Mirrodin Besieged: Path of Blight Review (Part 1 of 2)
As we begin our final review of Mirrodin Besieged, we have the table farily well set for the ongoing conflict. On the one hand, we have the Mirrans fighting for their very existence using every tool at their disposal. Be it through battle cry and metalcraft (Battle Cries), or heavy-hitting magic (Mirromancy), the line in the sand has clearly been drawn. Staring back from the other side are the Phyrexians, who have brought living weapons and proliferation to bear (Doom Inevitable). But of course, no accounting of the Phyrexians would be comlete without their signature mechanic for the set: infect.
Infect has proven to be quite a volatile addition to Magic’s keyword litany, as it tends to be somewhat polarising in a love-it-or-hate-it kind of way. Some revel in the flavour and the novel challenge of poisoning their opponents to death, a win condition far more feasible now than at any point in the game’s past. Others, however, see it as format-warping, particularly in those with altered life totals such as Commander and Two-Headed Giant. Let’s not even get started on the flap surrounding the Blightsteel Colossus! But like it or not, it’s here to stay, and Path of Blight proudly marches underneath its banner.
If there’s a subtheme to be had in the deck, it’s the seeping corruption that is Phyrexia. Infect was exclusively Black and Green for Scars of Mirrodin, but now having festered right under the noses of the Mirrans, it’s crept into everything. The idea of a Selesnyan-coloured infect deck would have been mindblowing just a few months ago, but here we see the evolution of the block. Gone is the overcosted weenie swarm, and here is something that has… adapted.
Whispers of the Muse: Mart’s ‘The Adventurers’
Welcome to the next installment of Whispers of the Muse, the occasional feature where a reader submits their tinkering of a precon deck and look for constructive criticism and feedback from the community. Today we’re hearing from Mart, who’s begun working on Zendikar’s The Adventurers.
Mart’s main area of concern is this:
anyone care to comment on it and help me tighten it up? perhaps even help me figure out how to properly shape a deck based on land and CMC since i really have no clue how to do that…
Mart included his preliminary 60-card list as follows:
Mirrodin Besieged: Battle Cries (Part 2 of 2)
One of the things we really get to enjoy about our playtesting is being able to experience a deck from both sides of the table. When I played Doom Inevitable, I didn’t feel a lot of power underneath it. There was potential, but from the pilot’s perspective it felt rather fragile and constantly threatened. Tonight I played against it instead, with Jimi as my opponent and me steering Battle Cries, and it couldn’t have felt more different. Doom Inevitable was… well, annoying. Hard to get through on after the first 10 points of damage, nettlesome with the -1/-1 counters which my creatures were particularly vulnerable, and requiring me to really have to scheme to orchestrate a win. After our three games were over, I thanked Jimi for the match. “It wasn’t fun,” I said with a grin, “but it was satisfying.”
Here are the notes from the match, and perhaps you’ll see what I mean.
Mirrodin Besieged: Battle Cries Review (Part 1 of 2)
With subtlety and subterfuge cast aside, the forces of Mirrodin are now engaged in open warfare with the Phyrexian infestation that had festered unseen in its core. And while the Phyrexians have genetically engineered living germs to animate their gruesome artifact weaponry, the Mirrans have found the power to inspire and rally their forces on the battlefield. To defend their homes, their lives, and indeed their very existence, they harness the power of the battle cry, as represented in the second Mirran intro deck, the imaginitively-named Battle Cries.
Unlike Mirromancy, Battle Cries is cut from a far more traditional mold with regards to its composition, boasting a 23/13 split in favour of creatures. When you factor in that nearly half of the noncreature spells are actually alternate ways to summon creatures, the picture that emerges is very clear. This is a deck that wants to hit in the red zone, and hit hard.
The battle cry mechanic has been engineered to enable this. Quite simply, whenever a creature with the keyword attacks, all its fellows who are attacking alongside get +1/+0 until the end of turn. Multiple instances of battle cry do stack, so it doesn’t take much to get a powerful strike out of even the smallest of creatures. Today we’ll be examining this mechanic, and seeing how the deck has been built to support it.
Whispers of the Muse: Oscar’s Power of Prophecy
Just today we recieved a comment from a new reader on one of the Meddling articles for Magic 2011- Power of Prophecy. Because so many members of the community here are quick to help with great advice no matter how inexperienced the player, I thought I’d go ahead and post it in the open rather than buried back on page 20 where few might see it:
Hi i was thinking about changing the deck quite a bit. I recently started playing MTG with my friends so i’m looking for a non tournament deck atm.
My biggest concern is a friend playing green/black deck based on elves and tokens if I don’t draw the Leviathan fast enough and have enough mana i’m screwed.
Besides i think i’d like to make this deck into one where the main focus is to get Leviathan protect it (with Whispersilk cloth, counter spells) and destroy the enemy with islandwalking/flying creatures. Therefore i was thinking about something like :
16 Islands
9 Plains
2x Harbout Serpent
2x Wall of frost
2x Stormtide Leviathan
2x Aether Adept
2x Cloud Elemental
2x Water or Air Servants
2x Whispersilk Cloack
2x Diminish
4x Cancel
4x Negate
1x Call to Mind
2x Safe Passage
2x Sleep
2x Mind Control
2x Ice Cage
2x ArrestThough i’m still unsure about this since i’m totally new to the game.
