Saturday, November 17, 2012

Mirrodin Block Fun Selection

I have put together a nice selection of cards from the two artifact-heavy blocks in Modern: Mirrodin (Mirrodin/Darksteel/Fifth Dawn) and Scars of Mirrodin (Scars of Mirrodin/Mirrodin Besieged/New Phyrexia). The perspective of this multi-block fun selection is Mirrodin, all other blocks playing a complementary role.

To date the selection includes:

1. Various artifacts and dual lands from the ISD Block, and a handful from RTR set.
2. Various artifacts, dual lands, and colored cards remaindered in my attempt to complete all cards in the SOM block.
3. A few booster packs of Scars of Mirrodin/Mirodin Besieged/New Phyrexia (3/4/3).
4. Five Mirrodin booster packs.
5. The Mirrodin Tournament Deck.
6. All four Darksteel theme decks, one with a duplicate.
7. All four Fifth Dawn theme decks.
8. Commanders: as of now I only have Odric (M13, White) and Ezuri (SOM Elf, Green).
9. Mono and multicolored common artifacts from the Shards of Alara block.
10. Shards of Alara obelisk artifacts for three color mana fixing.

I am completely spent out for this year, and that means that I will take some cards out from this selection if they don't add anything, with the exception of all Mirrodin block cards, but will not be able to add any cards until January of 2013. (My wallet is hurting very badly right now). Any card that comes out of the boosters or the theme decks (the sealed product) that should be in my Modern Staples cube will be moved from this selection to that cube.

In this summary post I will have links to all of the post of this build. The objective is to build some really cool Modern decks, and a few Commander decks.

1. Opened the Mirrodin Tournament Deck. 75 cards, 45 non-basic land cards, 2 Modern Staples, 2 dual lands banned in Modern, one playable dual land and a singleton selection of mostly artifacts. I can see why Mirrodin is such a popular set: the cards have great flavor and read very playable.

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2. Opened five packs of Mirrodin. In one post I show non-artifacts, and in the other, artifacts.


Didn't make any spectacular pulls, yet had a lot of fun looking at these cards. I pulled two banned artifact lands, and a foil Forest mana card.


[follow this link to the non-artifacts post]

There are so many artifacts in Mirrodin (nice!!!) that this is the best way to divide a large selection: artifacts and non-artifacts.

[follow this link to the artifacts post]


3. Opened the Darksteel Transference deck and added cards from the Shards of Alara and Scars of Mirrodin blocks. Began a multi-post deckbuilding experiment.

Mirrodin Fun Deckbuilding 1: Colorless

I will start this multi-post deckbuilding experiment by looking at the colorless artifacts in my Mirrodin selection pulled from a tournament pack and five booster packs.

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Mirrodin Fun Deckbuilding 2: Add White

Here are a few white cards and white-flavored artifacts to get started with.

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Mirrodin Fun Deckbuilding 3: Add Green

I am looking at the green cards and then adding the colorless cards. Even though I am showing Leaden Myr here, it fits a deck with black. This selection is not enough by itself to build a green deck, and also not a green/colorless deck, at least with the cards I have shown so far in this deckbuilding experiment.

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Mirrodin Fun Deckbuilding 4: Add colorless from the Scars of Mirrodin block

Mirrodin and Scars of Mirrodin blocks are complementary. They are both artifact blocks. Lets add a bunch of SOM block colorless artifacts into the mix. We have here 17 artifact creatures, 9 artifact equipment, and 8 artifacts. If we start off with the Mirrodin colorless selection only, we have 17+6 creatures, 9+10 artifact equipment and 8+4 artifacts. 23+19+12 = 54, which is just enough to build a 51 cards + 24 mana Modern Constructed Deck. Of course, adding these cards to the mix makes this selection more a Scars of Mirrodin selection with a few Mirrodin cards added in than the other way around.

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Mirrodin Fun Deckbuilding 5: Add Darksteel Transference [Blue] Theme Deck

Its time to crack open another Theme Deck from the Mirrodin block. I choose Transference from Darksteel because it is all blue and it adds to the colorless artifacts selection as well.

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Mirrodin Fun Deckbuilding 6: Add Blue and Darksteel Colorless

With the Darksteel Transference deck in the mix, I can now add the blue cards that came with it; and, interestingly many of these are from Mirrodin. I can also add the blue and blue-flavored artifact Mirrodin cards in the previous selection. There is only one blue instant in this selection, and that means that it is not sufficient to either build a mono-blue artifact-heavy deck nor can it be used to build a multi-colored deck. Even when splashing for blue, blue presence in a deck is all about the instants, especially for card draw (or so-called cantrips); and game slowdown.

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Mirrodin Fun Deckbuilding 7: Colorless Modern Deck Construction

I have grouped the artifact creatures into three groups.

1. Myrs and Golems. I have 11 colorless Myrs and 3 Golems. Myrs are great with color because most Myrs have a single color that they flavor. A colorless Myr deck is therefore pointless. These cards will complement the other two groups. Myr Galvanizer adds counters to all Myrs.

2. Rust Elemental + Arcbounds. I have 2 Rust Elemental and 14 Arcbounds. For a Modern Constructed deck this group is the core of the build.

3. Other artifact creatures: I have 23. The better ones are from the Scars of Mirrodin selection.

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Mirrodin Fun Deckbuilding 8: Add White, Blue, and Green from SOM and Shards of Alara

I am ready to add all the cards I am going to need to move on to single and multi-colored decks with White, Blue, and Green, including Bant (White Blue Green).

[follow this link for this post]



Mirrodin Fun Deckbuilding 9: Add Darksteel Master Blaster theme deck

I needed to expand the red and black selections. This deck allowed me to build a red/artifact deck.

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Mirrodin Fun Deckbuilding 10: Add Darksteel Mind Swarm theme deck

Here is a deck to help the black/artifact Modern build.

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Mirrodin Fun Deckbuilding 11: Add Darksteel Swarm and Slam theme deck

This is a Selesnya/Artifacts deck. It is very interesting. With it I have added a selection of RTR Selesnya cards into the mix. 

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Mirrodin Fun Deckbuilding 12: Add Fifth Dawn Nuts and Bolts theme deck

This is a white/blue/artifacts deck.

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Mirrodin Fun Deckbuilding 13: Add Fifth Dawn Special Forces theme deck

This is a blue/black/artifact deck.

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Mirrodin Fun Deckbuilding 14: Add Fifth Dawn Stampede theme deck

This is a red/green/artifact deck.

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Mirrodin Fun Deckbuilding 15: Add Fifth Dawn Sunburst theme deck

This deck plays on the Sunburst mechanic, and although it includes only two green cards, and the rest of the cards are artifacts, it lends itself to playing mana in all colors.

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