Mirrodin is the Artifact block

[Prometheus]

I couldn't tell the rarity of the Neurok Spy when I was looking at it, so he largely got ignored. If he's common, blue looks a lot better. I also noticed that the fear evasion ability is largely useless in this block. Everyone will have artifact creatures in their deck. Honestly, they'd have to TRY not to.

I'm still skeptical of the effectiveness of the Myr mana dudes at making 3 colors playable, and I tried to figure out what I'd do for a single color deck, so I'm theoretically staying two-color. The rares we come up with will be a big factor, as always, but planning for rares in Sealed is worthless.

As far as black...they're supposed to get stronger and stronger for each artifact you've got out, but their creatures have absolutely pathetic toughness, making them largely useless outside of the regenerators. That said, their regenerators, particularly the Flayed Nim, could be extremely efficient if you keep em on the offensive & slap an Equipment on em.

The existence of the common Neurok Hoversail will reduce the value of flying as well. I've been having trouble finding a reliable source of evasion, given the artifacts they've got in the set. Trample gets my vote, I think. There are some nice sources of it, (I'm a fan of the Loxodon Warhammer. Throw that one one of the Nim powermongers or regenerators and you've got a nice creature.) and adding power/toughness to a creature doesn't seem all that hard in the environment.

[Fellfrosch]

That's a good point, though the best plan is usually to have as many flyers as possible--if they have so many flyers that you can't get damage through, then you'll need all your flyers as defense anyway.

You're right about the regenerators, but they seem expensive. I suppose we'll see. The problem with black is that they usually can't hurt black or artifacts. Fear and Terror are two of the best abilities for the price, but in this environment they'll be next to useless (as you pointed out).

My plan at this point is to get as much removal as I can, which probably means red, backed by the best artifact team I can muster, which probably means white or blue.

What I'd really like to identify is a killer common--something like a Goblin Sparksmith or a Zombie Cutthroat that's an incredible value for the price and amazing in limited. I'm tempted to call the Neurok Spy our killer, but I'm not sure. He's not really amazing by himself, only when he's supported by equipment.

[Prometheus]

In this environment, I don't see Neurok Spy limited at all. Who isn't going to have an artifact down every single game? Even if someone does manage that feat, they're giving up half the cards they had available to them as well as the bonuses artifacts give Morridin colored cards. If Neurok Spy doesn't work at the Prerelease, you won't have anything to fear from your opponent anyway.

Aside from the Neurok Spy, my favorite common so far is the Skyhunter Cub. With the prevalence of common and very cheap equipment, you can attack with a 3/3 + equipment flyer easily on turn 4. Keep that one on the offensive all game long, and your opponent will have difficulty keeping up, despite the prevalence of flying in the environment. As a side note, I'm really glad to see knights make it back onto the mainboard, especially since they have a very small amount of Tribal effect going on with the Auriok Steelshaper.

I have Wednesday off. Do you/anyone else who happens to look at this thread in time want to get a Constructed game together? We need to test our Scourge decks if nothing else.

[Lieutenant Kije]

I'll probably be available, but any decks I could make would just prove to be fodder for your wrath.  

If you arrange something outside the board, email me (see profile) or send me a private message with a phone # I can call to get in on it.

[Fellfrosch]

Wednesdays are bad for me, unfortunately, but I would like to play sometime.

[Prometheus]

Well I'm getting off work at 4:30 for the rest of the week. Wednesday and Saturday are off. Pick a time. Hopefully sometime when we'll be able to get at least 3-4 people out.

[Fellfrosch]

Well, black and green are both better than I thought. And it turns out you were right about Glissa--her exact mechanic is unique, but green does have a strong artifact destruction theme that requires mana without actually using mana. In addition to her there are two spells that destroy artifacts and then replace their own mana. Could be very interesting, because they allow you to blow up artifacts early on without missing any creature drops.

[Prometheus]

True there. I noticed that green's artifact destroyers didn't consume any total mana, but didn't really think of it in the way of the mana curve like you pointed out---just that the ability was quite impressive overall. Keeping the artifact count low until you can gain field advantage will be significant though.

Black, despite its shortcomings in toughness and the absolute worthlessness of fear in Mirrodin Limited, has a solid number of tricks, too. It's still the best at killing creatures, which will factor into the games quite well I expect. Irradiate, Contaminated Bond, and Relic Bane (if you can get it) would all make a large difference in the games. Add to that the most variety we've seen for regeneration in a while, and black starts looking pretty good. I could see Wail of the Nim playing a big part in a game too.

Do we have plans for Saturday yet? Do we even know who's going? I remember Chris and Kristy saying they were interested, but aside from you and I that's all I know of.

[Fellfrosch]

As far as I know, you and I and Spriggan and EUOL are all driving down together. EUOL was going to call SPriggan to ask him about it last night, but I don't know if he did. In addition to us, Chris and Kristy and Megan and JT are going.

[Fellfrosch]

Our trip to the prerelease was a great success. Despite opening crap and being forced into a larger-than-preferable three color deck, I went undefeated in all five rounds--though I gave my final opponent a draw so that we both got 12 packs instead of one getting 15 and one getting 9.

EUOL built a killer green deck that carried him to a 4-1 record, earning 9 packs (his only loss was to a guy with a massive flying doublestrike creature). Prometheus had a great deck as well, going 3-2 and earning 2 packs.

In all that gives us 23 packs, which will make for a highly pleasant draft game one day in the very near future. Mirrodin is a very unique environment and a blast to play, and I literally can't wait to play again. I've told my wife so much about the tournament she's ready to sell me to the gypsies. So instead of bothering her, I'll put up a tournament report and bother you.

[Lieutenant Kije]

Yes, pester, please.  I was going to ask how it all went.

[Prometheus]

When should we have our game summaries in by?

[Fellfrosch]

As soon as possible. I'm probably going to do them as separate articles, since mine is turning out to be huge.

[Spriggan]

What do you want me to do with the pictures I took?  I was thinking of just throwing them up on MSS with thumbnails and letting you choose the ones you wanted to use that way.  Or I can just send a zip file with them in it (there's about 7-10 decent ones).

[Fellfrosch]

Sure, send a zip file.