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By: Ith, Jordan Kronick
Feb 21 2011 8:20am
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Some other titles for this article that were in the running:

Flight of the Bumblebesieged
Free to Besiege You and Me
Be All You Can Besiege
Plan B(esieged)

I swear, Mirrodin Besieged has more pun potential than any set since Champions of Kamigawa.  Of course, there's more to Scars block's newest set than just lame jokes, there's also a massive shift at work in the attached limited format.  In the past month, paper Magic has given us digital players a sneak peek of what we can expect from the Besieged limited environment.  Those players who studied the format were rewarded this past weekend as the MBS Prerelease events hit Magic Online.  Later this week, the real show beings with the Release Events.  Today I'm going to flex my limited muscles (that phrase doesn't parse very well, does it?) and find hopeful find some useful insights for those of us diving headlong into the war between Phyrexian and the poor, doomed Mirrans.

Number Crunching

First of all, I've got some raw data for you all.  I took the time to examine 64 Magic Online MBS Prerelease Swiss Sealed events, with an eye towards finding out what made the 4-0 decks so good.  For the prerelease, players chose either Mirran or Phyrexian - a choice unique to the prerelease - which is quite useful for this kind of analysis, as it shows how successful certain archetypes can be when they have all of their weapons at their disposal (or at least more than you'd get in a normal sealed deck event).  Fortunately, the split between players choosing to play Mirran or Phyrexian overall (not just the 4-0 decks) seemed to be quite even.  A tweet I saw this weekend said that the breakdown was 51% Phyrexian and 49% Mirran.  That's close enough to not cast too much suspicion on these numbers.  Without further ado, here's some hard data!

4-0 Decks
40 Phyrexian / 24 Mirran
28 Primarily Infect / 36 Primarily Non-Infect

Phyrexian 4-0 Decks
Black/Green or Black/Green/White Infect 20
Black/Blue Infect 8
Black/Blue Non-Infect 9
Black/Red Non-Infect 2
Mono-Red Non-Infect 1

Mirran 4-0 Decks
Red/White 20
Red/Blue 2
Red/Black 1
White/Blue 1
(all non-infect)

So what do all these numbers mean?  Well, the first number that jumps out is that the Phyrexians clearly had the upper hand at the prerelease.  There was a lot of speculation that the mythics and rares (ie: the bombs) available on the Phyrexian side were stronger than the Mirran side, although the money cards (like Green Sun's Zenith) were likely on the Mirran side. Many of the 4-0 decks did prominently feature strong rares and mythics from the Phyrexian side of the conflict, so there may have been some truth to this speculation.

One of the more interesting figures here is just how many non-Infect Phyrexian decks managed to 4-0.  Infect is clearly the go-to strategy for the Phyrexians and most of the best Phyrexian-aligned MBS cards have infect or support the Infect plan.  Fully half the 4-0 Phyrexian decks I saw were not using Infect as their main course to victory.  If I had to sum up the power source of these decks in two words, it would be Living Weapon.  

Germs Everywhere

Two uncommon cards kept showing up in both infect and non-infect Phyrexian 4-0 decks, and they bear special mention here:

The power of these two cards in limited is hard to overstate.  Firstly, with Mortarpod, you have a source of repeatable removal that can also carry your poison counters directly to the opponent.  Secondly, with Strandwalker, you have a piece of defensive equipment that puts your creatures well out of reach of almost all the damage-based removal in the set, and makes your creature extremely hard to tangle with in combat.  While Mortarpod is most famously a way of infecting your opponent without attacking, astute players have also recognized how well it plays with the many sacrifice-triggered abilities in both Scars and Besieged.  Of the three partially red 4-0 Phyrexian decks I saw, all had at least one copy of Mortarpod, and all also had a handy card from Scars of Mirrodin - Furnace Celebration.

Repeatable removal is often back-breaking for an opponent in limited formats.  Some of the most successful limited decks in any block get that way because they have ways of mowing down all of the creatures on the other side of the battlefield.  Mortarpod and Furnace Celebration combine to allow you to sacrifice a creature (Myr are usually outstanding in this capacity) to essentially cast Arc Trail for 4 colorless mana.  Anyone who's been playing limited with Scars of Mirrodin for the past four months knows just how incredible Arc Trail can be, and this combination does it as often as you can spare four colorless mana and a creature. 

The Fourth Archetype

In Scars limited, there were three major archetypes - Infect, Metalcraft and Dinosaurs.  Other decks like Blue/White fliers and Black/Red sacrifice decks (usually propelled by the aforementioned Furnace Celebration were on the fringes, but required a lot of cards that were in short supply and often scooped up by other decks.  Additionally, they often lacked the speed to overcome a blazing-fast Infect or Metalcraft deck.

Mirrodin Besieged brings the Sacrifice deck into the mainstream, without question.  Not only do the red/black versions have a slew of new tools:

But also, the sacrifice theme can be carried into other colors now.  Whereas in Scars limited, you were very much shoehorned into Red and Black to get your sacrifice effects and decent creatures, now Blue and White lend quite a bit of potential support with their additions to the archetype:

When the Mirrodin Besieged spoiler first hit, the existence of White infect cards was the big color shift that everybody was talking about.  White infect decks have proven to not be as effective as the classic Black/Green decks (most of the time anyway), the additional color options for Sacrifice decks may prove to be the defining change of Mirrodin Besieged.  With four colors in on the action, there's a lot of different ways to build the deck, and each color adds something interesting to the mix:

White - Lots of Myr token production with Master's Call, Origin Spellbomb and Myrsmith.
Blue - Card drawing with Oculus, Vivisection, Treasure Mage and Trinket Mage, plus some of the most efficient evasive attackers.
Red - Still the tops when it comes to sacrificing artifacts with Barrage Ogre, Oxidda Daredevil, Ferrovore and Kuldotha Flamefiend.
Black - The most efficient removal in the block with Spread the Sickness, Go For the Throat and Grasp of Darkness, plus graveyard recovery that's worth playing like Morbid Plunder.

