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By: Tarmotog, Naoto Watabe
Oct 20 2010 1:24am
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Welcome to One Double O, the place to read about the 100 card Singleton format.

Scars of Mirrodin is before us and we now have access to all the raw information of the set. This time, I have split the article into 2 parts. In this half, I will cover the set review of the more generic cards the set has to offer. These are the cards that you can probably just pop into an existing deck and have the deck run as per normal.

In the other part, I will explore some deck ideas more focused on getting some Scars of Mirrodin cards to work. That is where you would find Mox Opal which I have omitted here since it is unlikely that you would throw in a Mox Opal into any deck given its restrictions.

Before all the SOM action, here are the usual tournament updates:

Announcement: Change in Payout

First up, we have the prize payout update. Gone are the days of valueless packs as Wotc has stepped in to ensure our happiness (as well as theirs) by changing the payout from Uz + Ul, worth 3.5 and 3 respectively, to the more popular M11 which currently sells for 4 event tickets straight up and would tend to hold more value than Scars of Mirrodin packs in the long run.

With this change, the EV going into the 100 card Singleton Weekend Challenge is maximized. This change takes place from 20th October 2010.

 
Bye bye UzUzUl~

100 Card Singleton Top 8 Decks:

Here are the top 8 decks of the previous weeks. Unfortunately, the most recent weekend challenge did not fire so here are the tournament result. As to why it didn't fire, I believe it to be because of "The Cyclical Prerelease Syndrome" which encompasses two possible explanations.

Every time a new set comes out, the first 100 card Singleton tournament will generally have the worst showings.
Either the 100 card Singleton regulars are busy playing in prerelease events (of low EV) or people are more skeptical about playing in an event whereby they don't have the capability to get the "most updated" version. I suspect it to be the latter since the ones playing with new cards will definitely have a considerable edge over the field that has yet to integrate the cards from the new set.

100 card Singleton weekend challenge: 02/10/2010 

Rock (GBW)
4c Rock (without white)
Bant + black
WGB Elves
Naya Survival Deck
Bant
MonoRed Goblins + green
WGB Elves

100 card Singleton weekend challenge: 09/10/2010

UW Control + black
Bant + black
Bant Survival Deck
4c Rock (Without Red)
UG + white +black
WGB Elves
Bant
WGB Elves (with aslightly more non-elves)

spiritmonger

Comments:

The multi-colored decks seem to be on a good roll as we see red decks being pushed out of the top 8 and being replaced by them. I suppose that the red decks have lost some maindeck non-basic hate in the wake of mono colored decks or have just plain fallen out of favor? Maybe it's just not easy to deal with Baneslayer Angels and friends.

The various iterations of the bant decks seem to be a new hit, taking up a considerable number of slots in the top 8. Survival of the Fittest seems to be a very dominant card in the format right now as every deck with green main plays it to good effect. It is a good time to start playing enchantment hate in the format given how unlikely it would be to be a dead card in the format running Survival of the Fittest or Oblivion Rings.

 

Here is the general card review of the Scars of Mirrodin set. These are the more versatile bunch of cards that would not require too many changes in the structure of the deck for them to work.

Arc Trail

This is a very powerful spell because it hints of getting 2 for 1 value most of the time and red decks can definitely enjoy card advantage given its tendencies towards a more exhaustive way of attack.

Even if you account for the fact that it actually has a possible drawback in that you need to have 2 targets (which on an empty board means you have to deal 1 damage to yourself), it is very difficult to justify not playing this card given the number of good X/1s there are in the format.

Killing a Birds of Paradise has never felt so painless.

 

Embersmith

A simple 2/1 for 2 mana with an added incentive to play artifacts since it allows every artifact to Lava Dart something.

At the very least, a Sensei's Divining Top lets you deal 1 damage for 2 mana every turn or you might have run some cheap artifacts to make his ability more relevant.

Otherwise, I don't see why you would want to play him over something like (skirk marauders) (just to name one).

Furnace Celebration

This card can be considered semi-playable given the fact that there are many permanents that sacrifice themselves such as fetchlands or Sakura-tribe elder or Greater Gargadon.

