Build a Magic 2013 Intro Pack Contest: Part 3
Two polls down, and the Goblin Artisans M13 Intro Pack deck we’re building is shaping up! In our first poll, we asked you to determine a colour pairing, and by a slender margin Blue/Black struck out ahead. This time, the results for selecting a theme were not close. By a landslide, the deck’s theme will be…
Pirates!
That’s right, it’s time to walk the plank.
For the curious, here’s how it looked last week:
Next, we’ll be asking you to choose the two rares of the deck. We’re not going to worry which one is premium/foil, but we’ve divided them into two pools- creatures and noncreatures- and we’ll be asking you to select one from each. As usual, we’ll keep the poll open for four days.
If you’re participating in the giveaway, don’t forget to leave a comment below giving your thoughts on what you’ve seen and selected. For those just joining us, we’ll be selecting random comments from the Build a Magic 2013 Intro Pack Contest articles to win a real Magic 2013 Intro Pack as well as a trio of boosters. It’s never too late to be entered!
Since this version of M13 is a custom set from Goblin Artisans, below we’ve included the cards for each pool. Although sadly we can’t include a mythic rare planeswalker, there are plenty of good options below. Give them a look, then let us know your picks for the deck.
Rare Pool A
Rare Pool B
With the card revealed, now it’s time to make your selections. Which two rares should go into the Pirates! Intro Pack?
Ertai's Lament 
Raiding Pirate seems pretty straightforward, and Thoughtsieze might be the best fit as far as fitting in with the pirate theme (raiding your opponent’s hand).
Agreed. Both are right on theme.
I think Raiding Pirate makes the most sense from Pool A if we’re making a Pirate deck, but I disagree with Thoughtseize. It goes with the Pirate theme as much as the card I think should go in, Hypnotic Trance. Why not make a Pirate deck all about stealing from your opponent? That makes more sense to me than Thoughtseize. Additionally, I don’t think newer players would understand why Thoughtseize is good, considering they lose life just to make their opponent get rid of a card.
If only we could find a way to include Stolen Goods from AVR.
Agreed on Raiding Pirate, seems like the obvious choice. I voted for predictive emulation in the second group however as you are “raiding” their deck and using one of their treasures against them…ok that sounds lame but it does go with the pirates theme IMO.
Raiding Pirate is an excellent choice, being the most “thematic” card of the pool and a strong(maybe too much?) closer. Our hypothetical new player will be delighted in using him (“My pirates manage to board your ship? Great, now I can pillage your goods!”) and will be rewarded for finding out how to let them trough (against a series of blockers, for example).
As for the second rare, two cards conjure up the “stealing” vibe : Hypnotic Trance and Predictive Emulation. I chose the latter, because it can be scaled with power, deprives the opponent of two resources (the instant/sorcery we cast and the other cards which get milled) and combines well with the Pirate(he steals permanents, the Emulation snatches a spell).
I voted for the Raiding Pirate and Mutilate. Both seem on theme to me: Raiding Pirate is obvious. And what else do pirates do other than raid?? They Mutilate! The cards is a really nice mass removal when in a tough situation. The only other card I was thinking about was Predictive Emulation because it is kind of like stealing. But I like to balance things out; the Raiding Pirate is blue, so the other rare should be black. It might not make sense, but I like to keep it even 🙂
None of the other creatures seemed to have the right theme. And the only noncreature spells on topic (to me) were the two I listed above. Mass Polymorph also seems ok, but it is not too pirate-like.
Pirates are on theme, and for me Mind Bend. Sabotaging plans involving color specific keywords is on theme for me. Plus, its Blue!
I went with Raiding Pirate and Hypnotic Trance. Both let you raid your opponent’s creatures. One lets your opponent choose which card, one lets you choose which card.
From pool A, there’s no question. It just has to be the Raiding Pirate. Pool B is less straightforward… Ideally, I would have liked it to be a black rare but I don’t feel they fit in too well mechanically. Thoughtseize and Mutilate are flavorful choices in terms of names but I feel some of the blue options fit in better.
I went with Dream Duel for a few reasons:
– It combines the pirate theme with the second most-popular option for last poll: milling!
– The name sounds fitting for a mystical swashbuckling deck.
– The card encourages what the deck would want to do: attack!
– The above means it synergizes well with Raiding Pirate.
– It allows your pirates to sack and pillage your opponent’s library! (as a respectable captain you let them keep their loot)
The above of course assumes that Dream Duel doesn’t cancel out Raiding Pirate’s ability. Dream Duel converts damage into milling so it lets the Pirate do his thing on the way, doesn’t it?
Dream Duel creates a replacement effect, so no damage would be dealt and the pirate’s ability would have no effect.
