Ardent Recruit continues the trend of the swingy white aggro Metalcraft cards, and Concussive Bolt isn't an awful Lava Axe variant. The best Metalcraft card is probably Mirran Mettle , and that wants to go in the Infect decks as a decent Giant Growth variant. It isn't even like Imprint can pick up the slack, as it's only on two rares. Now that we've covered the mechanics, we can move to the colors—just don't forget the divide between the Mirran side Metalcraft decks and the Phyrexian side Infect decks , as they still can't really mix in most cases.
On the Metalcraft side, Master's Call is a great addition, letting you get Metalcraft at instant-speed. Of course, the best part of white is the removal, and both Divine Offering and Leonin Relic-Warder are very efficient. While the Mind Control variant is always going to be a top pick, Vedalken Anatomist puts up a decent fight against Corrupted Conscience. It's very slow, but combining a tapper with a permanent pinger is a very potent combination. Next, Vedalken Infuser gives us the first concrete support for charge counters, beyond just Proliferate.
Other than that, there isn't much to cover— Steel Sabotage is a fine removal spell, Serum Raker is a weird Snapping Drake variant where the double-blue hurts again , and Oculus isn't an awful blocker. The non-Infect black creatures continue to be lackluster, though Phyrexian Rager is fine and isn't awful in Infect as a cantrip blocker.
The Infect creatures aren't awful either Scourge Servant is very durable for a black Infect creature , but the real star is Flesh-Eater Imp , which is fine on its own, but the pump ability lets it be a finisher. The removal is also good, including Virulent Wound , which is a decent way to put a poison counter on an opponent without combat.
Morbid Plunder is another card worth mentioning, as it's a very efficient Disentomb effect, and while the double-black hurts, it's a late-game card and should be fine. Red is a strange color combination in Mirrodin Besieged. On one hand the commons are mostly generic creatures and bad non-creature spells with the exception of premium removal spell Burn the Impure , and a Koth's Courier or Ogre Resister doesn't fit well in the artifact environment.
On the other hand, at uncommon both Into the Core and Kuldotha Flamefiend are crazy bombs. Metallic Mastery is also interesting, considering all the artifact sacrifice in red.
Green continues to get all the good cards in Scars of Mirrodin block, as it gets both playable Infect and non-Infect cards. On the non-Infect side, Fangren Marauder gives you a win against all non-Infect decks if you can trigger it once or twice, while Viridian Emissary gives you a two-drop that ramps you to those expensive creatures.
As for Infect, Blightwidow is an upgrade on the already-decent Giant Spider , Rot Wolf is very aggressive, letting you continue the cardflow, and Viridian Corrupter is just great in any deck.
You also have more good pump spells, as Mirran Mettle is basic, while Unnatural Predation 's trample is useful. Common Uncommon. Overall, the artifacts feel like they're at a more-consistent high power level than in Scars of Mirrodin.
The one cycle is a cycle of artifact creatures with colored activations, but while the ones in Scars of Mirrodin were lackluster, these are all good mostly because they're cheaper overall , with cards like Gust-Skimmer and Bladed Sentinel being comparable to their non-artifact counterparts. The other main change is that the artifact sacrifice theme gets more artifact support, as Rusted Slasher and Piston Sledge are both reasonable enablers, while Ichor Wellspring and Myr Sire are artifacts that actively want to be sacrificed.
Infect also gets a boost at uncommon, but other archetypes want your cards: Plague Myr is still a mana Myr, Core Prowler is fine in the sacrifice decks and as a blocker, and Phyrexian Juggernaut is a big enough threat it can be run as your only Infect creature. Boy was I wrong. In the current format, Trinket Mage gets Everflowing Chalice to out land your opponent. It gets Memnite to bring back Vengevine s.
It gets Brittle Effigy to deal with that threat. It gets Basilisk Collar to suit up your Cunning Sparkmage. It gets Nihil Spellbomb as a random catchall. And it gets Elixir of Immortality to stabilize against red and to handle the super late game in the control mirror.
These are all great creatures, but they are all creatures. They will die. And when they do, you just played a Gray Ogre in constructed. Marsh Casualties exists at two and five mana, making it a better early game play than this. Consume the Meek also exists, which is usually better than this too. Grave Titan is a better play on six mana, since it deals with three creatures and leaves you a toy to play with.