Of course, that is if you want to pay 2 mana for 2 damage with a condition to fulfill. I see this can find some place in the Scapeshift decks as a means of stalling since the deck has ways to sacrifice things and probably the mana to make use of the mana to damage conversion.

Galvanic Blast

At the very worst, this is a Shock with another name.

If some effort is made to have Metalcraft, it will upgrade to a Flame Javelin.

Personally, I think that the Metalcraft ability is just a bonus and not something to be too focused on as that would lead to bad plays by holding it back for too long. You should still try to kill that turn 1 Birds of Paradise than to wait for artifacts to show up.

Goblin Gaveleer

A 1/1 for R goblin is the basic standard for playability.

Needless to say, you would want to play this in a deck with a nice count of equipment (minimum 3 I would advise).

Otherwise, you don't really need a 1/1 trampler as compared to something with a more versatile ability.

Koth of the Hammer

The vulshok planeswalker is definitely going to add a punch to any red based aggressive deck.

The main reason for this is that while Koth of the Hammer seems to be a replacement for Lava Hounds (kinda), there is one complication to the matter: you can't kill Koth of the Hammer by staying on the defense unlike most red threats. That is to say that if the 4/4 mountain comes charging at you, blocking with your Obstinate Baloth means that you have just lost your 4 damage needed to kill the planeswalker. The very much valuable Wrath of God loses value to a beater that does not stay around.

This leaves the defending player much worse off than before if this were to be a super 4/4 with haste. To make things worse, the red deck can leave up one or two blockers to protect him.

The first ability, while usually used aggressively, can also be used as a +1 mana by untapping a mountain. The second ability gives you more reason to stick to mountains and to run X spells. Untap, Banefire, X=9?

Also not far away is the ultimate ability which is just 2 turns away from when Koth of the Hammer comes down (if you want to go +1,+1,-5). Play defensively and win the game? That will create a whole new dimension to red decks that people will not be very prepared for.

Kuldotha Phoenix

Of all the red cards, this is the least red of them since the recursion cost is merely 4 colorless mana. Of course, a 5 mana 4/4 flying haste is as good as it gets for a red deck. The next best creature that resembles Kuldotha Phoenix would be Tarox Bladewing or Hunted Dragon in the flying haste beater department.

Basic stats aside, the metalcraft ability is what sets this card apart from the rest as it suggests being something similar to a Hell's Thunder that does not stop coming back. See the metalcraft section.

While this would see play if any metalcraft red decks come along, I see that it can easily fit into any artifact deck that has a decent chance of putting Kuldotha Phoenix into the graveyard either with draw-discard spells or Entomb/Buried Alive.

Spikeshot Elder

As mentioned earlier, 1/1 for R automatically makes this card playable.

At the very least, you can start pinging 1 damage for every 1RR you have available and that is quite good by itself since you can chomp on a variety of x/1s that are easily found in the format. Keeping them off the board is more than enough for this card to generate value in the game.

Spikeshot Elder is another card that will enjoy accompanying equipments that increase damage. Also, Reckless charge, Brute force or Blood lust are all cards that would create more value for the little 1/1. (The above cards work well with double strikers like Warren instigator which make it not unreasonable to take into acocunt)

 

 Tunnel Ignus

While I wouldn't exactly put this on the same page as (Zo-zu, the punisher) or Ankh of Mishra since the drawback can be played around, this 2/1 will definitely create some slight disturbance to plays since players will have to make lag into your turn to crack a fetchland (which is so abundant in the format).

I suspect that people won't be taking much from the ability but it does create some opportunity to force your opponent into uncomfortable plays. Throwing an early burn at the end of your opponent's turn when a fetchland came down would possibly mean that it would resolve.

Argent Sphinx

This card is not really impressive under the current stackless damage rules but it has its uses. 

The 2UU for 4/3 flying is very decent but the 3 toughness makes it a little more vulnerable to red burn spells. It can't really bash through the commonly found fliers like Baneslayer Angel or even Sphinx of Lost Truths so generating value out of this card must come from a different angle.

The Metalcraft "blink" ability is what makes this card special. I foresee playing wrath effects with this on the battlefield to make this card more valuable. Otherwise, it's something like a creature with vigilance and can block any creature and blank it out like a Maze of Ith.

