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Editor: Audrey C Quan. Monday 26 January 2004.
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 A little look at Mirrodin
The Mirrodin block is upon us, and just around the corner is Darksteel, set to come out within a few short months and preleases this week. But what do we make of all the new and powerful artifacts Mirrodin offers, along with the often insanely powered cards?
The story of Mirrodin sees Glissa Sunseeker, Champion of the Viridian Elves, pitted against the world as she strives to find out the truth about the world of Mirrodin. Helped along the way by Slobad the Goblin, she finds a secret that she would never have guessed: Mirrodin is a hollow world.
Tournament play has become ever crazier, with Platinum Angels seeing players keep negative life totals, Mindslaver has seen some great one turn kills and the new Affinity mechanic is proving to be very popular.
What do I make of all this? I like it all very much. I've played with the cards, read the book and been to tournaments. I'll go over my own view of all these things below, in what I call "A little look at Mirrodin."
"A little look at Mirrodin"
First off, the story of Mirrodin, "Moons of Mirrodin", written by Paul McDermott. This was my first step into the world of Magic books, and I was pleased with what I read.
It's no Tolkien however, as the 26 chapters see the main character, Glissa Sunseeker, parade over the many lands of Mirrodin. She teams up with the hilarious Slobad, a goblin tinkerer with a habit for getting out of tight situations. Across the many lands they travel they meet many characters and races, such as Raksha of the Leonin and Ushanti, Leonin mystic. Surprisingly, no Loxodon was ever met.
She gets chased by a small army of Nim, manages to rescue a hoard of goblin rebels and finds a legendary golem, creatures that existed as legends before anything else, called Bosh. The trio set about finding the answer to Glissa's riddle, what is the driving force of Mirrodin, and who is this Memnarch that is said to be overlord of everything on Mirrodin?
On a whole, I was pleased with the book and how much of the Mirrodin world it showed me. It wasn't a long long read that completely changed my ideals for playing with Mirrodin cards (although I did almost consider not using Nim cards any more) and it only served to help boost my love for the great set. If you read the books, get this one, and if you can't borrow it off one of your friends, it's definitely worth a look-see.
So the story behind the cards is entertaining, but what about the cards themselves? Some of them seem to stink of power. Mindslaver gives you control of your opponents turn, a Leveler has a "humble" 10 for strength and toughness--and also sees you removing your library from the game!--and Luminous Angel seems too good to not have a white flyer angel deck built around it. Bosh can fling any artifact for their converted mana-cost in damage and Worldslayer definitely earns its name.
The pre-constructed decks give us a good example of what Mirrodin's about, artifacts. The Sacrificial Bam deck made excellent use of the Atogs/Megatog's ability to grow in strength at the cost of a sacrificed artifact, and made quite a few one-turn kills when combined with Disciple of the Vault, too. Bait and Bludgeon saw players getting out plenty of creatures very quickly due to Affinity, and as my friend Rachel put it, "If you're paying more than two blue for your Broodstar, you're paying too much." I was pushed to the point of almost crying by my friend who'd gotten his hands on the Wicked Big deck and smashed me for six every game (he actually got the deck off me for his birthday--don't do this!). I also had a
go at the Little Bashers deck, but haven't had a great run of wins with it.
Out of them all which is the most fun? I'd say the Sacrificial Bam deck was the most fun, and with a little tweaking, such as Myr Incubator, it'd be unbelievable. The most powerful, when tweaked somewhat, was Wicked Big. The best one for collections sake would be Little Bashers, seeing it comes chock-full of great equipment, in particular Loxodon Warhammer and Banshee Blade.
Getting the cards has proven fun as well. Lately, I'd taken a break from Magic and had only just gotten back into it when Mirrodin came out. Consider the following cards that I got, in order, of 5 Tournament packs (and don't worry, I got 3 rares in each one, these were just the ones worth mentioning):
Glissa Sunseeker
Now admittedly I spent over $100 on magic to get those, but then again who doesn't if they're the kind of person to write articles on Magic? I've had some fun making a Mirrodin block deck and found that a combination of lock down enchantments, such as Contaminated Bond and Arrest, with life gaining spells and strong creatures, such as Awe Strike and an entwined Promise of Power, make a very good deck.
The cycles of Mirrodin also have a new feel that no other cycles have. There were the Avatars a while ago, but having all five in the one deck was nigh impossible. Mirrodin's cycles, however, are all artifact, and it's a lot easier to get them all into the same deck. Whether it be mana-producing myr, or an army of golems, the cycles this time around are a lot easier to intertwine and actually seem to want to be together.
So whether it's buying them, making decks out of them, or simply looking at them, Mirrodin's cards are great fun, and if we're lucky (and I know we are) Darksteel will be just as great. And that's it for this article. I hope you've enjoyed a fellow Magic player's view on Mirrodin, and hopefully, if you like my article enough, I'll be back again.
Keep tapping, Fox Murdoch.
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