But I don’t see why you’d ever want to cast this card on an opponent; unless you’re running a dedicated mill deck, which this intro deck doesn’t purports to be, you only make life harder for yourself by casting it on anyone but yourself.
raiding pirate easy but pool b is harder predictive emulation seems the most in tune with pirates raiding the opponents deck
Won’t comment on Pool A since that’s obvious.
Pool B, I went with Mutilate for many of the same reasons others have stated. I think while Thoughtseize is a good card, I agree it is not a good card in an Intro Deck.
Hypnotic Trance while stealing is lacking the piracy part (unless they are pirate hypnotists). The only other card that seemed feasible was Mind Shatter but I think showing off awesome Black removal is good for the Intro Deck. Also, allows you to clear the board before the pirates appear on the battlefield!
Raiding Pirate is definitely the obvious choice for pool A.
Pool B was a little harder, I like Hypnotic Trance and Predictive Emulation for the theme of stealing from your opponent, and Thoughtseize for the plundering. I’m going to have to go with Thoughtseize so you can loot with one rare and plunder with the other.
Yes, Raiding pirate is the way to go for the creature. The mechanic of it is perfect and it’s a pirate to boot. Picking a card from the second category was a lot harder. I think that hypnotic trance doesn’t fit that well, the only thing it has going for it is the stealing theme, but I don’t think a pirate would charm people with hypnosis.
I voted Memoricide for the second card. It was hard to choose between it and Predictive Emulation, but I loved the idea that you get to ransack trough all the cards the opponent has. While you don’t actually stell things, the ‘stealing candy from a child’ -feeling is still there when you remove an opponents Titans and put them aside.
Had to go with the raiding pirate – his ability is flavorful, unusual, and might make for an unforgettable “raiding” deck. I’ve never even heard of a deck that makes a distinct attempt to seize an opponents cards, so this sounds like riotous fun! To fit this theme, though it isn’t the best, I had to choose hypnotic trance. It seemed more thematic when you consider seabound creatures of myth like harpies and mermaids that hypnotize their prey!
I went for raiding pirate (obviously) and hypnotic trance for a creature stealing theme. The trance also makes it a little easier for your pirates to get through.
Raiding pirate. A pirate-themed deck must have a pirate lord. Period. ( He’s flavourful too! )
Picking a card from the second pool was a bit harder, but i chose Predictive emulation because it goes with the pillaging theme of the pirates, and it’s a card that can turn the tables when you know that your deck doesn’t have an answer to a particular threat.
My votes are as follows…
Raiding Pirate: Duh.
Mutilate: I feel that we need to have one rare from each color. Out of all the black non-creature spells available, Thoughtseize and Mutilate were the ones that seemed like something a pirate might do. Secondly, I figure that WotC would INTENTIONALLY put something as expensive as Thoughtseize in an Intro Pack. (We all know there have been mistakes before like this … *ahem* (Jitte) *ahem* …) Also, Mutilate is just more fun and obvious for new players to figure out. WotC rarely puts anything that costs life in starter decks, because new players just don’t think that as “fun” yet.
Raiding pirate is obvious for the theme. And I picked hypnotic trance because since we’re stealing and plundering, why not steal their creatures too? Afterall a good healthy pirate will steal your women…
I went after Nether Skineater. What an epic combo it forms with Mutilate…
Raiding Pirate, obviously for the theme. I like predictive emulation for pool B. The flavor is a little off, but the effect is right on target as far as stealing spells from your opponent. LOVE the planeswalking pirate, btw.
I’m not even sure if Pool A needs to be dignified with a comment.
I like one of the discard spells from the second pool because the flavor is more on-theme. Pirates don’t do hypnosis or mind-reading.
I picked Raiding Pirate for obvious reasons. Sticking with the plundering theme, I picked Thoughtseize from the second pool. Aside from being an awesome card, I think it may be a good thing to have a card like Thoughtseize in a intro deck precisely because it can help a new player to understand that it’s okay to take damage from a card if its effect offsets that damage sufficently.
Yeah I’m going with Raiding Pirate and Predictive Emulation for the “stealing” theme.
Raiding pirate is pretty much a no-brainer. predictive emulation was my other vote. I pictured an infiltrator pirate, diving into the ocean during a clash between ships, then resurfacing alongside the enemy ship. He digs his daggers into the side of the ship, using them to climb upwards like an ice climber with ice picks. He dodges cannonballs, narrowly avoiding instant death time after time. Then he finds an entry point, an open crater from a cannonball. Sticking to the shadows, he slips inside. He sabotages one of their cannons from a shroud of darkness, and when the enemy returns to launch again, their own “spell” backfires. Because of the infiltrators cunning and expertise, the cannon detonates at the ships weakest spot, causing a collapse on deck, and soon the sinking of the ship.
