MBS Game Day Tournament

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Happy Monday MTG peeps,

We hope you had a great weekend, and if you had had participated at a local Mirrodin Besieged Game Day, we hope you played the good game. We went out to our local game store, OMG Games in Barrie, Ontario, Canada with a Mirran aligned faction deck and had a great time. The event took place on Sunday which may have resulted in a lower turnout had it been on Saturday but there was still a good 25 participants or so.

Righto - first off, let's get to the video from yesterday ->
Josh from the store describes the prizes to be had, Chris 'the Situation' shows off a green-white token build, and Alex shows off an unconventional kitchen sink build (aka 'junk' deck) he smashed us with in two games . . .

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Let's yatter next about what we brought -

Essentially a mono-white Knight deck featuring Knight Exemplar which when the planets align, provides a great game resulting in an early win. Here's the list :

4 x Student of Warfare
3 x Accordian Paladin,
3 x Leonin Skyhunter
3 x Journey to Nowhere
4 x Stoneforge Mystic
4 x Knight Exemplar
3 x Mirran Crusader
3 x Hero of Bladehold
2 x Baneslayer Angel
2 x Elspeth Tirel
2 x Sun Titan
1 x Basilsk Collar
1 x Sword of Vengenance
1 x Sword of Body and Mind
1 x Sword of Feast and Famine

Sideboard
3 x Brave the Elements
2 x Wall of Omens
3 x Revoke Existence
3 x Kor Firewalker
3 x Day of Judgment
1 x Argentum Armor

Having some early drops are just good to get things going. Student of Warfare is particularly decent as not only is he a Knight but will level up to become a fatty. Accorder Paladin was kinda 'meh' in the games I played unless I had some tokens out produced by Accorder Paladin or Elspeth.

The deck really performs well when Knight Exemplar is out giving other knights +1/+1 and indestructibility. In at least one games, we were able to get out two, drop a Day of Judgement to wipe the game table clear and swing in for an alpha strike. Knights with first strike were just great with a Basilisk Collar on them.

Things did not work out very well for Mirran Crusader on Game Day but we will put that down to the luck of the draw and the board condition. We also feel that we need to play this deck more to better understand the strategies that are required to hold or play any given card. We only saw Elspeth or Baneslayer once or twice during our four matches and can say that these two cards are a solid inclusion.


As for sideboards, we planned against red burn, artifacts, and some spot removal.
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How did we do ?

Match One
Lost in three. Samson was playing with a fairly standard Tezzeret build which really smashed face when he used Tezz's -1 ability to animate an artifact into a 5/5 stompy. Our downfall could be attributed directly for not having a full deckset of Revoke Existence.

Match Two
Won in two. Richard was playing an interesting 'Darkwing Duck' build which features a blend of blue / black control and white aggro in the form of Doom Blade, Mana Leak, Stoneforge (with both swords), Jace TMS, etc. What really did well for Richard in our opinion was Inquisition of Kozilek which really messed us up. What won our game was Elspeth tokens.

Match Three
Lost in two. Alex brought to the table a black / white mid-range 'junk' deck which we named 'everything but the kitchen sink'. His build (featured in the video clip) did rather well against the Knight deck and really messed things up with the multiple discard spells he played. It was a nightmare to try a sideboard against.

Match Four
Lost in three. Matt had brought along (?) can't really recall - we
we're certain it was black with several infect cards. We'll have to yatter to him and get the details on his build (which we thought was rather fine).
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Faction Action Part 2

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Happy Thursday MTG peeps,

We are still short one mailing from Hong Kong containing pre-orders but we won't fret as we feel we could still squeak off a decent deck for the upcoming Mirrdoin Besieged Game Day. One or two extras cards purchased from the local game store as well as some trading during Friday Night Magic and we should be in fine form for this weekend's tournament.

Anywhoos - let's get to business . . .

We strongly suggest that you review our post about Game Day (HERE) from last month. Essentially, participants must play with a faction aligned deck on Mirrodin Besieged game day. A faction aligned deck must include at least ten cards featuring the Mirran or Phyrexian watermark and NO cards containing the opposing watermark - that is if you want to score some extra promo card prizes, otherwise just ignore this. For example a deck containing ten Phyrexian watermarked cards from Scars of Mirrodin and Mirrodin Besieged and a variety of other standard legal cards would be a Phyrexian aligned deck as long as it contains no cards with the Mirran watermark.



