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?
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.
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!
Wizards Releases Fire & Lightning Deck List
Today on the mothership, Monty Ashley has offered us up a teaser for the forthcoming second product in the Premium Deck Series line: Fire & Lightning. It releases on 19 November… have a look!
Product Review: Archenemy Deck Box
Back in August, Ertai’s Lament broke an exclusive that Ultra Pro was releasing a line of deck obxes in conjunction with Magic’s Archenemy, designed to hold two decks and the over-size Scheme cards that came with the set. Ultra Pro had a similar release for last year’s Planechase, and we were excited to have a better way to organise these decks. We’ve been big fans of what Ultra Pro has done with the Duel Decks containers in the past, and of their sleeves in general, so we had high hopes that these would be a great addition to the precon library.
Unfortunately, they proved to be quite the disappointment. It seems that perhaps to cut down on production costs, rather than create a new box model to accomodate the needs of the decks, they instead used their standard size box and ‘make it work’ through jamming a removable folded plastic fitting from inside of it.
It’s hard to imagine that a company would issue a product that actually dissuades you from using their other products, but perhaps the most disappointing aspect of these boxes is that they will only fit the Archenemy decks if you don’t have them sleeved. If you’re as meticulous about the condition of your decks as we are and sleeve everything, you’ll have to be content with buying four of these boxes- two for the decks, and two for the Schemes. Unsurprisingly, any two top-loading Ultra Pro deck boxes will fit snugly inside the Archenemy box (as they do with the Duel Decks deck boxes).
Through our dealings with Ultra Pro customer service, we’ve been won over and continue to be huge fans of their products. But unless you’re willing to plunk down for four of these boxes, or settle for storing your decks unsleeved, you may want to give them a miss.
Hits: Very attractive presentation
Misses: This product needs a complete redesign. This product should be able to store two 60-card decks in sleeves as well as their respective sleeved Schemes. The flimsy insert design is an unusual misstep for Ultra Pro, trying to jockey off of an existing mold to avoid the expense of creating a proper one
FINAL GRADE: 2.5/5.0
UPDATE: We also ordered some Planechase deck boxes, and upon their arrival found them to contain 60 regular sleeves and 10 larger, Plane-sized ones. This indicated a flaw in our understanding of the product- they’re not designed to hold two decks, merely one each. Thus, 60 sleeved cards will fit in a box, but you have to break them into two piles.
Just to be fair, we took a 60-card sleeved deck and sleeved oversize companion cards, and put them in one of the boxes. Here’s what we found:
> The “folded insert” option is inelegant, and holds the 60 cards of the deck quite sloppily
> The room for the oversize cards is also over-spacous, so they will rattle around quite a bit in the back
This supports our initial observation that Ultra Pro seemed to take an existing box mold (for their Duel Decks products), and jury-rigged it to “feature” the Archenemy/Planechase decks. Out conclusion (and grade) stands- unless you’re an absolute purist for storage, or a collector at heart, you’ll have better options than these. Heretofore we’ve stored our oversize cards in an empty Intro Pack box, which workes perfectly well. In some ways, better actually…
Still, it would not have been fair to let our misconception stand. One deck box, one deck. We do love that Ultra Pro is trying, but there is room for improvement. The single biggest change we’d recommend? Lose that dreadful folded insert, and make them like they were designed to hold the cards.
As always, your mileage may vary…
Wizards Registers “Duel Decks: Ajani vs Nicol Bolas” Trademark
In a piece on ManaNation today, it was revealed that Wizards of the Coast has registered “Duel Decks: Ajani vs Nicol Bolas” as a trademark. Another White Planeswalekr duel deck in the offering? Expect a ton of lifegain, no doubt. But Nicol Bolas? Could we see the return of Cruel Ultimatum? We can’t waitt to find out!
Wizards Announces Duel Decks: Knights vs Dragons
Today Wizards announced the next in the series of Duel Decks, Knights vs Dragons! You can read the article here, but aficionados of heraldry take note- any similarities to the Rebel Alliance are strictly coincidental!
Duel Decks: Knights vs Dragons will be released on 01 April, 2011.
Sitenotes 10/6/2010
Good morning! Three very brief notes today.
1. Zac Hill, a member of the design team for Duel Decks: Elspeth vs Tezzeret, has posted a very interesting article about the design for it on the mothership- take a look!
2. Those who like to keep up with new columns and updates on their favourite blogs will be happy to note that Ertai’s Lament now makes this functionality easier than ever! Check out the subscription box just over on the right-hand margin.
3. And finally, anniversary giveaway winner (and frequent commentator) troacctid had this to say about his recent good fortune:
Hope you enjoyed, and thanks for all the insights you offer in the comments, troacctid!
That’s all for now, we’ll be back tomorrow with the next installment of our Scars of Mirrodin deck reviews as we take Phyrexian Poison onto the battlefield!
Ertai’s Trickery: Mad Machinist’s Mash-Up (Part 6 of 6)
And so it’s come to this. A week of pooling and cutting, arranging and tinkering, and all the labour to be decided on a mere three games with Sam. Those who’ve read from the beginning have experienced our colour selection, choice of removal, card advantage and Land options, Creatures, and final assembly of the deck.
When we began this project, it was to take the cards of three Artifact-focused preconstructed decks (Planechase’s Metallic Dreams, Archenemy’s Assemble the Doomsday Machine, and Duel Decks: Elspeth vs Tezzeret’s Tezzeret) and combine them into one 60-card hybrid with which to take the field against Elspeth’s deck. When we analysed and playtested Elspeth’s deck, we found it strong in the early game with a decent removal suite, so a slower Artifact theme had its work cut our for it.
At the eleventh hour, based on advice from readership I stripped out a Swamp and added a Mistvein Borderpost, which I had previously cut from consideration, to bolster the mana base of the deck.
Sam and I took them to battle, and here are our notes.
Ertai's Lament 