Blightsteel FTW

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Happy Monday MTG Peeps,

We hope you had a great weekend and a chance to head out to a Mirrodin Besieged Release party near you. Unfortunately, we had to work at Barrrie's Winterfest and could not get out to our local store OMG! Games to play. We've been told that the turnout, altough great, was much more subdued than that crazy pre-release they had the previous week when people were lined out the door.

Anywhoos - onto today's post - Let's yatter about Mirrodin Besieged's One-Hit-Wonder, Blightsteel Colossus. Not too unlike some other combo decks of recent, this thing promises to make a big splash and when the combo goes off, it's game over in as little as one swing. As with many other combo decks, if the wheels fall off, it will have a fail to launch and it's sad panda time.


Other recent epic combo decks we can recall in our local metagame include the 'Sovereigns of Lost Alara / Eldrazi Conscription' combo, the 'Cunning Sparkmage / Basilisk Collar' combo, and the 'Quest for the Holy Relic / Argentum Armor combo'. All these decks did awesome when things fell appropriately in place but there was just so many things that could go wrong with them as well and that is why we feel that when Wizards prints a 'one swing / one kill' card, it would be format warping.

First off, a quick review of the cards required . . .

Blightsteel Colossus, 12
Artifact Creature — Golem, Mythic Rare
Trample, infect
Blightsteel Colossus is indestructible.
If Blightsteel Colossus would be put into a graveyard from anywhere, reveal Blightsteel Colossus and shuffle it into its owner's library instead.
11 / 11

Lethal damage and effects that say "destroy" won't cause an indestructible creature to be put into the graveyard. However, an indestructible creature can be put into the graveyard for a number of reasons. The most likely reasons are if it's sacrificed or if its toughness is 0 or less. (In these cases, of course, Blightsteel Colossus would be shuffled into its owner's library instead of being put into its owner's graveyard.)

Shape Anew, 3U
Sorcery, Rare
Card Text:
The controller of target artifact sacrifices it, then reveals cards from the top of his or her library until he or she reveals an artifact card. That player puts that card onto the battlefield, then shuffles all other cards revealed this way into his or her library.

If the targeted artifact is an illegal target by the time Shape Anew resolves, the spell is countered. Nothing else happens. If the first card the player reveals is an artifact card, he or she will still have to shuffle his or her library even though no other cards were revealed this way. If there are no artifact cards in the player's library, all the cards in that library are revealed, then the library is shuffled. (The targeted artifact remains sacrificed.) If the targeted artifact's controller can't sacrifice it (due to Tajuru Preserver, perhaps), the other effects of the spell will still happen.

We're rather pleased with ourselves for picking up Shape Anew the very day Blightsteel was previewed . . . before the prices shot up from 24 cents to about $1.80 almost 7.5 times.

Shape Anew 4 x 0.24 = $0.96
now 4 x 1.79 = $7.16
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With Shape Anew, one can 'cheat' Blightsteel Colossus into play without paying it's casting cost but you would be limited to limit the number of artificats you can have as you would not want to Shape Anew into some janky artifact. At the same time, you will require artifacts to sacrifice in order to use Shape Anew. This can be accomplished with such cards as Masters Call, Inkmoth Nexus, or Dread Statuary which are not artifact which could be drawn into put provides the artifact sac needed. The issue here though is that a single Lightning Bolt could kill the artifact creatures.


Some players who are brewing up a Shape Anew / Blightsteel deck suggest that Darksteel Axe is the way to go . . . why ? Because the Axe is indestructible, is easily found with Trinket Mage or Stoneforge Mystic. This reduces the many chances that things may go wrong with an artifact creature. Having said that we still have issues with cards which may exile, force a sac or bounce (such as Revoke Existence, Into the Core, Journey to Nowhere, Gatekeeper of Malakir, Unsummon Into the Roil, and / or Disperse, etc.), the Axe and this is why we need a truckload of counterspell of your choice. We suggest you review what best fits your build but look at Turn Aside, Spell Pierce, Deprive, Mana Leak, and/ or Negate.

As the Colossus will have 'summoning sickness' it becomes a huge target. One may wish to give it haste which is an ability residing almost entirely within red with the exception of cards such as Strider Harness and Golem Artisan which of course will defeat or limit the strategy of Shape Anew drawing into Blightsteel Colossus. One way around this is to have a method of cloning the Colossus that just hit the battlefield with somethin which you already have out (and hopefully not blown away yet) such as Renegade Doppelganger.
Some other ad-hoc notes . . .

To be able to land full damage of Blightsteel Colossus, one may be able to use Distortion Strike to make him unblockable.

Perhaps you want to forgo Shape Anew and just ramp like crazy into Blightsteel with cards like Joraga Treespeaker, Overgrown Battlement, Harrow, Growth Spasm, Khalni Garden, Awakening Zone, Cultivate and Explore . . . good luck with this.

Also - we cannot ignore the possibility of using Kuldotha Forgemaster to find and play Blightsteel Colossus for the excellent price of 3 sacrificed artifacts. In this build, you will want to run a large number of cheap artifacts or artifact token generators such as Master's Call and Myrsmith.

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And finally a word about storing your Magic the Gathering cards . . .

We suggest you recycle that dumpy looking cardboard box you carry your pride and joy in and use the awesome looking Magic Mirrodin Besieged Mirran Crusader / Phyrexian Crusader, Ultra Pro Magic the Gathering 9-Pocket Portfolio. This puppy from MTG Mint Card holds 90 Cards and will make your trade bait look sweet.
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