Here is a suggested serving for a Phyrexian aligned deck (look to yesterday's post to see a Mirran deck) -

37 spells
2 x Contagion Engine
2 x Skittles, the Blight Dragon
3 x Black Sun's Zenith
4 x Hand of the Praetors
3 x Phyrexian Crusader
3 x Plague Rats
4 x Sign in Blood
4 x Plague Stinger
3 x Necropede
3 x Plague Myr
3 x Disentomb
3 x Duress


We do not yet have a sideboard for this but do have some cards we're looking at - namely Phyrexian Revoker and the ilk. The build is OK and has tested not too badly, the problem is, it's just boring as all heck - not to say that infect or poison is boring, just this build. We are thinking of jazzing things up with some blue control perhaps. Almost all Phyrexian builds stampede towards one goal - poison - it's kinda like having a waffle with no butter or syrup on it. This line of thinking makes us ponder whether Phryexians even like waffles.

Anywhoos - let's get to the cards here . . .

Contagion Engine is the only proliferate in the main board right now - don't worry, there's some Contagion Clasp in the sideboard. Next up is Skithiryx, the Blight Dragon - This is an infect fatty which, if it sticks to the table, should make the other players nervous. His best buddy is Mr. Crowhead-thingy on Hand of the Praetors. The deck needs to cast a lot of infect spells and will of course take advantage of this with Pretzl Hand.


Phyrexian Crusader is one of my new fav cards in the set at the moment, right behind Mirran Crusader and we are contemplating a black 'n' white Knight build. Anyshoos - One critter we've come to appreciate is Plague rats which hands out delicious poison counters to all players in the game - yeah - including yourself but in our experience, we were always able to follow up with some proliferate on this line.

An infect creature with evasion is vital and we have it with Plague Stinger. We've also come to appreciate being able to ping with Necropede. One of the latest editions to the build is Plague Myr which was added to provide utility as a mana-dork and a blocker.

Wrapping up we have Duress to mess with our opponent, some Disentomb to recycle our critters form the graveyard to play them again (we think this card superior to Corpse Cur), and Sign in Blood which will provide some much needed card advantage - more cards in hand equals better options at any stage in the game.


So -
We want to know if you are going to Mirrodin Besieged Game Day and if so, what will you be bringing along to game with. Drop us a comment in the form thingy at the bottom of today's post. Don't have a standard format Deck ? - Don't worry - there are Mirrodin Besieged Event decks available for purchase at your store.
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Faction Action Part 1

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Happy Wednesday MTG peeps,

Some good news we would like to share with you - it now appears that we may be going to Mirrodin Besieged Game Day! We were a bit apprehensive that if we did not get our cards in on time before Game Day, we would not have all we needed for a faction aligned deck. One of our pre-orders, stamped on February 4th in Goldenrod Florida finally arrived yesterday (March 1st). We still have an outstanding pre-order shipped on the same date from Hong Kong we are still waiting for but with purchases from the local game store and some trading we think we may have scrapped together a deck for Game Day this weekend.

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Anywhoos - let's get to business . . .

We strongly suggest that you review our post about Game Day (HERE) from last month. Essentially, participants must play with a faction aligned deck on Mirrodin Besieged game day. A faction aligned deck must include at least ten cards featuring the Mirran or Phyrexian watermark and NO cards containing the opposing watermark. For example a deck containing ten Phyrexian watermarked cards from Scars of Mirrodin and Mirrodin Besieged and a variety of other standard legal cards would be a Phyrexian aligned deck as long as it contains no cards with the Mirran watermark.

Here is a suggested serving for a Mirran aligned deck (look for tomorrow's post to see a Phyrexian deck) -


37 cards
4 x Memnite
4 x Ornithopter
4 x Signal Pest
4 x Steppe Lynx
4 x Glint Hawk
4 x Quest for the Holy Relic
4 x Kor Skyfisher
3 x Squadron Hawk
4 x Accorder Paladin
2 x Argentum Armor

Sideboard
4 x Stoneforge Mystic
1 x Sword of Body and Mind
1 x Sword of Feast and Famine
3 x Journey to Nowhere
3 x Kor Firewalker
3 x Revoke Existence
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This build has 18 cards with the Mirran watermark and no cards with the Phyrexian watermark so this deck is good to go for game day. Not surprisingly, the first 12 cards in the deck kind of gives away the punchline - yep - Argentum Armor. Loads of cheap critters and bounce cards to trigger Quest for the Holy Armor which will let the player search for the very devastating Argentum Armor card. Many of the critters has evasion (flying in this case) to help land damage and bring the game quickly to an end in your favour.


As we expect quite a number of players to bring along a Phyrexian faction-aligned deck, we have Stoneforge Mystic in the sideboard along with a pair of swords. After some more playtesting, we may fiddle further with the sideboard and get some Mirran Crusaders (double strike protection from black and green ain't bad).

So -
We want to know if you are going to Mirrodin Besieged Game Day and if so, what will you be bringing along to game with. Drop us a comment in the form thingy at the bottom of today's post. Don't have a standard format Deck ? - Don't worry - there are Mirrodin Besieged Event decks available for purchase at your store.
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