Crusader Updates

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Happy Monday to all. If you had missed all the Mirrodin Besieged spoiler / preview excitement from the 2010 Magic: the Gathering World Championships, drop by our previous post from Saturday to check out Mirran Crusader and Phyrexian Crusader. Today's post we want to revisit these two very excellent cards for some discussion but before we get to that, we now have the full card for the alternate art Mirrodin Besieged 'Buy-a-Box' promo card which was identified as the Mirran Crusader some time ago.

You can score this very cool alt-art card when you drop by your local participating gaming store to purchase a booster box. A booster box contains 36 booster packs (each booster pack contains 15 cards per booster: 1 rare, 3 uncommons and 11 commons, a land card and sometimes a random foil of any rarity in that set). Booster boxes retail anywhere from $100 to $140 depending where you may be.

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Righto, back to the Crusaders spoiled earlier during the 'Massive Magic' event (oversized card play) at the 2010 Magic: the Gathering World Championships. First up is Mirran Crusader which essentially is a Paladin en-Vec with an awesome upgrade from first strike to double-strike.

Mirran Crusader, 1

Creature - Human Knight, MBS Rare

Double Strike, protection from black and green

2/2

Most Knights in standard have a first strike ability, but Mirran Cusader with its double strike puts it in the same class with the Rise of the Eldrazi leveller, Student of Warfare. Quite a few players are now considering a Knight deck with builds around the Student, the Crusader and Knight Exemplar which grants a +1/+1 pump and indesductibility to other Knights. We would be very excited to see this new card maximize its double-strike potential with some excellent equipment such as Sword of Vengeance (mostly for its trample effect), Strata Scythe (for its potentially huge pump), Basilisk Collar (for its deathtouch / lifelink ability), and of course Argentum Armor which would be redonkulous with its huge pump and Vindicate on-a-stick ability.

One piece of equipment which begs to be attached to Mirran Crusader is the only Mythic Rare equipment in standard - Sword of Body and Mind. This Knight is already provided very excellent colour protection from Black and Green (your current Infect decks), but getting the Sword on it would be totally over the top - - imagine a double-striker with protection from Blue, Black and Green which will mill your opponent 20 cards and puke out onto the game table some 2/2 green Wolf tokens - not bad at all. The downside (as there is always one), is that it is vulnerable to white removal (such as Condemn) and red burn (will die when it eats a Lightning Bolt).

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Next up is discussion on the counterpart to Mirran Crusader, the very threatening Phyrexian Crusader which appears to an excellent card against most standard Boros decks (red-white builds featuring Steppe Lynx, Plated Geopede, and landfall tech) being played.

Phyrexian Crusader, 1

Creature - Zombie Knight, MBS Rare

First strike, protection from read and from white.

Infect (This creature deals damage to creatures in the form of -1/-1 counters and to players in the form of poison counters.)

2/2

With First Strike / Infect ability and protection from White and Red, red burn spells are useless as will the popular white spot removal spells. The ability to deliver strategic -1/-1 counters especially in conjuntion with a pump spell could deliver huge advantage in a game. Given a pump with the current infect 'Lord', Hands of the Praetor or evasion via equipment to grant flying (Bladed Pinions or Kitesail), some players are saying this card may be too powerful in the standard game. We suggest that this Crusader may not be a mainboard staple in infect decks but expect to see it waiting in the sideboards against red and white decks.

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We hope to yatter about some of the decks being played at the MTG World Championships in Chiba, Japan (especially the 2nd place public standard constructed budget Argentum Quest deck played by Yamada Yousuke), so stay tuned to MTG Realm.

Lastly, a reminder -

MTG Mint Card is running a very cool contest right now . . . drop by their Facebook page now, navigate over to the FREE Fire! tab and register - three lucky entrants will score a Fire & Lightning Premium Deck. This is running until 20th December.

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