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!
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!
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!
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.
Ertai’s Trickery: The Mad Machinist’s Mash-Up (Part 1 of 6)
Today we’re excited to introduce a new occasional series to the website: Ertai’s Trickery! Whereas the Meddling series follows very specific rules with an eye to refining an existing deck within its own framework, Ertai’s Trickery throws such stodgy methodolgy to the wind. No, what you’ll find here is the offbeat, the oddball and the extraordinary, and we’ll be beginning today with the start of a mash-up deck.
The genesis for this feature came from one of our readers, Jars, who had this to say:
One suggestion that you might want to try in the near future: since you already have all these Wizards-made decks (Intro Packs, Duel Decks, etc), what say you to doing a mash-up of sorts? I mean, use cards from another precon to tweak and improve this deck. For example, use the “Assemble the Doomsday Machine” Archenemy deck or “Metallic Dreams” Planechase deck to give the Tezzeret deck a boost. I know that you have specified your procedure of editing decklists (e.g., no adding rares) but this might be a good thing to try.
The more we thought about it, the more fun the idea sounded. But then we thought, “hey, why limit ourselves to just two? Since we have all three of those solidly Artifact-based decks in our library, let’s see if we can’t come up with something truly wicked. So Planechase’s Metallic Dreams, Archenemy’s Assemble the Doomsday Machine, and Duel Decks: Elspeth vs Tezzeret’s Tezzeret deck came down off the shelf and were dumped into one large pile.
Ertai’s Meddling: Power of Prophecy (m11)
Welcome back to another edition of Ertai’s Meddling, a semi-regular feature which sees us take a preconstructed deck and use it as the basis for deckbuilding a new, enhanced version. For those unfamiliar with the series, the rules of Ertai’s Meddling are simple:
For many, the ‘Intro Packs’ are the first exposure they have to a deck of their own, and the next step is to modify and improve that deck. The designers of each precon deck are well aware of this, and kindly leave us lots of opportunities to tweak them.
Ertai’s Lament’s Massive Anniversary Giveaway!
Three months ago, we began Ertai’s Lament with little more than passion and drive. Realising that the preconstructed community in Magic was sorely underrepresented in our culture, we felt that there would be a place for a site that specialised in reviewing and discussing Intro Packs, Duel Decks, and any other deck-off-the-shelf product Wizards saw fit to throw at us.
And if page views are any indicator to go by, it seems we were right! At first with a few visits every few days it was a labour of love, but flash forward three months and the site is getting hundreds of visits a day. We’re proud of this accomplishment, and enjoy giving something back to everyone who’s helped keep us going by their shared interest in precons. (We’re also quite proud that we haven’t yet missed a single deadline of one article every 48 hours… knock on wood)
Therefore, with the generous help of our friends at Moonlight Comics in Frankfort, KY we’re thrilled to announce the Ertai’s Lament Anniversary Giveaway! The rules are simple.
The Rules
1. There are a total of three Prize Packages available (contents below), and therefore three winners. The same person can only win one Prize Package
2. It will be a lottery format. Basically, you get your name in the hat for each of the following:
* If you are an existing follower of ours on Twitter, you’re automatically entered for two entries. Thanks for all the support these past three months!
* If you’re not a current follower, and you follow us on Twitter, you’re automatically entered for one entry
* For each comment you leave on one of our articles, you’ll be automatically entered for one entry. Comments can’t be simple ones like “Great post, kthnxbai” but actually have to be reasonable (we’ll be the final judge, but as it’s all in fun we’re fairly liberal on what is ‘resonable’- if your comment shows you read it, you’ll be fine)
* If you retweet one of the contest announcements on Twitter, you’re automatically entered for one entry
3. Contest ends on Sunday, 19 September (two weeks from today). Winners will be notified within a day.
4. At the end of the contest, we’ll pull three names from the hat. First person picked gets first choice, second person gets second choice, and the last name drawn gets the Prize Package remaining
Got it! Now, what can I win?
Now comes the fun part- those Prize Packages!
- The Duel Deck Package
The Duel Deck Package contains 1 new sealed copy of Duel Decks: Elspeth vs Tezzeret, as well as the following foil promotional cards:
Ant Queen (M10 Release)
Dimir Guildmage (Ravnica Release)
Ghost-Lit Raider (Saviors of Kamigawa Release)
Joraga Warcaller (Worldwake Release)
Knight of New Alara (Alara Reborn Release)
Kor Duelist (WPN Foil)
Rampaging Baloths (Zendikar Prerelease)
Storm Entity (Future Sight Release)
Sudden Shock x2 (Time Spiral Release)
Syphon Mind x2 (Multiplayer Foil Promo)
Woolly Thoctar (WPN Foil)
- The Euro Lands Package
A few years ago, Wizards released a promotional series of basic Lands with actual European scenery on them (the location is in small print at the bottom of the card, the top one in the pack above is Schwartzwald, Germany). Hard to find and highly sought after, the unopened pack above contains five of the rare Euro Lands, and goes for about $25 on eBay when we checked. A great find for the collector who likes to pack their EDH or play deck with all sorts of Magic’s hidden gems, the Euro Land Package also includes the following promo cards:
Comet Storm (Worldwake Prerelease)
Genju of the Spires (Arena Foil)
Gruul Guildmage (Guildpact Release)
Kor Duelist x2 (WPN Foil)
Leatherback Baloth (WPN Foil)
Malfegor (Conflux Prerelease)
Pathrazer of Ulamog (WPN Foil)
Sprouting Thrinax (WPN Foil)
Sudden Shock (Time Spiral Release)
Syphon Mind x2 (Multiplayer Foil Promo)
Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle (Zendikar Release)
The Playmat Package
One thing we really enjoy about the site is that we have many readers who still like to play competitively in Standard, which makes for great cross-pollination. The last package features a brand spankin’ new playmat (with the sinister and evocative Infest artwork), a new UltraPro deck box, and a selection of foil promos a bit more geared towards Type II play:
Ancient Hellkite (M11 Release)
Celestial Colonnade (Worldwake Buy-A-Box Promo)
Earwig Squad (Morningtide Release)
Emrakul, the Aeons Torn (Rise of the Eldrazi Prerelease)
Guul Draz Assassin (Rise of the Eldrazi Buy-A-Box Promo)
Kor Duelist (WPN Foil)
Lord of Shatterskull Pass (Rise of the Eldrazi Release)
Obelisk of Alara (Conflux Release)
Pathrazer of Ulamog (WPN Foil)
Sudden Shock (Time Spiral Release)
Sun Titan (M11 Prerelease)
So What Are You Waiting For?
Head over to Twitter and follow @ErtaisLament, retweet the contest announcement, or start browsing the articles to leave some selected comments!
Special Thanks
Special thanks go out to Dave at Moonlight Comics in Frankfort, KY for providing so much for this giveaway. It’s our local shop and while it has no online presence, if you happen to find yourself in the neighbourhood, stop in and say hello. They have a great FNM environment as well!
Duel Decks: Elspeth vs Tezzeret Spoiled
For those who don’t want to wait until 03 September to pore over the contents of the latest Duel Deck, they have been spoiled today! You can read about Elspeth’s deck and Tezzeret’s deck to get your fix.
Ertai’s Lament will have full reviews once they’re released!
Ertai's Lament 