Seven mana? Sure, but what has five toughness and matters? If you succeed in killing two titans with this at eight mana, you should have already lost. Go put a better removal spell in your deck. Grave Titan still deals with him. Go for the Throat : It might be a little better than Doom Blade. Phyrexian Crusader : I could see this guy going up in price a little bit. Not so much because I expect the poison decks to storm the tournament scene, but because he is an absolutely amazing blocker for a black control deck, soaking and killing one creature from most any aggro deck each turn.
Hero of Oxid Ridge : This guy is the real deal in constructed. And if you happen to have another couple creature? Six power for four mana is more than constructed playable. Slagstorm : Yes, it immediately replaces Firespout in Extended or Legacy. But everyone who insists that it immediately replaces Pyroclasm in Standard might be wrong. Slagstorm does hit for an extra point of damage, but how relevant is that right now?
How many three toughness creatures are there running around on the field? Kamigawa standard had a critical number of two, owing to Shock being the one mana removal of choice, which is partly why Gnarled Mass was a constructed all star then.
Before this card, running Stoic Rebuttal was just a good idea. In other words, this will help you beat bad artifact decks. Lead the Stampede : Patrick Chapin already talked about this card at length in his preview article, calling it one of the best in the set.
If so, this might actually see play at a GP or 5K. Otherwise, it will just see tons of play in EDH. Viridian Emissary : The comparisons to Sakura-Tribe Elder are apt; each costs two mana, each gets you a basic land. This guy has got an extra point of power, which is nice.
Sakura-Tribe Elder functioned equally well in either of two roles; as acceleration or as an early threat that would eventually become troublesome. Glissa the Traitor: Ratchet Bomb. Engineered Explosives. Probably going to see some play in all formats, but boy does she just eat Lightning Bolt s all day long. GW Quest. Know whats better than GW Quest decks? Decimator Web : My favorite card from the set.
I just really dig the flavor. Editor's Note: I think this is the best named Magic card Ever. Great in Extended with Time Sieve , but no good in Standard. Myr Turbine : This might actually make a Myr deck playable. Myr Reservoir already gave the deck some resilience, but this is a way to just pump out a guy a turn, with the second ability just being gravy. You can do cute things with it, but ultimately too fragile.
This is a worse Pithing Needle. That makes it merely OK rather than great. Signal Pest : You can try to put this in a token deck, but all it is an Honor of the Pure that dies to Pyroclasm. Sphere of the Suns : My opinion on this has gone from outstanding to merely amazing.
You should build the deck and do it once, just to get it out of your system. I am keeping an eye on this though, along with my old focus, Semblance Anvil.
There are a couple ways to sacrifice an artifact for no mana cost in the format, and Semblance Anvil might be part of an engine here. Both of the rider effects will often be useless, and equipment is more useful against the UG decks in the current environment that the black decks.
And Sword of Vengeance? In Standard, Myr Battlesphere is better in nearly every way. After all, set sizes have already shrunk. Do we really need them to shrink more? And finally, the Training Grounds Watch:. No real stars for this update to the watch, although Myr Welder can open up an entire class of cards to us, which include, in Standard, Contagion Clasp , Contagion Engine , Mimic Vat , and Myr Reservoir. Go have fun at you prereleases, and make sure to weigh in with your TO and online with how you feel about this new take on the prerelease format.
You mad?? Mortarpod is the single equipment i'll jam into every infect deck i have. It gives infect deck a great reach to end games. You will never ever play into the core unless you open like 3 blasts 2 turn to slags in SoM since 2RR is not splashable.
The first thing the team did was made sure there were two clear sides. If you're going to create a war, it means you have to create sides to the war.
The conflict is represented by the people and other creatures fighting the war. Here's a little factoid. Mirrodin Besieged didn't have watermarks because Scars of Mirrodin needed them. Scars had watermarks because Besieged needed them. All Scars had to do was introduce the idea that the Phyrexians were on Mirrodin. It wasn't crucial that the players knew exactly what percentage they made up.
