New ‘Magic Beyond the Box’ Post Up: Great Designer Search 2
Our third feature on the Great Designer Search 2 “intro deck challenge” is up over at QS, and a very different outcome! What happens when you break a mechanic on your very first attempt? Stop on over and find out!
New ‘Magic Beyond the Box’ Post Up: Great Designer Search 2
As it turns out, there was a lot to report on when we stress-tested the intro decks through a precon gauntlet for the four finalists of the Great Designer Search 2. Ethan’s evolve deck got the write-up last Thursday, and the other three decks were too big to contain in just one piece! In today’s special Magic Beyond the Box, we look at Scott Van Essen’s Breakout from Malgareth, with its exciting breakout mechanic.
If you’ve ever wondered what it’s like to design and develop intro decks, come check it out!
Win the ‘Mirromancy’ Mirrodin Besieged Intro Pack!
In celebration of the prerelease this weekend, we’re giving away an intro pack from the new Mirrodin Besieged expansion to one lucky Lament reader! Mirromancy is one of the set’s two Mirran decks, and as you’ll see in the upcoming review this Wednesday, it’s a rather unusual departure from the norm!
To score a copy of Mirromancy, all you have to do is leave a comment below answering the following question: who will win the war on Mirrodin, and why?
It doesn’t need to be the Great American Novel, of course- but let us know where you think the block is going, and what clues you might have seen to support it. The winner will be chosen at random amongst all eligible comments on Friday, 04 February. One entry per person, please, though feel free to enjoy the discussion as well!
New ‘Magic Beyond the Box’ Article Up, Covering GDS2
After a slight delay (due to my intrepid editor’s being without power in the blizzard), Magic Beyond the Box is up today at Quiet Speculation!
Today’s piece begins a mini-series on the Great Designer 2 deck testing we at Ertai’s Lament undertook last weekend. What are the decks? How did they perform? With the decklists now submitted to Wizards and undergoing the same process there for the next week or two, come take a look!
You can find the article here.
ManaNation Spoils Mirrodin Besieged Intro Decks
In case you missed it, ManaNation.com has published the full lists of all four intro decks for Mirrodin Besieged. You can check them out here!
Ertai’s Lament reviews of the decks will begin on 02 February.
Ertai’s Lament and the Great Designer Search 2
As many of you may know, the Ertai’s Lament crew has been right in the thick of the Great Designer Search 2 this past week, assisting all four of the finalists with fine-tuning their intro decks for Design Challenge #5, “Introductions Please,” in which the aspiring designers are asked to make an intro deck for their set.
Our series chronicling our experiences playtesting the four decks through a gauntlet of precons will begin tomorrow on Quiet Speculation, in our Magic Beyond the Box series, so be sure to check it out!
Also, if you’ve been gollowing the GDS2, you’ll no doubt recognise the name Jay Treat. A top-8 finalist, his earlier elimination hasn’t stopped him a bit (and really, when you’re in a crowd of eight designers amongst over a thousand, why would it?). He’s reached out to Ertai’s Lament to collaborate with him on designing intro packs for his completed set Escape to Muraganda. Be on the lookout for Muraganda-themed articles and journeys into intro pack design here on Ertai’s Lament!
News: More on Mirrodin Beseiged Intro Packs Revealed
In case you missed it, last week’s Magic Arcana over at the mothership introduced us to our four Intro Pack decks for the upcoming Mirrodin Beseiged set. Exciting stuff, and right around the corner!
Guest Meddling: Blades of Victory (Magic 2011)
Not too long ago, I started playing with a group of people at my college on Monday nights. About half the group was newer players, taking their first steps into the world of Magic: the Gathering. These new players ran the gamut in skill level and what cards they had available to them, but one thing remained constant-they all wanted to improve their decks.
Let’s be honest, it’s not very difficult to realize that, say, Bog Raiders and Canyon Minotaurs aren’t winning you any games (the exception being Limited, where both are decent picks, but that is an entirely different beast). However, I constantly find newer players asking for other people to make their decks better, and while I’m certainly all for helping people out, that’s no way to learn!
Today I am taking the M11 Intro Deck Blades of Victory and outlining some simple steps that can be taken to “pump it up.” More importantly, I’ll explain some of the reasoning behind each tweak, to provide a nice basic iullustration on “why this card is better than that one.”
News: New ‘Magic Beyond the Box’ Article Up
Ever wonder what it takes to make a successful Duel Decks release? Certainly balance between the decks makes the short list of critical factors, and in today’s Quiet Spec column I analyse the series with an eye on precisely that. What have they done right, what have they done wrong… and why was Phyrexia vs The Coalition- irony of ironies- a radical break from the past?
Come on by, say hello, and find out for yourself!
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.
Ertai's Lament 