Grand Architect

The first ability can be quite powerful since it actually works like a (Honor the pure) for blue. This means that regardless of whether or not you're playing artifacts, Grand Architect can find a home in an aggressive blue deck.

The second ability is probably not the most useful ability but it does convert into +1 damage for a non-blue artifact creature.

The third ability is probably what most people are focused on since it suggest that Grand Architect is actually a "mana artifact" which is not bound by summoning sickness. You get to cast and activate Sensei's Divining Top with that.

Riddlesmith

This card is quite different from the previous looters we've seen since the cost of looting is not to tap but to cast an artifact spell.

This means that it allows you to potentially dump a few cards into the graveyard on a turn but the looting will be harder to control and will depend greatly on your artifact count. Unless the artifacts you play replace themselves, you might find yourself running out of cards to trigger the looting.

Artifacts don't really seem to go with the looting ability but having 0 casting cost artifacts in the format means that you can potentially "turbo loot". Dredge with trinkets sounds quite interesting.

For example: Turn 2 Riddlesmith, Mishra's Bauble, discard dredge card. Activate Mishra's Bauble, dredge. Turn 3 Chromatic Star, discard dredge, crack Chromatic Star, dredge again?

Stoic Rebuttal

The "better than Cancel" card which can upgrade to a Counterspell if you have Metalcraft in place.

Cancel is shadowed by Dissipate, Faerie Trickery and Hinder in the 3cc slot. As such, just being "better than Cancel" does not justify a slot as these 3 counter magic will definitely be more valuable than Stoic Rebuttal unless you are sure that getting Metalcraft is going to be something that happens very frequently.

Thrummingbird

As cheap way to proliferate, Thrummingbird can be quite useful especially when running planeswalkers since you suddenly hasten the clock towards the "ultimate ability".

More than not, Thrummingbird works well with Trinket Mage targets such as Sigil of Distinction and Chimeric Mass. Another notable card would be the not-yet-online Tangle Wire which would let you keep the lock up and probably let you win a few games just based on that simple interaction.

A card that might not belong in an already existing archetype but has potential to do wonders in the decks that can get some advantage out of it.

Auriok Edgewright

A basic white weenie "bear" that meets the 2 mana for a 2/2 minimum requirement.

I usually advocate evasive white weenie creatures simply because of how unimpressive 2/2s for 2 are in the current era where 2 mana gets you a bunch of bigger creatures.

That said, I won't deny that this card has the potential to be good, especially with equipment. I like Shuko as it uses minimal mana for an effect that would probably last enough to warrant its play. I don't know how easy it would be for white weenie to get out 3 artifacts into play but if it can, 4 power as a 2 drop will be very valuable for the deck.

 Elspeth Tirel

Planeswalkers that protect themselves are probably the toughest bunch to handle.  As a tribute to the previous Elspeth, this one is also capable of putting you slightly ahead against another planeswalker.

Thankfully, this Elspeth has a rather low loyalty so it is possible to finish her off creatures or a burn spell but at that point, that would also somewhat translate into a x for 1 trade in Elspeth's favor.

If you have a basic creature defense set up to protect Elspeth, your opponent will probably cave in to the progression of the 1st ability into the "ultimate" ability as that is only a turn away and it is not very easy to punch through a creature wall without evasion.

Glint Hawk

As much as W for a 2/2 flier is very impressive, having to return an artifact to hand is not going to be as easy as it sounds depending on what preparations were made in the deck building process.

It is a risky card that generally creates more variance in the games it appears in since it does not look consistent but if you have a 2/2 flier on turn 1, your position would look very strong.

Kemba, Kha Regent

As a push for the equipment theme that the leonins always had, this card brings that to the next level. Just having a Lightning Greaves or a Shuko to go on this on turn 3 is akin to making your own Bitterblossom.

By itself, a 2/4 body is more than enough to tank most creatures that can come out on turns 2 and 3 which gives this cat some staying power at the very least.

I believe that the optimal white weenie route involves evasion, quantity and pump like (Honor the Pure). This card serves the latter 2 ideas well and thus I can see myself playing it if I'm playing WW.

Leonin Arbiter

This card gives the format a critical count of a very powerful ability: to disrupt searching of the library. The other card in mind is Aven Mindcensor.

