Magic 2012: Sacred Assault Review (Part 1 of 2)
Auras have long been the proverbial red-headed stepchild of Magic. Early in the game, when terms like “card advantage” had yet to be minted, enchanting creatures didn’t seem like such a bad thing to do. You took a creature that perhaps had been outclassed by others and made it better, or made your champion beater just that much stronger. Sure you might lose both cards when that creature died, but it took awhile for the players of the game to understand the full significance of that fact.
But figure it out they did.
And since that time, Wizards has been trying to come up with ways to make playing auras attractive, unwilling to abandon the very basic concept of making the good better. It’s hard to say exactly when this realisation dawned, but it does make for an interesting walk through time to see the ways that R&D have tried to make the aura playable. A few highlights…
Whispers of the Muse: Steve S’s “Mystical Might” (Magic 2012)
We might be on vacation, but Ertai’s Lament never sleeps! We recently received this request from a reader, Steve S., who was looking for ways to improve his Mystical Might deck. With some extra boosters (as well as apparent trace elements of Life for Death and Devouring Skies, and Sacred Assault) of raw material ready to go, here’s what he had to say:
My son and I have just started playing Magic and we really enjoy collecting cards and talking about our decks. Now that we have a good number of extra cards from booster decks, I would like to try improving the Intro deck I just picked up… Mystical Might 2012 Core Deck.
I have switched out a few cards to increase the flying attack and include some other rares I already had but I’m not sure which ones and how many to add without making the mana curve too high. I would like to use the deck in Standard format.
Here is Steve’s current decklist:
Creatures (23)
- 3 Hovermyr
3 Phantasmal Bear
1 Lord of the Unreal
2 Stormfront Pegasus
3 Porcelain Legionnaire
2 Kemba’s Skyguard
4 Aven Fleetwing
2 Phantasmal Dragon
1 Shattered Angel
1 Serra Angel
1 Chancellor of the Spires
Spells (13)
- 3 Oblivion Ring
1 Argentum Armor
2 Cancel
2 Elixir of Immortality
2 Vapor Snag
1 Throne of Empires
2 Mind Control
“However,” said Steve, “I have so many other cards I wish I could use as well. I will list a few and maybe I could get some advice on cards I should be using or ones to look for in trades.”
It’s great to see folks new to the game and already looking to tinker and meddle with what comes right out of the box. Who has some suggestions for them on their deck- what to keep in, what to take out, and what to track down?
Magic 2012: Grab for Power Review (Part 2 of 2)
Thus far we’ve been fairly impressed with the Magic 2012 Intro Pack decks overall, and Grab for Power certainly seems to be one of the most interesting of them all. Being that most rare breed- an intro deck combo archetype- we’ve been very keen to see how easily the trio of artifacts that power the deck are assembled. Would the deck stand a reasonable chance at bringing them together? Would it be somewhere between a snipe hunt and quest for the Hoyl Grail? And just as importantly- how would the deck fare in the absence of its combo? To answer these questions and more, I squared off with Jimi who opted to play Entangling Webs. Let’s see how the deck did.
MBtB: Building a Better Intro Pack
If you’re reading this, that means the automated scheduler is working, since we’re currently on the road. We didn’t want to leave without giving everyone a head’s up that the latest Magic Beyond the Box is up over at Quiet Spec, and after a recent detour covering Commander and Gen Con, it’s nice to be back in our element of the intro decks!
In today’s piece, we trace the development of the Core Set decks from Magic 2010 through the most recent release, and discuss some of the seismic changes that have taken place in their development. How have the decks evolved? What is R&D trying to tell us? And what will next year’s decks look like?
Head on over and check it out, and let us know what you think!
Magic 2012: Grab for Power Review (Part 1 of 2)
It’s been an interesting run through Magic 2012 thus far, and the set has provided us with a few surprises. We had an aggressive Red/Black deck which spiced up the archetype by wholeheartedly embracing the returning bloodthirst mechanic. We’ve had a twist on the classic Red/Green stompy archetype which gave a new twist to old friends, the Spiders. And while the least novel of the three on the whole, Mystical Might did put a ribbon of novelty into the mix with some Illusions tribal flavour. But none of these compare to Grab for Power in terms of doing something that really hasn’t been done before: sending you on a quest.