I believe scrying would be quite usefull in order to obtain the leviathan and the needed mana for it’s cost but then again i dont know what to drop.Maybe changing the wall of frost for 2x Crystal ball or Foresee. Or dropping cancels/negates though i really don’t like the idea of not having them. If anyone has some suggestions please post them I’ll be grateful for any advice.
Suggestions for Oscar?
Edit: ‘Retconned’ the title to reflect our new series.
Mirrodin Besieged: Doom Inevitable Review (Part 2 of 2)
Okay, we’ll start with the obvious. If you can’t get this out of your head when you think of the deck’s title, you’re not alone, because when we sat down to put the deck though its paces we couldn’t either. That aside, Jimi selected the new Mirran Boros construct Battle Cries to put up against Doom Inevitable, and we quickly got down to business. The question we were looking to answer was to see how effective Doom is in surviving the early game and buying itself time to establish board presence. This was the big weakness of it’s spiritual predecessor, Scars of Mirrodin’s Deadspread. Still, Doom seemed to have a lot going for it in our deck analysis. But how would it stand up in an actual game?
We gave it three passes, and here are our notes.
Mirrodin Besieged: Doom Inevitable Review (Part 1 of 2)
One of the primary functions of intro decks is to serve as a showcase for the themes and mechanics of their respective set. They work best when they’re not only fun to play, well-balanced, and reasonably competitive, but also when they give you a good idea of what the set is about. In today’s Standard environment, Wizards has experienced mixed success. Zendikar’s decks were a severe disappointment. When development could summarise the set in three words, “Maps, Traps, and Chaps” (better known as Quests, Traps, and Allies), yet the slate of intro decks virtually ignored all but the latter, there’s a puzzling disconnect between the decks and their set.
Worldwake’s decks were solid enough, although the Quest and Trap deck never materialised, but things took an odd turn in Rise of the Eldrazi. Almost as if they were overcompensating, Wizards built and entire deck around the Totem Armor mechanic, a device which probably wasn’t significant enough to warrant its own standalone deck. To make things worse, Totem Power was very underwhelming, presenting a motley collection of uninspired creatures to stick your Totem Armors on. Although every mechanic deserves its turn on the catwalk, perhaps not every one deserves its own show.
Ertai’s Meddling: Metalcraft (Scars of Mirrodin)
At last, we are proud to present our final Scars of Mirrodin installment of Ertai’s Meddling, the mighty Blue/Red Metalcraft. For those of you who have recently joined us, the Meddling series is where we take an intro deck and fine-tune it. We remove that which isn’t working, add in a few things that might work better, and at the end of the piece have a shiny new upgraded version of what we began with. Of course, as Mark Rosewater so often says, “restrictions breed creativity,” so where would we be if not for a few restrictions? Ertai’s Meddling has two, we call them the “rules” and here they are:
Why these rules in particular? Two reasons. The first is that we want to preserve the flavour and character of the intro deck. If we broke it open to the full spectrum of cards, we’d end up with a much more competitive deck, sure, but one fairly far away from what we started with. Second, we want these decks to be affordable. Stuffing in a fistful of rares and mythics might work for some, but it hardly is the norm for any number of reasons. We want folks to be able to grab their box or binder, pull out their intro deck, and get to work with the cards they may already have lying about!
Mirrodin Besieged: Mirromancy Review (Part 2 of 2)
And we’re off! The first playtest for the new Mirrodin Besieged set, and Jimi’s ready for battle behind Path of Blight. In our initial review I found myself quite taken with the design of Mirromancy, but of course only time and experience would tell whether or not it was cohesively designed, or an assemblage of cards more aspirational than functional. Here are the notes from our opening clash.
The Rotters Don’t Stand a Chance: JayBoosh at the Prerelease
Best known for his outsize personality on The Eh? Team Podcast, Jay “JayBoosh” Tuharsky has been a longstanding reader and friend of the Lament. On today’s guest piece, he decided to share his thoughts and experiences from the Mirrodin Besieged prerelease weekend and thoughts on some of the new cards.
For those of you that dont know me, why the hell dont you know me? Whats wrong with you? My name is Jay, I’m part of a great Calgary Magic community, and an awesome podcast (the Eh Team!). I have been proclaimed the Limited Champion (Ed. note: *cough* casual flight *cough*), and I’ve been known to voice my opinion without filter. Today I wanted to show my support for one of my favorite MTG websites (this one!) and give you guys some insight on how my prerelease experience went.
As a quick preface, I wanted to mention that I went Mirran both days. There is one simple reason for this: consistancy. I am in favor of Phyrexia winning (who cheered for Luke Skywalker anyway?) and yes, im aware that the “power” of the Phyrexian packs was “higher” or “better”. That being said, i am in no way in favor of playing an all in or nothing format in limited. The format is frustrating enough as it is, why would i pay 60 dollars (30 each day) to potentially open a pile of unplayable crap? I personally know more than enough people that can attest to this being how their prerelease went, needless to say they didnt have any “fun.”
Ertai's Lament 