In the 100 card Singleton format, a considerable amount of the powerful effects rely on library manipulation, be it the basic technology of fetchlands into dual lands or the more direct tutors. With an additional 2 mana tax in place, unprepared decks will might end up far behind in terms of board development.

There are some complications to this since it's not as almighty as it seems since opponents can economize by paying 2 and doing all the searching in one window.

It is most impactful in the early game and it affects you as well so proper planning is required.

Sunblast Angel

There doesn't get much better than when you get something close to a one-sided Day of judgment pasted onto a 4/5 flier. (One-sided because your creatures will be untapped in your first main phase) Imagine using Gideon Jura's first ability to evoke all your opponent's creatures to attack and casting this on the next turn.

6 mana is a very reasonable cost which does not conflict much with what you might want to play on the more critical turns. However, not being able to get the sweeping effect early would mean that you would need to have a very stable board so that you don't end up losing because of the accumulated damage over the previous turns.

It beats most creatures in a creature heavy format so I think that this card is very much playable.

Grasp of Darkness

Yet another efficient removal for black. This time, it's slightly harder to cast with the BB mana cost but if you can access it, it will be able to take down most cards in the format other than large angels, dragons or creatures with shroud.

Not too spectacular but is decent enough to be considered playable in the format.

Necrotic Ooze

As innocent as this card looks, it has the potential to be a really powerful card.

Including Molten-Tail Masticore from the same set, there are definitely no shortages of good activated abilities in the format.

This and Survival of the Fittest just sounds very wrong together. I look forward to designing a deck that would make use of this card.

Skinrender

This is the black Flametongue Kavu, as much as it doesn't look like it.

The main difference comes from the more prohibitive casting cost which requires double black mana and also the different numbers put in the 3 relevant parts: the ability, the power and the toughness.

-1/-1 counters are definitely more potent than damage since it affects the power of the creature in addition to just trying to kill it. The 1 less point is not that big a difference because of that. A 4/4 that a Flametongue Kavu would have killed would be reduced to a mere 1/1 which makes it less threatening.

Also, the increased toughness is very valuable in the format because the difference between 2 and 3 is very large given that 100c Singleton is largely dominated by creatures (with the bulk having a power of 2). A very high quality card.

 Ezuri, Renegade Leader

Not sure who came up with the idea that elves need a new lord every now and then. The regenerate clause makes this a removal lightning rod and that can be very annoying if you're trying to keep your removals for the more important threats since you will need to kill Ezuri, Renegade Leader first.

Imagine yet another layer of annoyance when Wirewood Symbiote is out in play.

Not sure if this makes the cut with the high volume of existing lords but his built-in overrun can be very useful especially when there is enough mana to cast and activate the ability.

Genesis Wave

Anyone who has played Elves or played against Elves has surely seen its mana producing capabilities.

For elves, this card is a super "win-very-much-more" card since you technically draw and cast a bunch of lands and elves with one simple spell. With X=7 or more, you probably can put every permanent in the X cards down.

It is a "win-more" card as it doesn't do very much to help you get back into the game if your whole team has been wiped out and you don't have much mana available. Still, this is a very potent card for the elves deck that I am not looking forward to see on the other side of the table.

Chimeric Mass

I wouldn't go the mile to say that this is a good card but I think that this card goes very well into a deck that has Trinket mage in it since it's going to be at least a free attacker/blocker that works better in the late game.

It dodges wrath effects and lives on charge counters which can be proliferated but also Vampire Hexmaged away.

It's main allure really comes from it being a trinket since paying mana upfront for a X-1/X-1 blocker is not really the best play I can think of.

Liquimetal Coating

This is the Metalcraft enabler which doubles up as a super power up for artifact hate.

Gorilla Shaman + Liquimetal Coating = destroy a land for 1 mana every turn.
Liquimetal CoatingAncient Grudge = 2x Vindicate

It is very potent and I will be testing it.
If you can get it out consistently, you probably can pull off all sorts of nonsensical plays such as those mentioned above.

Trygon Predator and friends get a huge power boost with this around.

Memnite

The first thing that comes to mind is that this card allows Trinket Mage to meet Vengevine's 2 creatures in a turn reanimation requirement.

