless March. The Red/White machine was certainly due for an update!
And thus, Rapid Fire was born. A relatively straightforward beats-n-burn deck with a mechanical twist, we’ll begin our review today with the deck’s bodies.
2009-10 Precon Championships: Lauer Division (Part 2 of 2)
Here we are once again, sports fans around the world and of all ages, to see the remaining division in the Forsythe Conference be decided! It’s all come down to these four: Kor Armory (ZEN), Invading Spawn (ROE), Leveler’s Glory (ROE), and Rapid Fire (WWK). By the end of the day, only one shall remain to move on and challenge for the divisional banner and right to represent the Confereince in the finals!
Ertai's Lament 