Pirate infiltrator, 2UU, hexproof, islandwalk, when pirate infiltrator deals damage to an opponent, add UUUUUUU to your mana pool. Use this mana only to cast instants or sorceries that target this opponent.
Just a thought
As already said, the Pirate Lord is … well a pirate lord 🙂
For the second card, the decision on what would fit best into a pirate themed deck was a bit tougher. Draw? Discard? Both would deal with a Robin Hood-like re-distributing of goods. However, my pick was Predictive Emulation. Not only does it steal from the opponent, it also turns one of his tools into a weapon to be used against him. But would the same not be true for Hypnotic Trance? Well, only partly. With Hypnotic Trance the opponent still has the option of gaining back control of his creature. With Predictive Emulation … who ever said anything about giving stuff back? 😉
I wanted to chose a rare for color. Raiding Pirate is pretty obvious for blue, it’s our flag bearer! I chose Mind Shatter for the second rare because it’s black and because thoughseize seems too much powerfull for an intro deck. I can imagine pirates getting drunk with their enemies and forgot random things!
For the creatures, Raiding Pirate was the much obvious choice.
It was more difficult for the spells : on one side, the ‘stealing thing’ would be an evidence also, and I was starting to choose this way, or even Mind Bend so the pirates could cross every land to plunder every shores…
…until I remembered one thing : in most bicolor Theme Decks (as far as I can remember, but I may be wrong since ‘The Plague’ has 2 white rares), WotC puts a rare from EACH color. Meaning that if I choose a Blue Creature, I must then choose a Black spell as a counterbalnace.
Therefore, like Lightside, I’ve chosen Mutilate : it’s flavourful (slaughtering whole villages), easy to play and not too broken in a bicolor deck. If I had to choose a Blue spell instead, it would have Predictive Emulation, despite being not that much flavourful (psychic pirates?)
Mind Shatter was my other choice in Black, as a way to represent what state the people are in after having been brutally looted…
Pool A: choosing Raiding Pirate is immediate (and it should be the foil rare, in my opinion). It just screams “ARRRR” from the box’s front.
Pool B: Predictive Emulation can be a great spell when you have built your buccaneers’ army; otherwise, it can be a bit of milling option with a possible steal incorporated.
Raiding Pirate- Tribal Lord, a no-brainer
Predictive Emulation- Allows you to steal from your opponent, without a drawback
Pool A was obvious – it might have been less so if Pool B had a pirate in it, but I can understand that there wouldn’t be that many options at rare.
For Pool B, I had narrowed it down to the bottom three, but chose Thoughtsieze because it feels the most like plundering.
I have to say Predictive Emulation is an absolutely amazing card, and I wish it were real. Milling X at instant speed for XU, and getting a free spell on top of that too? Totally bonkers. Play it with Snapcaster Mage and mill actually becomes a viable strategy.
Why does it matter? Mill wasn’t chosen anyway.
I chose predictive emulation and raiding pirate because they are good cards. I like predictive emulation because it allows the player to play any card for free, and the pirate because he steals stuff
It wasn’t chosen as the main theme, but it could be a sub-theme : like I’ve said before, there have been precednts, like Homelands’ Reef Pirates (both a pirate and milling card)
Subthemes don’t work when they charactarize a different style of winning. Mill and regular damage together are stupid. You have to focus on mill or regular damage. And the pirate rare doesn’t work with mill.
Thematically, Raiding Pirate is the most appropriate rare from the creature pool. However, staying in true nature with the Pirate’s “steal everything” ability, I’d have to go with Predictive Emulation from the non-creature pool, as it lets your target the opponent’s library as well, stealing their precious instants and sorceries.
As a pirate, you gotta cover all the bases. Yarr!
I was shocked, just shocked when I saw all the votes for Raiding Pirate after I voted for it….
Predictive Emulation felt the most “on theme” to me of the second rare pool…though I would prefer non-Jace art because I don’t really like Jace.
Raiding Pirate seems like the obvious first choice. Predictive Emulation feels piratey, though it’s not exactly flavored that way. On second thought, perhaps I should’ve chosen a black card to balance things.
Raiding pirate just makes sense in pirate deck, I guess almost everyone will agre with that.
I wanted to vote for something other than Raiding Pirate since so many already voted for him, but I couldn’t come up with a good reason to choose any of the others. I mean, who would join a pirate crew that had a vampire (trapped at sea on a boat with a creature that feeds on human blood), shapeshifter (a traitor among us), sphinx (another creature that feeds on humans), spirit (doesn’t bode well for trip’s outcome does it?), demon (press ganged and lost my soul to boot), or gorgon (you can’t even look at the thing)??