The real discussion comes from whether or not a card is worth the vanilla 1/1 body.
I'll concede that it's not just a plain 1/1 body but is also an artifact which makes it slightly more valuable since the drawback of being more exposed to removals doesn't make it feel worse. You might get the same feeling as casting Vindicate on a Grizzly bears.

I don't know about other formats but it has some value in the format for being able to trade 1/1 goblins at the very least and it can beat down very early with some cheap equipment. It is easily outclassed by any creature decks but it does become quite sneaky against decks not putting creatures out.

Overall, it's very deck specific and should only be considered to be played because it's a cheap beating artifact (either you want to get that extra mileage via Trinket Mage or you are hoping to fulfill Metalcraft). Otherwise, there are a ton of 1 mana 1/1s that do more. See Mother of Runes and Grim Lavamancer.

Mimic Vat

While we often think about the most natural progression of plays, Mimic Vat is able to work with a variety of situations. If you try to work with Sneak Attack / Through the breach and have this in play, it's not hard to imagine what happens next.

Avalanche Riders and many other "when this enters the battlefield" cards interact very well with this card (especially those that can go into the graveyard by themselves) and I can safely say that there are enough of such cards that would be seen on both sides of the board ("a graveyard") to give this card a green light. Since you don't actually lose cards when you play this, the only real drawbacks are that it really have is that it eats your turn 3 play and can become very useless as a top deck.

The creature discussion aside, this card allows you to actually put a creature in at the end of turn step and follow it up with another activation on your turn and have 2 copies in play.

Molten-Tail Masticore

Traditionally, the masticore creature type have one thing in common: they are very strong defensively.

Molten-Tail Masticore does not belong in that class which explains its clunkiness. It is a very aggressive card. The first ability, in an aggressive deck that runs a decent number of creatures, would be more accurately portrayed as "4: Deal 4 damage to target creature or player". The "exile a creature card" text is almost redundant unless your opponent is not destroying your creatures but holding them down with a Moat or something similar.

This goes into a large number of aggressive decks and the drawback is really not that big a deal unless your opponent can force you to drop your hand. The drawback also doubles up as a madness / discard outlet.

Nihil Spellbomb

Yet another piece of graveyard hate, this card seems to be more user friendly than Relic of Progenitus whose real plus was that it could render a Tarmogoyf useless.

Other than that, having a possibly recurrable graveyard hate that replaces itself is something that people can like. It's definitely more powerful than Scrabbling Claws if you have access to black mana but you do lose out by not being able to constantly pressure the graveyard like the other graveyard attacking artifacts.

Precursor Golem

To fully understand this card, we must first observe the removals played in the format. White's best removals are Swords to Plowshares, Path to exile and Oblivion Ring. Red burn spells that deal at least 3 will kill the team. Green usually uses creatures such as Acidic Slime or Wickerbough Elder to deal with artifacts. Black has a wide range of creature kill effects with some restrictions so we should assume that it will kill the team with 1 removal most of the time.

In the void, this card would probably stay around more than half the time to give you the profit of having cast 9 power worth of creatures for 5 mana.

Analyzing from the perspective of time, most decks should move towards a more aggressive style to combat planeswalkers and would thus be less focused on 1 for 1 spells that don't remove planeswalkers. This makes the golem trio intrinsically more powerful.

However, in the short run, I would try to consider what the hot choices of removals / styles of decks are so that you gain some advantage over a "friendlier" field. I would try to keep my eyes open at what people are playing across the tournaments and in the casual room so that I don't lose out to an off-season Repulse or Recoil.

Do note that the trigger affects any other golems as well, including changelings.

Ratchet Bomb

An improved Powder Keg (which we don't have online yet) so that's good for us.

Traditionally, these cards are most valuable in heavy blue based decks as they have the most trouble dealing with the early drops that resolve unmolested. With this, a good number of problematic cards such as Bitterblossom, Tarmogoyf, Survival of the Fittest etc can be answered to.

Of course, it doesn't do everything you need it to and you can't top deck it to save your life but even so, I'd still play it and hope to see it early enough for it to matter.

Steel Hellkite

Control has yet another 6 drop that can do something big. In this case, you get to sweep up any troublesome nonland permanents if you connect.

