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Lost In The Machine: The Mirrodin Artifact Review, Part 1

The ability to drop the Lightning Greaves out and then give a new creature haste each turn is quite good (and it’s not just for combat; try these with mana creatures!) and in many cases the untargetability will also be highly useful. The problems come up when other equipment starts showing up and you can’t get the Greaves off so that you can put the other Equipment on (let’s face it, monsters have a scary tendency to die in Standard), not to mention the bigger concern – namely, that the Greaves are outstanding when the first copy hits, and you do want it early, but that second copy is a whole lot less sexy than your second Bonesplitter or Plate.

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Double Or Nothing: Red Rain

Last week, Jim showed you his gauntlet for Standard, which he’s using to prepare for Champs. This week, he updates you on how his gauntlet has altered in the course of playtesting… And brings in a new deck to test against it! How will Mono Red Land Destruction fare against The Gauntlet?

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Chrome Mox And Other Silver Wonders

Like anyone else I’ve been testing and making new decks. Of course by new decks, I mean I’m putting old cards backwards in cases and then scribbling (in my terrible hand writing) words like”extraplanar” and”chrome” on small pieces of paper and then slipping them in. This, combined with a testing partner, results in testing out new decklists… Which I will now give to you, my readers. Then I will talk about the decklists. Which were tested and observed, under fire from other decks. Deck that might also be terrible. I think this is the real fun of new format testing: All of your decks are garbage, but you don’t know that yet.

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You CAN Play Type I #105: Maximizing Mirrodin, Part III – Scepters And Belchers

Last week, I said three artifacts stand out in Mirrodin: Chrome Mox should be restricted on principle because of the inherent danger of free artifact mana that evades the land drop restrictions. Chalice of the Void deserves to be banned (note, not necessarily”should be”) because of how it cuts off entire decktypes or forces them to radically change their spell mix all by itself, irrespective of the deck that slips it in-or the intelligence of the player who does. Isochron Scepter? Well, that’s a tougher nut to crack.

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Back To The Red Zone: The Mirrodin White Review

Auriok Bladewarden is one of the many new temptations printed to make sure you really give Equipment a good look. The problem with these creatures in my mind is that they work against the main things I like about Equipment. Instead of just playing good guys and using Equipment to improve both their influence and staying power, including guys like this means you have to invest so many turns (and permanents) into your development that you have to question whether you’re really playing the kind of game a creature-based attack needs to be looking for.

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Yawgmoth’s Whimsy #77: Thanks, Ferrett! Thanks, Wizards!

Back when the Onslaught spoiler came out, I wrote a review from a multiplayer perspective. I ranted about Blatant Thievery and Insurrection, and some other cards that I thought were just wrong for the format. The Ferrett brought the article to Randy Buehler’s attention and suggested that Wizards use a multiplayer group to playtest future sets… And he picked ours.

Now excuse me for a moment while I scream about these new cards, which I’ve known about for a year and have never been able to say a dang thing.

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Multiplayer Is An Art, Part 26: An Axe For All

What is this multiple article doing in the strategy section? Well, as it turns out, even though the series is about multiplayer, the article is about how Stijn won his prerelease and why certain cards are just plain good. Take a look!

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The New Old Face of Control: The Mirrodin Black Review

Dross Harvester strikes me as one of the most interesting creatures in the set. Obviously you can’t just drop this into any deck and expect to succeed, but that’s a very impressive power-to-casting-cost ratio. The cool thing about this card is that he’s interesting when creatures are involved (if you can keep it to your advantage) and he’s also interesting against passive decks (which hopefully can’t race). Using him in each situation requires some specific preparation, however.

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Mining the Crystal Quarry: A Magic Eye for the Casual Guy – Mirrodin in Casual Magic

Luminous Angel’s immediate comparison is to Verdant Force, which is larger, got you tokens more often, had no immediate method of evasion and cost one more mana. In the end though, there’s a reason that Verdant Force has been labeled the best fatty ever printed. One key difference is that the Angel does not give you something to sacrifice should a sorcery-speed Edict be cast, such as the new Barter in Blood (which wouldn’t save a lone Verdant Force anyway) or Innocent Blood, or Chainer’s Edict. The spirits, sadly, don’t come fast enough.

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Burning Through Type One, Part 2: The Control Matchup

There are those who say that Burning Academy (also known as Long.dec) is completely stopped by a timely Duress or Force of Will. But Stephen goes to the wire against the best pre-Mirrodin control deck – Hulk Smash – to show you how to fight the first-turn disruption with the fastest deck in Magic!

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Welcome To Your Newest First Pick

Since the release of Mirrodin, I’ve overheard a number of conversations focusing on the topic of Spikeshot Goblin and its power level in comparison to the Limited wrecking ball from Onslaught that we all know as Sparksmith. Every one of these discussions has been concluded with statements like”While Spikeshot is clearly very good, he’s nowhere near as powerful or dominant as Sparksmith was.” Let me give you many reasons why those people are wrong.

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“Lost In My Own Shadow”: The Mirrodin Red Review

A turn 1 Dark Ritual doesn’t reach you to mana you couldn’t rely on – it just gets you there faster. By accelerating a player to things like eight mana on turn 6, you get a different effect, because somewhere around this time a player would often start missing land drops. Turn 1 Hypnotic Specter is very good, don’t get me wrong – but under normal circumstances, you have been able to cast it on turn 3 anyway. In Seething Song’s case, you can cast an Obliterate on turn 6 that might not otherwise have happened until something like turn 11. That’s a very big difference.

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Red Goodness In Mirrodin

An extremely fast red deck with a low land-count could utilize the Goblin Charbelcher’s obviously powerful ability. I can see him finding a home in a deck that utilises deck-stacking techniques, such as Scroll Rack. How about as the kill in a creature-light deck with the new pseudo Oath of Druids/Gaea’s Blessing artifact, Proteus Staff? Make some guys with Raise the Alarm, speed through your deck looking for your only creature, then stack the cards that flew past so that there’s ten cards before you see a land mountain. Activate Charbelcher at an opportune time, win the game.

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Three Guys And Three Moxes: Deciding What The Unfairest Cards In Limited Are At The Prerelease

Normally, if your opponent plays Auriok Transfixer, Raise the Alarm, and then gets totally mana flooded, you’re in good shape. Well, that’s exactly what happened in my third match – except this little Standard also hit the board. Soon I was facing 3/3s, then 4/4s, and 5/5s. Leonin Sun Standard transformed the game and delivered the win to my opponent.

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“Natural Born Killers at Last!”: The Mirrodin Green Review

Considering how well you’ve got to pick your issues to use Molder Slug – or Glissa, Sunseeker or Creeping Mold or Deconstruct – I have to say that I really like the way this set’s anti-artifact options were designed. Players will have quite a few options to choose from, and those that best understand their deck’s strengths and needs are going to have significant advantage over those that don’t. In the past, there hasn’t often been this kind of functional overlap with so many cards. That kind of decision-making is very good for Constructed, and I hope we continue to see more of it in coming sets.

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