Happy Friday MTG Peeps,
The Orb of Insight for Mirrodin Besieged is now up . . . or rather the OrbS are up (yep - two of 'em). These orbs are tucked away in the Mirrodin Site, where they're kind of hard to link to. But this should work for the Mirrans' Orb (which looks at the Phyrexians), and clicking "Change Faction" should flip it to the Phyrexians' Orb (which looks at the Mirrans).
Historically, the Orb of Insight provides a very important tool to Magic the Gathering rumor mongers and players wanting to look around the corner to speculate on the upcoming meta game. Orbs often will fill in the blanks on partially known cards or occasionally through the efforts of a 1,000 monkeys (erm, I mean forum members) banging away at a thousand inquiries almost a full card could be spoiled.
Orbs -
Phyrexian Orb of Insight - for Mirran-affiliated cards only
Mirran Orb of Insight - for Phyrexian-affiliated cards only
We suggest you head to your fav forum and work with other players who love the game and want to compile results with you.
Anywhoos - here's an excerpt from forum member Guinea Pig's orb FAQ
What does the Orb of Insight count?
The Orb of Insight counts all occurences of a single word in the name(s), mana cost(s), typeline(s), rule text(s), reminder text(s), artist name, and power/toughness of all cards in a given set. It counts mana costs such as 3W and power/toughness combinations such as 2/1 as single words.
The Orb of Insight does not count words found in the flavor texts of cards unless it is somehow broken. That has only been the case once so far.
What is this special code thing?
You must type in the special code you see at the bottom of the Orb to verify that you are an actual human being rather than an automatized process designed to check every word. If you don't see a special code, then something is wrong with the Orb. Check back later.
Does capitalization matter?
No. It matters neither in the search word nor in the special code.
If I get a result of 6 for Dragon, or 15 for Sliver, does that mean there are 6 Dragon/15 Sliver cards in the set?
In all likelihood, no. The orb counts occurences, not cards. A card named "Fiery Dragon" with type "Creature - Dragon" and rules text "Flying; R: Fiery Dragon gets +1/+0 until end of turn" would contribute 3 occurences of the word Dragon. Likewise, Sliver cards usually use the word Sliver at least three times per card (Name, Type, Ability).
I don't get results for searches like "Counter target spell". Why?
The orb does not search phrases, only single words.
I'm getting 1 result for Mountainwalk, but 0 results for walk. Why?
The Orb only counts whole words, not partial words. Likewise, plurals and singulars are different words. If you get 10 results for Goblin and 1 result for Goblins, the former does not include the latter.
There don't seem to be any results for can't, creature's, etc...
The Orb usually has a problem with the apostrophe normally found on keyboards. Copy this->’<-apostrophe and use it in your words. That should do it. There don't seem to be any results for non-creature, non-land, etc... For colors, types, and supertypes, you omit the hyphen from the word (noncreature, nonland). You only use the hyphen for subtypes (non-Goblin, non-Lair). There don't seem to be any results for certain mana costs, such as B3 or GR... The mana costs follow a strict pattern. The generic cost is always listed first, and X is listed before numbers. For colored mana, the pattern is:
2 colors
WU - UB - BR - RG - GW
UR - WB - BG - RW - GU
3 colors
WUB - UBR - BRG - RGW - GWU
WBR - URG - BGW - RWU - GUB
4 colors
WUBR - UBRG - BRGW - RGWU - GWUB
5 colors
WUBRG
How can I find certain symbols such as hybrid mana?
Hybrid mana is C/D, where C is the first color of mana, and D is the second, such as W/U.
Snow mana is S. The untap symbol is Q.
Loyalty symbols for Planeswalker abilities are +N or -N, where N is any number or X.
There seem to be a lot of occurences of certain words...
They're probably normal, and you might be missing another word that usually goes with those words, such as "remove" for "game," or "turn" for "end." On the other hand, you might just have found the name of or a hint to a mechanic!
Also, in a large set, there is a full complement of 20 basic lands, four for each color. Each basic land version provides two instances of the land's name, for a total of 8.
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Lastly, we have a favour to ask . . .
As it is Friday and Friday Night Magic is latter on tonight, we would like your assistance in helping us out with a Liquimetal Coating build. If you haven't heard of this sort of build, don't be surprised - not very many play this casual deck and we had not seen it at our local game at all. Essentially, it uses Liquimetal Coating to turn any of your opponent's permanents into an artifact (in addition to it's other existing type). From here, all sorts of nastiness could be rained down, but mostly just artifact destruction.The issue with any good card like Liquimetal Coating is that if you do not draw it, you game goes straight into the toilet so one needs to be able to get that card out of your deck and into your hand - this is why Eldrazi Conscription worked so well when Sovereigns of Lost Alara was still legal in standard - not only did you get to look for that awesome aura but you also got to play it for free. You can get your Liquimetal Coating out in fairly short order by using Ancient Stirrings which will allow you to pull this colourless card out if it is sitting within five cards from the top of your library.
So here is what we have so far . . .
Birds of Paradise, Ancient Stirrings, Shatter, Liquimetal Coating, Naturalize, Nature's Spiral, Viridian Revel, Manic Vandal, Oxidda Scrapmelter, Slice in Twain, Acidic Slime and Hoard-Smelter Dragon.
So please drop us a comment and suggest any improvements and as we don't even have a sidebaord yet, that as well.
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