A 5/5 flier for 6 mana is playable by any standards but it does have a very narrow opening as the "sweep" ability (which can kill planeswalkers) requires you to connect and usually, if you manage to connect with a 5/5 flier, you probably would be close to winning.

The most useful situation would be having this in play and connecting to blow up threats that you would have lost to. That means that it can probably turn games around but you need the right conditions for that to happen. (No blockers, no removals and not an overwhelming board waiting to beat you in)

Wurmcoil Engine

"The artifact titan" is what it's commonly known as and for a good reason too. With this, now any deck can have access to a 6/6 lifelink creature.

Lifelink is one of the most valuable defensive abilities in the game given the M10 rules. It is very difficult beat through fairly as you need to take into account the additional 6 life it offsets by dealing damage.

Deathtouch is just extra toppings to go along with it since it is unlikely to trade up.
An artifact creature means that all the swords of this and that wouldn't be able to punch though this.

It's mitotic ability to poop out 2 baby wurms (one with lifelink!) makes it all the more better.

I suspect that this card might be a very much needed turning point to the "creature era" of the 100 card Singleton format and might lead to an environment with more control.

The New Cycle of Allied Lands

With the restrictions being late game rather than early, this cycle of lands give you more early game support as long as you play these lands by the third land drop.

The main problem is that we're very used to using the first few turns to develop the board rather than to play spells. Majority of the non-basic lands enter the battlefield tapped and thus it would not be easy to find a method to meld the focus of early vs late game.

The main decks that would benefit would probably decks such as elves (the GW land) or the more aggressive decks that have shunned away from the ETB (enter the battlefield) tapped lands.

Venser, the Sojourner

Gilded Drake? Wall of Omens? Mulldrifter? Titans? Blue and white definitely aren't short on cards that profit from entering or leaving the battlefield. That by itself means that planeswalker Venser is going to be very much playable.

However, Venser, the Sojourner seems to be very localized to decks that run a relatively high creature count (to blink in and to protect him).

The "you own" clause means that he saves the cards that were given away or stolen from you and that is rather unique as you get your guy back to your side unlike bounce.

This is the end of the general card review. Overall, I feel that Scars of Mirrodin is not a very strong set but it did not fail to introduce a handful of powerful cards into the format.

Of all the cards, I feel that Wurmcoil Engine would probably create the biggest impact on the format given how creature based the format is at the moment. As "Mirrodin" as the set is supposed to be, the number of playable artifacts does not feel to have gone up significantly as compared to when the original Mirrodin set came about.

The big winners from this set are elves (as if the deck wasn't already very powerful), mono Red, White weenie (mainly because of Leonin Arbiter)and UW control.

For new Scars of Mirrodin ideas, check out part One Double O #39b!

---To be Continued---

14 Comments

good stuff, but correct me if by JustSin at Wed, 10/20/2010 - 01:58
JustSin's picture
4

good stuff, but correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe Venser doesn't work with the drake since it's sorcery speed

It works because he says by Xaoslegend at Wed, 10/20/2010 - 02:34
Xaoslegend's picture

It works because he says "target permanent you own" instead of target permanent you control. A little nuance that will come up on occasion.

wow very true I didn't by JustSin at Wed, 10/20/2010 - 09:20
JustSin's picture

wow very true I didn't realize that thanks

Great article, I always like by Xaoslegend at Wed, 10/20/2010 - 02:37
Xaoslegend's picture
5

Great article,

I always like to see comments on various cards even out of context of the formats I might play them in.

Galvanic Blast is so very much insane btw, even though it may take awhile to find a real home since metalcraft will be pretty narrow.

Glad to hear that monored is getting burnt out of the format a bit, though I suppose that just makes it even more expensive to be competitive in, not that I would ever want to play monored at an event, just seems pointless even if occasionally successful.

X-

Agreed by Zimbardo at Wed, 10/20/2010 - 07:59
Zimbardo's picture

I would agree that it's a weak set that still has some interesting cards. Ezuri is definitely good enough for Elves. I haven't decided if it's worth running Genesis Wave or not. It's win-more, like you said. And looking at it as a big threat, it's not tutorable like the big creatures in the deck. Plus the deck wants new elf creatures, not XGGG spells. That's why Ezuri is perfect for the deck.

