Friday, February 25, 2011

MTG Set Review #6 Mirrodin Besieged

So as per usual of any set usually about 3 or 4 weeks after it's release it is time to review the second set of the scars of mirrodin block, Mirrodin Besieged, 155 cards with 10 basic lands, two rare lands and over 40 different artifacts to choose from in this set, Mirrodin Besieged is the small set of this year's fall block with the third set to be just a tad larger at 175 cards. So as always it is time to take a look at the mechanics of this new set and see what it brings to the table, so let us begin.

The first brand new mechanic of the set is Battle Cry, now battle cry is very simple to understand when a creature with this ability attacks every other attacking creature gains a +1/+0 bonus and each battle cry does stack, so if you had 4 creatures with battle cry everything would get a +4/+0 for none battle cry creatures and battle cry creatures would get a +3/+0 bonus, it is a very simplistic ability and a nice combat trick to understand however there is one slight problem if battle cry gave a bonus to toughness it would make things a little easier to manage but not to complain this is a decent Mirran ability and is a nice change to the usual metalcraft or anything of that nature, but again so few cards in this set got this ability, there were a total of 7 cards in this set which recieved this ability two mythics, Hero of Oxid Ridge, Hero of Bladehold, Accorder Paladin, Kuldotha Ringleader, Goblin Wardriver, Loxodon Partisan and Signal Pest. Each one of these cards is good do not get me wrong but battle cry is a weak ability compared to the next one i am going to speak of and that is Living Weapon.

Living Weapon is a phyrexian based ability which applies to all phyrexian equipment pretty much, when a equipment with this ability hits the battlefield, it generates a 0/0 germ token and the equipment attaches itself to that germ token, giving it whatever abilites the equipment has, plus when the token dies from a removal spell or anything in general the equipment remains on the field and is then able to be attached to something else a bigger better creature.Only 5 cards from this set received this new ability and they are Bonehoard, Flayer Husk, MortarpodSkinwing and Strandwalker. This ability was pretty good for mostly anything and Bonehoard has turned out to be a very decent equipment since it determines the number of creatures in all graveyards then it gives a +X/+X where X is the number of creatures in all graveyards along with generating a 0/0 ooze token, so in essence i say phyrexia got the better of the two new abilites for this set.

Of course since this is a scars block set, Infect, proliferate and Metalcraft have returned for a second go around, we all know their specifics by now do we not so let's not dwell on that and move straight into the mythics of the set, shall we?

10 mythic rares, that's how many were in this set, Hero of Bladehold, Hero of Oxid Ridge, Tezzert, Agent of Bolas, Glissa the Traitor, Blightsteel Colossus, Consecrated Sphinx, Massacre Wurm, Thrun, the Last Troll, Sword of Feast and Famine and of course Praetor's Council. Each one of these were interesting to say the least, we got 2 new legends out of this set, a new walker in the form of Tezzert and a bunch of interesting mythics including the Hero of Bladehold and the Hero of Oxid Ridge which i intend to discuss, Each color at least got one mythic rare since there were only 19 cards per color so it did not get shafted that badly however some mythics were less appealing to others, including Glissa and Praetor's Council which has hardly seen a lot of play these days in major events like the pro tour or even a Grand Prix. Some of these mythics though like the sword and Tezzert have some prices rise from a instant showing off in a tournament to winning tournaments, as we've seen already in the first 3 weeks since mirrodin besieged first came out. While most of these mythics are powerful some are just broken including Blightsteel Colossus which i've talked about before and Massacre Wurm, he's just nuts the instant he enters the battlefield, overall it makes the mythic rares more interesting for a smaller set then say a big set like Scars of Mirrodin since there are fewer but there are a lot more things to say bout these mythic rare cards.

The rest of the breakdown for the block was pretty much similar with commons receiving a total of 60 commons, 40 uncommons and 35 rares for the set, making this one of the heaviest small set rare blocks in a while, 10 basic lands with 2 other lands, one for each side made this seem a tad more interesting, i am partially glad i decided to review this set after all, since of course i am enjoying seeing how things turn out in the next while, well that's all she wrote for this one and remember kiddies, if someone comes knocking on your door and they are part machine smack them in the face with a stick, only kidding till next time this is vergil signing off.

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