Magic 2012: Entangling Webs Review (Part 2 of 2)
It’s time to put Team Spider to the test, and today’s opponent will be Blood and Fire, the Black/Red bloodthirst deck. That deck will be piloted by Jimi, who has increasingly been finding aggressive decks more to her liking and is eager to get behind the controls of this one. We have the customary trio of matches, and as always here are our match notes.
Magic 2012: Entangling Webs Review (Part 1 of 2)
In Magic card design, you often hear talk of things like “top-down design” versus “bottom-up design,” and the different kinds of cards each produces. Generally speaking, a top-down design is one where you have the idea for the flavour and theme of the card first, then match abilities and mechanics to bring it to life. Bottom-up is precisely the opposite, where you have a certain set of ideas for a card, then meld flavour around it. The former result is often something favoured by the Vorthos group- those players who appreciate the story of a card, while the latter might produce something appealing to the Melvins. A Melvin card is one which has abilities with only the flimsiest connection to the card- think Ichor Wellspring for a recent example. (For more information on Melvin and Vorthos, you might check out this classic Mark Rosewater column. If you’d like additional reading on card design, you should head over to the superb Goblin Artisans.)
For good or for ill, Magic 2012 seems to have a fair amount of the Vorthosian, top-down cards. Let’s look at an inclusion from Blood and Fire, the Crumbling Colossus. It’s a giant stone statue that’s hard to get around, and if you need to you can topple it towards your opponent where it shatters on the ground. Elegantly clever and cleverly elegant, no? It’s in that spirit of appreciation for top-down design that we crack open the next deck for review, the Red/Green Entangling Webs.
Magic 2012: Mystical Might Review (Part 2 of 2)
It’s Sam’s turn to get in on the Magic 2012 action, and she’s selected Sacred Assault as jus tthe deck she’d like to champion. A good thing, too, as so much of Mystical Might relies on taking to the air. With both decks marshalling a solid air force, it’s going to come down to the supporting cast of creatures and cards, as well as solid play and the occasional mise to see it through. Will the Illusion and Soldier ground troops have what it takes to hold off the Green/White challenger? Here are the notes from the match.
Magic 2012: Mystical Might Review (Part 1 of 2)
Having just left the highly aggressive Blood and Fire, a Red/Black bloodthirst-centric construction that used its mechanic to keep ahead of the curve, we now turn to what would seem to be about as opposite on the spectrum as you might get- the Blue/White Mystical Might. Those expecting a soft control deck based on the colours alone, however, might be in for a few surprises. What we have here instead is a creature-minded deck that is an amalgam of three different themes: skies, Soldiers, and Illusions. The question in assessing the deck, then, is this: how well do these three work together? Are there natural synergies, or are they working at cross-purposes. The former will give us an efficiently aggressive 60 card construction. The latter, however, will yield a deck with little sense of itself, with each tactic being advanced at the expense of another.
The poster-child for this latter build is the Phyrexian deck from Duel Decks: Phyrexia vs The Coalition, where you had several different lines of strategy that had little interaction with one another, and each card you drew from one line was one less card you had to advance another. This wasn’t reflective of poor design- instead, it acted as a necessary check to prevent a mono-Black deck from running roughshod over its five-colour opponent, and provided a balanced play experience. That said, there’s a wide gulk between an intro pack and a Duel Deck, so let’s begin our review of Mystical Might with its most concentrated asset- its creatures.
Magic 2012: Blood and Fire Review (Part 2 of 2)
Jimi and I are excited to tear into the Magic 2012 decks and run our first playtest. From the looks of them, there are a few that jump out as looking like they’re a lot of fun to play, and Blood and Fire is one of them. Taking the role of opposition, Jimi selects the Blue/White skies-n-stuff deck Mystic Might.
The question I was most looking to answer is this: how reliable is bloodthirst? With the deck virtually built around it, Blood and Fire would live or die by its ability to deliver steady, consistent damage. As there’s only one way to find out, here’s how we did.
Ertai's Lament 