Your card reviews are interesting to read, because you're fairly open minded and willing to consider possibilities that might be decent but also might be bad. That's a good thing, because otherwise all we get are the obvious ideas that we could have come up with ourselves.

"Your card reviews are by First_Strike at Wed, 10/20/2010 - 11:55
First_Strike's picture

"Your card reviews are interesting to read, because you're fairly open minded and willing to consider possibilities that might be decent but also might be bad. That's a good thing, because otherwise all we get are the obvious ideas that we could have come up with ourselves."

This is exactly right. Taking a creative look at the cards makes deck building in 100cs interesting and fun. Reading your article and making us think, provides a more value-added submission.

Overall this is a very nice by ArchGenius at Wed, 10/20/2010 - 10:00
ArchGenius's picture

Overall this is a very nice report on the format and Scars of Mirrodin.

One of the reason goblins and mono-red decks are going away is because of the Survival decks. Survival decks have been getting a boatload of good cards in the past couple of sets. M2011 alone brought the Titans, Fauna Shaman, and Obstinate Baloth.

The truly dedicated control decks also have a good match-up against Survival Decks. I faced a clone of the U/W Control with a black splash and couldn't beat it in the 2-man queues in 4 matches.

So basically Rock - Paper - by Paul Leicht at Wed, 10/20/2010 - 10:10
Paul Leicht's picture

So basically Rock - Paper - Scissors?

I also agree that the set is by Neoshinji at Wed, 10/20/2010 - 10:28
Neoshinji's picture

I also agree that the set is a bit meh as far as improving our current decks. But what this set does manage to do is have us come up with some new deck ideas.

Been making some slow and steady progress on a RUW Wildfire/Metalcraft deck. Utilizes Mox Opal, Kuldotha Phoenix, and Galvanic Blast with some very consistent results.

Has anyone even tried to put together an Infect deck? Haha… Not sure if you guy/gals have face book, but Wotc posted a question “What will you do to beat Infect decks” and most of the people posted things… play something good.

Knee jerk reaction, but Infect needs to be fleshed out a bit more.

-Phil

I think one of the reasons by ArchGenius at Wed, 10/20/2010 - 11:17
ArchGenius's picture

I think one of the reasons that Scars feels under-powered for the 100 singleton is because the three main keyworded mechanics proliferate, metalcraft, and infect do not really have any good uses in 100 singleton.

Metalcraft and Infect are sort of like Allies, you need to have a certain ammount of those cards in your deck to make them effective and the singleton rule really prevents you from doing that consistently.

Proliferate has a lot of interactions with other cards, but does absolutely nothing without another card. It's sort of like Grindstone except the 2-card combo isn't an instant-win combo, it just does some nifty things.

Still, there are about 6-8 solid playable cards from the set that will migrate into 100 singleton relatively quickly. Tarmotog has mentioned most of them.

Necrotic Slime does for Survival of the Fittest what Valakut did for Scapeshift.

About the only card I would add to the discussion is Argentum Armor. That card and Necrotic Slime greatly boosts the playability of Stonehewer Giant.

I have to disagree on behalf by JustSin at Wed, 10/20/2010 - 11:53
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I have to disagree on behalf of proliferate, I personally see great potential for it if it is a mechanic that Wizards continues in the rest of the block, sure the current card choices for it aren't great, but there is potential there

Yeah, I was talking about how by ArchGenius at Wed, 10/20/2010 - 12:41
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Yeah, I was talking about how the keywords were represented in only Scars of Mirrodin cards. I can't say how they will do in the rest of the block.

thanks all for the comments. by Tarmotog at Thu, 10/21/2010 - 12:30
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thanks all for the comments. =)

Zim: Used to look forward to updating elves but with so many people at it now, it would be better for me to observe first. =x
Arch: If uw is that good vs survival, I wanna play UW too. My games are starting to degenerate into "who gets survival out first = win".

I'll be looking at the more "SOM" cards in part b so look forward to it.

Sounds like Std Singleton... by JustSin at Thu, 10/21/2010 - 12:45
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Sounds like Std Singleton... I tried grix last time and faced it in every round