Planechase: Elemental Thunder Review (Part 2 of 2)
It’s out final visit to the world of Planechase until later this year when the next expansion releases, and we’ll be looking forward to seeing the brand-new cards and other advances the line has made since its release in 2009. To field test our last deck, the Red/Green tribal offering Elemental Mastery, Jimi has enthusiastically volunteered to pilot Strike Force, a deck firmly in her wheelhouse. Here are the notes from the match.
Planechase: Elemental Thunder Review (Part 1 of 2)
When we last left the origin story of Planechase, Wizards of the Coast Brand Manager (now Director) Elaine Chase had spearheaded a marketing initiative to develop a multiplayer product for the casual Magic player. With the success of 2007’s Duel Decks inaugural release, pitting two tribal decks against one another, Wizards was once again ready to enter the preconstructed special products market, a position in the field that they had abandoned after 2001’s Deckmasters: Garfield vs Finkel release. Read more 
Planechase: Strike Force Review (Part 2 of 2)
It’s our first foray back into the world of Planechase in nearly two years, when we reviewed two of the decks and left two for later. How have they stood the test of time? I’m in with Strike Force, a Boros-coloured deck with plenty of splashy burn effects, while Jimi’s volunteered to try and stop me in my tracks. In her hand is Metallic Dreams, an artifact-themed deck that plays with all five colours. Which deck will find the will to prevail?
Planechase: Strike Force Review (Part 1 of 2)
Sometimes it’s hard for us to grasp just how long we’ve been reviewing preconstructed Magic, a new review piece every other day, steadily and methodically. When we decided to fill the narrow gap between Project Mirage Block and Avacyn Restored with the conclusion of our Planechase reviews, it was a little surprising that we had first started reviewing the set back in August of 2010! It’s hard to recall at this point why we moved on after only reviewing two of the decks (Metallic Dreams and Zombie Empire), though bouncing about was a little more common in the site’s earlier days than now. Still, with the next Planechase release right around the corner at the beginning of June, we’re delighted at the opportunity to close the book on the first iteration before getting to plunge into the next!
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 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!
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.
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 Lament 