Scars merely had to convey that the threat existed. Besieged , on the other hand, needed to convey a sense of war and the key to that was getting a feel of a set divided. Besieged had to not only show off that there were two sides but do so in a way that didn't tip the story. We knew we wanted to make the outcome a key element of the third set but that meant that either side had to be capable of winning. To do that, we wanted two equal sides. To convey two equal sides, we needed watermarks.
Putting them in Scars would help us sell the message that the Phyrexians are growing in strength so it was a nice addition, but the reason we needed them stemmed from the needs of Besieged. One of the nice things about the second set is that a lot of the work needed for it was already done by the first set. To convey a war, we need to convey two sides and to do that we have to make two sides that feel like opposite sides of a conflict.
The key to this was to establish two very different factions, each with their own agenda. Scars did so much work laying out the groundwork that all the Besieged team had to do was follow their lead.
Since this was a war though, it was important that each side knew who they were and knew who the other side was. As you get to see the set you'll see that not only are Mirrodin and Phyrexia fighting but they are specifically fighting one another.
I promise more on this next week as I start to explain how Besieged evolved from Scars. Another way to help spell out two sides was to take a part of the focus on the new set and divvy up the key elements between the two sides. We know from experience that one of the things players are most interested in when a new set is released is what the new mechanics are. To help spell out the two sides, we ended up creating two mechanics and then giving one to the Mirrans and one to the Phyrexians.
It was important though that the mechanics conveyed the sense we were trying to get of each side. Phyrexia is just continuing on the plan that it has had in progress since last we were in Mirrodin.
They're slowly infecting the plane. From a Phyrexian point of view, they are a certain percentage from being done. Each new possession takes them one step closer to their goal. The end state to them is already a foregone conclusion. The Mirrans, on the other hand, have just realized that they are under attack. They had no idea that an invasion had begun many, many years ago. The Mirrans are coming together to stop a threat bigger than their own internal squabbles.
To match the two sides we felt we needed a mechanic for each that captured what they represent. Note that Scars already started creating the mechanic definition so Besieged 's job was to continue along this path. Note that for the Mirrans there is a big change. In Scars , they were unaware that their entire world was under attack. In Besiged , they are aware and taking the fight to their enemy. This meant that we wanted a Mirran mechanic that represented their desire to strike hard and fast to defeat the enemy.
The Mirrans are in the greatest fight of their life and while they are a bit behind Phyrexia's been at this a little longer , failure is not something they do. The mechanic started with a name—warring. Even before it had a mechanic, it had a name. The mechanic had to convey that the Mirrans were in a war and were planning to win it. Mark Globus, who wasn't on the design team but whenever we have holes to fill we take ideas from anyone who has one, came up with the first version of warring:.
For those of you that notice this kind of thing, the first warring mechanic was negative exalted. Globus brought this mechanic to me and while I liked what the mechanic was trying to do, I felt it was missing a few things.
First, I felt that warring wanted to help not a single creature but the whole "army. Third, I like creating cross faction synergy and I felt that cards that boosted power of attackers could work well with infect. So I took Globus's mechanic and turned it on its ear which is funny as it's exalted turned on its ear—oddly this didn't turn it back into exalted. Instead of "other creatures attacking" boosting the creature with warring, I had the warring creature boost the other attackers.
Not only did this hit all of the goals but it also freed up the player to attack just with the creatures they chose. Sure, warring might encourage them to attack with as many creatures as they could, but it didn't force them to attack with a creature that they didn't want to attack with.
For those that haven't seen it yet, here's Hero of Bladehold, a pretty saucy card with battle cry, what warring became.
Note this isn't my preview card for the day. For the Phyrexian side we were much more interested in showing the Phyrexians doing what they do best, slowly warping the world in their image. The mechanic for the Phyrexians came about during Scars design.
One idea we really liked is that Phyrexia warped something that we felt was an iconic part of Mirrodin, its Equipment. The flavor was that the Phyrexian infected Equipment starting taking on a life of it's own. The Spirit token changed to a Germ token for creative reasons and the creature token changed from an artifact creature to a black creature during development because it was too good with metalcraft.
Getting two artifacts with one card is pretty strong when the goal is to just get three artifacts in play. I talked about how in Scars design I had four words I used to represent the Phyrexians.
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