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.
New ‘Magic Beyond the Box’ Up… and Another Giveaway!
Happy Friday! I’ve got another Magic Beyond the Box piece up at Quiet Speculation, where I train an analytical eye on the new Mirrodin Besieged Intro Packs and look to see what new direction has been taken with the Scars block decks thus far. I was quite pleasantly surprised!
Also, we just can’t seem to stop giving things away! Magic Beyond the Box has been a huge hit based on readership numbers, which is really showing the enthusiasm of the Preconstructed Community. I know I couldn’t have done that without the support of the Lament readers in particular, so I’d like to give something back.
This time, its a pair of foil cards up for grabs: Elspieth Tirel, and Fauna Shaman. The format is similar to givieaways we’ve held here before.
To Win the Elspeth
Head over to QS and read this week’s piece. Then either comment on the piece itself, or answer the following question: what is your favourite precon deck, and why? This gets you one chance to win.
You get a second chance to win if you retweet the note I sent out about the contest on Twitter: Want to win a foil Elspeth Tirel & Fauna Shaman? Check out today’s QS piece: http://bit.ly/eP1s61 RT this for a second chance to win! #mtg
To Win the Fauna Shaman
This one’s easy! QS is divided into three sections: Finance (the subscription service for MTG trading and speculation), Spike (competitive play), and Timmy (casual play, the group I’m a part of). There are a lot of really good Timmy reads on there, and if you check out another Timmy article and leave a comment on it, you get a chance to win! The more you read, the more chances you get. You can find the Timmy list here.
Both contests end on Wednesday, 16 February, and will be decided by random drawing from all eligible entries. Good luck, and thanks as ever for all the support!
Scars’ Meddling Contest Winner Announced
At last, we have completed our run of Ertai’s Meddling for the Scars of Mirrodin, and can declare a winner in the Meddling deck giveaway! A randomly-drawn giveaway, each comment left on any of the five Meddling articles for the Scars decks was eligible for a chance to win. The prize? One of the five Intro Packs of the winner’s choice, along with all cards used in that Meddling.
With all the great comments and suggestions left on each article, it’s a shame to only have one winner, but one winner it must be. Thank you to everyone for your ardent participation, and congratulations to Prophylaxis for winning the drawing!
Announcing ‘Whispers of the Muse’
We here at the Lament do love a good series, but this latest one has come about at the direct inspiration of members of the community. When Oscar posted a plea for deckbuilding help on Magic 2011’s Power of Prophecy, we thought we’d go ahead and post it on the front page- after all, while our archives are widely combed through, the members of the community most active here are amongst those least likely to find it.
Inspired by the flood of responses, Stric9 then took it a step further by suggesting that we turn this into a feature or forum staple. While we don’t have forums here (though it’s something to consider- see the current Thoughtsieze poll), we certainly can do the former! And so, we’re proud to announce Whispers of the Muse, an occasional feature where we tap into the community to help a reader deckbuild. We’ve long appreciated the polite and welcoming tone that has prevailed amongst the comments here- it’s a fantastic resource for the new or returning player who can ask for help without fear of getting “trolled” and without being made to feel bad about learning the game, and it’s all thanks to the readers and regulars.
So look for future Whispers of the Muse to follow in the same footstep’s as Oscar’s deckbuilding post, and as always comments, inputs, and insights are welcome!
We’ll get a more formal submissions process up soon, but in the meantime if you’d like to have your deck considered for this series, send the following to us at ErtaisLament (at) gmail.com
1. What preconstructed deck are you using as the foundation for your deck? Because we’re a site dedicated to precons, we’ll want to restrict the series to precon-based deckbuilding, at least for now.
2. What restrictions are you looking at? Do you want suggestions that are legal for Standard? Extended? Block? Anything goes?
3. Give us as much direction as you’d like. Here’s where you let us know what colours you’d like the deck to end up, or if you want it to be aggro, control, or anything else. Any cards you’re looking to build around? Already own a mythic you’d like to see integrated? Let us know here.
As an occasional series, we’d enjoy hearing a little bit from everyone who’d like to be featured. Feel free to submit a deck for consideration as often as you like, but please note that we will look to rotate the spotlight as often as we can, so you may want to limit submisisons to the deck you’d most like to see first!
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!
Mirromancy Giveaway: Congratulations to Our Winner!
We’ve randomly drawn the name of the winner of the Ertai’s Lament Mirromancy giveaway, and the lucky and proud owner of this superb intro pack is none other than lightside.
Thanks to all who participated, making this contest our most exciting yet! We have another giveaway on the horizon (that’s right, before the next set releases), and another long-running contest soon to wrap up, so watch this space!
Ertai's Lament 