Worldwake: Rapid Fire Review (Part 2 of 2)
We’ve reviewed Zendikar. We’ve covered Rise of the Eldrazi. And even before these we had immediate coverage of Scars of Mirrodin and Magic 2011. Finally, with the tackling of Worldwake, we’ll have every Standard-legal set sorted out before Mirrodin Besieged is released early next month. It’s a pleasing realisation, even as the mind wonders that at the current rate of review if we’ll ever actually run out of precons while waiting for new ones!
It’s in that spirit of exploration that Jimi and I took out customary places opposing one another on the battlefield that is the kitchen table. Deprived of her preferred option (Rapid Fire), she instead sought to console herself by smashing it with a mono-Black flurry of Vampires.
Here are the notes from our confrontation.
Worldwake: Rapid Fire Review (Part 1 of 2)
Just as Shards of Alara introduced terms for three-colour blends into the game for decks composed of a colour and its two allied colours (ie- Black plus Blue and Red = ‘Grixis’), so too did Ravnica just a few years before. In Ravnica’s case, these were two-colour blends, and based on guilds in the set’s setting there was a term for every possible combination. Interestingly, of the ten guilded colour pairings, only Boros has truly survived into the modern-day common parlance. That’s not to say the others have faded to utter obscurity, but rather when we talk about the rise of Blue-Black in today’s Standard meta, we’re quite unlikely to hear the word “Dimir” used.
Now as then, Boros decks tend to maximise the strengths of both colours using cheap creatures backed up by a burn package. When the designers of the Worldwake Intro Decks sat down to sketch their landscape of what the set’s decks would look like, they decided it was time for another Boros construction. There had been one in Magic 2010 (We Are Legion), but you had to go a little further back to find the last few as two of Alara block’s three sets released three-colour decks (the last set- Alara Reborn- went back to a two-colour model, but without a Boros amongst them). Lorwyn block had given us Battle Blitz, while Time Spiral block had featured Endless March. The Red/White machine was certainly due for an update!
And thus, Rapid Fire was born. A relatively straightforward beats-n-burn deck with a mechanical twist, we’ll begin our review today with the deck’s bodies.
Worldwake: Mysterious Realms Review (Part 2 of 2)
Everyone generally has a preferred archetype, either a colour scheme or deck strategy that they simply love to play. For Jimi, that’s increasingly been Boros, and when she found out that she had the potential to pilot one in a playtest she leapt at the chance. It would be an interesting matchup, pitting the aggressive Rapid Fire against the more methodical Mysterious Realms, but would make for a good contrast of styles. Bolstered by a custom tea blend from the local Irish shoppe we’d received for Christmas (the tea, that is, not the shoppe… alas), we took our customary places for a trio of matches, and here are our notes.
Worldwake: Mysterious Realms Review (Part 1 of 2)
We open our set review today with the story of Ken, because in some ways, the story of Worldwake is the story of Ken. Ken was a system software engineer from Hunstsville, Alabama, and Ken loved Magic. A self-described casual player, he was particularly enamoured of enormous Green beaters, and about once a month even managed to have an article published on Star City Games. Then, in 2006, Ken’s life was changed in a way so few of us have had the good fortune to experience. Ken (almost) landed his Dream Job.
News: Mirrodin Besieged Intro Packs Displayed
Images have surfaced on MTG Salvation and Mana Nation of the upcoming Mirrodin Besieged Intro Packs. Some quick factoids:
> There will only be four decks rather than five. Two will be Mirran, the other two Phyrexian
> One of the Phyrexian decks will be Green/White
> From the images of the display, we can see we’ll be getting another foil Angel (SOM gave us Sunblast Angel) as well as a Hydra
Check them out here at Mana Nation!
Ertai’s Meddling: Relic Breaker (Scars of Mirrodin)
It’s time for another installment of Lament’s most popular series, Ertai’s Meddling! This is the series where we take a preconstructed deck and have our way with it, gutting the cards that aren’t carrying their weight and packing in ones that will. Of course, it wouldn’t be sporting just to toss in a heaping cup full of Rares and Mythics, so we look to build within the resources of what a new or returning player might have. As such, we’ve developed the following two Rules:
Today we return to the Scars of Mirrodin precons, and it’s anti-artifact poison pill, Relic Breaker. Scars is an artifact block, absolutely crammed with them, so it was only natural to expect that one of the five decks might be dedicated to smashing things up! When we last visited Relic Breaker, we found it to be a bit of a one-trick pony. Here are the qualities we identified:
Rise of the Eldrazi: Leveler’s Scorn Review (Part 2 of 2)
At last, the final piece of the Rise of the Eldrazi puzzle is about to fall into place, with this review of the remaining intro pack deck Leveler’s Scorn. As you may recall, we began our set review with the underwhelming Leveler’s Glory, and so there’s a bit of poetry in our coming full circle here. Not only is the other Level Up deck ready to take its place on the field of battle, but as it happens Sam will be piloting Leveler’s Glory against it. Here are our notes from this head-to-head matchup of the leveling mechanic.
Rise of the Eldrazi: Leveler’s Scorn Review (Part 1 of 2 )
Question: So if Leveler’s Glory warrented little but scorn, does that mean Leveler’s Scorn will be deserving of glory? Certainly it has all the necessary makings, using Blue’s Level Up creatures instead of White’s, and with Black for its superior removal capabilities. But as we’ve seen, the Rise of the Eldrazi decks tend to follow the ‘meandering muddle’ style of construction- a few cards for this strat here, a few cards for that strat there- and seldom hew any one path particularly well. It’s been something of a mixed bag at best, and as we begin to concluse our visit to Eldrazi-infested Zendikar, we have high hopes we can end on a high note.
Rise of the Eldrazi: Totem Power Review (Part 2 of 2)
As touched on in the deck analysis, we had some doubts about Totem Power from the outset. It seemed reminiscent of Deadspread from Scars of Mirrodin- a deck that highlights a mechanic for its own sake, when that mechanic isn’t particularly well-suited to building a deck around. Totem Armor is an intriguing twist on the periodic attempt to make creature auras playable (typically by mitigating the inherent card disadvantage), but aside from the Kor Spiritdancer and a couple role-player cards, there really didn’t seem all that much distinguishing this deck from just a generic creature deck with a few decent auras.
Knowing that the truth often emerges on the field of battle, I sat down with Sam who opted to meet Totem Power with the Blue/Black Leveler’s Scorn. Here are the results of that matchup.
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.
Ertai's Lament 