What this all means is that you can build a sacrifice deck however you want it.  If you open a bomb like Hoard-Smelter Dragon in your sealed deck, you can make a sacrifice deck that includes it.  But you can also make a sacrifice deck that makes use of Venser, the Sojourner or Massacre Wurm.  Most of the important tools for the archetype (ie: the things you want to sacrifice) are common and colorless.  Ichor Wellspring, Myr Sire and the five Scars Spellbombs are all great sacrifice targets (and recursion targets), so you won't be hurting to fuel the sacrificing cards you get. 

While the other archetypes of Scars block limited are very tied to their colors (B/G Infect, R/W Metalcraft or G/R Dinosaurs), sacrifice decks can work with whatever you give them.  This supreme adaptability lets you play the bombs you open more regularly, and that can be a huge advantage.  Nothing is worse than drafting a GB infect deck for two packs only to open an Elspeth Tirel in your third pack.  It's hard to pass up a solid money card, even if you know it will never show up in your deck.  Sacrifice decks can keep themselves off of a particular color pair (or trio) for a long time by picking up artifact-based pieces in the first two packs and wait to pick their colors until all the bombs are known.  Again, adaptability is the name of the game here.  Expect to see sacrifice-based decks in every draft and sealed deck event.

Out With the Old, In With the Old

Not everything is new in Mirrodin Besieged, and I'm not talking about the reprint of Phyrexian Rager.  Though sacrifice decks (at least, ones of this variety) are new to the limited scene with MBS, the three main archetypes of Scars of Mirrodin are still alive and kicking.  Most matches will still be played against one of these three decks.  So what new angles can be found for winning with them?

The first thing that bears mentioning is the way Infect has spread (it does tend to do that).  At first it seemed like white's new infect creatures were the big deal in making infect decks of another color.  While Tine Shrike and Priests of Norn are both very good cards, the numbers above show that the most effective new color combination for infect is actually Black/Blue.  But wait, you say, blue doesn't have any infect creatures in Mirrodin Besieged!  This is true.  Blue's creatures will not help you poison your opponent to death.  However, what you do get out of blue is some very strong utility and tricksiness (is that a word?  is now!) that Black, Green and White can't quite produce.  Beyond cards like Quicksilver Geyser and Vedalken Anatomist (both quite strong in limited), blue also gives you access to perhaps the strongest piece of removal an infect deck could possibly have:

Corrupted Conscience should be almost an automatic first-pick in any Mirrodin Besieged pack, and should be a huge pull towards blue in any sealed deck.  Mind Control effects are always extremely strong in limited, and one that can turn a large creature on your opponent's side into a large infected creature on your side is even better.  There are almost no threats in this format that Corrupted Conscience doesn't deal with (Thrun is still going to be a huge problem if he shows up on your opponent's side), and it has the added benefit of working on two of the strongest and hardest to deal with threats out there:

Either one of these cards can be absolutely devastating.  Standard black/green infect decks will have a very short clock on their hands with Mirran Crusader, and Red/White Metalcraft decks will be feeling very ill when facing Phyrexian Crusader.  The amount of decent equipment in Scars block just makes these efficient creatures even better.  Corrupted Conscience is one of the only cards in the set that will deal with either of them, and blue is obviously the only color that neither card has protection from.

In my examination of 4-0 decks, I saw a lot of crusaders.  Many of the 4-0 Phyrexian decks had black ones and many of the 4-0 Mirran decks had white ones.  Dropping one of these on turn three against the right deck can give you the win before they even get out of the starting blocks.  It is for this reason (among others) that I have a strong inclination to play blue during this week's release events.  Blue was sort of the red-headed stepchild of Scars of Mirrodin, not quite at home in any of the three main decks.  Mirrodin Besieged has given blue the tools to work as an addition to all the archetypes, playing as the supreme mercenary color.  Corrupted Conscience may be the card that best exemplifies this.  It's only an uncommon, so you can expect to see them quite often in limited events.  Neither Mirrans or Phyrexians have any weapons specifically designed to fight against blue.  There's something to be said for your color combination not being vulnerable to a complete blowout against one of two rares in a small set.

That's It!

Alright, that's all I have for today on the subject of Mirrodin Besieged's effect on Limited.  So far my observations have been from the outside - gathering data and watching other people go 4-0.  This coming week it's my turn to put it on the line.  Next time on Mana Maze, you'll get to find out if my theories about the four colors of sacrifice and blue's supreme versatility will pan out, or whether I just got crushed by Skithiryx over and over again.  Wish me luck, and I wish you the same.  Get out there and enjoy the release events.

1 Comments

Just one nitpick: Green Sun's by Kumagoro42 at Tue, 02/22/2011 - 06:03
Kumagoro42's picture
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Just one nitpick: Green Sun's Zenith, sadly, is a Phyrexian card as well.