MIRAGE ONLY: How to beat the heat?
The Nightfly
Well, the next season of Arena is Mirage only. Should be interesting. The
thing that concerns me is the overwhelming amount of direct damage in
Mirage. Red has the truly abusive Hammer, plus Instaball, Uncounterball,
Incinerate, Spitting Earth (an underrated card), Flame Elemental, Burning
Palm Efreet, and the hugely underrated Reckless Embermage. Wait, I forgot
Flare and Chaos Charm. Splash in one green mana, and red has Savage
Twister, which just happens to be the only true reset in the all-Mirage
environment, and we all know how much the best players love resets. Add in
some milder DD for black and green (!) and you have a true Heatfest.
So will all Mirage decks look alike? The Hammer and the Twister in
particular look too good to pass up. Further, red which is usually a fairly
creature-weak color has some awfully nice critters in Mirage. Red
burn-mania with enough green for 3 Twisters and 4 Nettletooths looks like
the obvious deck of choice, and it appears pretty strong to me.
So what can beat it? I'm interested in batting around some ideas. Here are
some preliminary thoughts from my tiny brain:
WHITE: Has the Benevolent Unicorn, which could be a BIG card in this kind
of enviroment. The sacrificable Griffin (counter a DD spell) might work.
Femeref Healer might even be good; don't laugh, Healers are game-winning
cards in sealed/draft formats, they might be useful here. There's Prismatic
Circle, Ward of Lights, Magnara's Equity, and Shadowbane. The last is a
perhaps an even better card vs. red than against black, despite the purpose
of the spell. Soul Echo is worth a mention. For white, Raging Spirits,
Emissaries and even the Mighty Morphin' Power Gnomes could pose a problem.
BLUE: Counters, of course. Meddle could be very useful against a burn deck.
The real treasure here is probably Mind Harness, which could make life a
living hell for the R/G player. And there's the unboltable Firewalker, to
beat the red player at his own game. Mist Dragon is unkillable given enough
mana.
W/U: Ah, now we're talking. A flier with prot-red. Instant prot-red for as
many creatures as you can afford. Best of all, the ultimate anti-Hammer
card, Reparations. Hammer THIS, bitch. :)
BLACK: Hmmm. I don't know what to make of black. Best black creature is
probably the Sewer Rats, but they're lousy vs. burn decks. ("I pay 3 life."
"I Incinerate him." "DOH!") Stupors might help, but Blessings and Sand
Golems are mucho not good. Gravebane Zombies might work, as a poor man's
Ivory Gargoyle. On the same theme, Bone Harvest might be helpful. Maybe
Stairwell decks could work, I don't know. Black doesn't look like the
answer to me, but perhaps I'm wrong. I'm always wary of black in a
DD-filled environment.
GREEN: Maro might work; keep it at 5 or greater toughness and the burn
player will be pulling his hair out trying to kill it. However, there
aren't any good support cards for Maro in Mirage, no Armageddon, Winter
Orb, Howling Mines, etc. The Centaurs are unboltable, but they're only 2/2.
Jungle Wurms will be hard to kill with heat. Green has many routes of
regeneration in Mirage, which is good, except for that darn Incinerate.
Does anyone have anything to add?
***
"Dean Smith is God." -- The Chronicle, Dook student newspaper
Feb 4, 1994 Feb 3, 1995 Feb 1, 1996
Matthew Hubbard
In article <nightfly-ya023380...@news.infi.net>,
The Nightfly <nigh...@charlotte.infi.net> wrote:
>Well, the next season of Arena is Mirage only. Should be interesting. The
>thing that concerns me is the overwhelming amount of direct damage in
>Mirage. Red has the truly abusive Hammer, plus Instaball, Uncounterball,
>Incinerate, Spitting Earth (an underrated card), Flame Elemental, Burning
>Palm Efreet, and the hugely underrated Reckless Embermage. Wait, I forgot
>Flare and Chaos Charm. Splash in one green mana, and red has Savage
>Twister, which just happens to be the only true reset in the all-Mirage
>environment, and we all know how much the best players love resets. Add in
>some milder DD for black and green (!) and you have a true Heatfest.
What to do about almost mono-red? Nightfly put in some good
suggestions - Unyaro Griffin, Benny Unicorn, Hazerider, Anti-Red Tim,
Mind Harness, Prismatic Circle - but missed a few.
Subterranean Spirit - Red critter w/protection from red
Daring Apprentice - a.k.a. Ensign Deadmeat, Lt. Goner, Who's That in
the Red Shirt. Very hard to cast the last blow when there's one of these
on the board.
Dissipate - the perfect antidote to Hammer. Gets the spell out of the
friggin' game. In combo with Mystical Tutor, you can let your opponent
know you've got it and are ready to use it.
Reflect Damage and Vitalizing Cascade - two more cards that can keep your
opponent from finishing you off with that last x spell.
Just some ideas,
MattH
David Swasey
>BLACK: Hmmm. I don't know what to make of black. Best black creature is
>probably the Sewer Rats, but they're lousy vs. burn decks. ("I pay 3 life."
>"I Incinerate him." "DOH!") Stupors might help, but Blessings and Sand
>Golems are mucho not good. Gravebane Zombies might work, as a poor man's
>Ivory Gargoyle. On the same theme, Bone Harvest might be helpful. Maybe
>Stairwell decks could work, I don't know. Black doesn't look like the
>answer to me, but perhaps I'm wrong. I'm always wary of black in a
>DD-filled environment.
Black has Drain Life. Drain is huge when fighting a burn deck.
The gravebanes are really good too.
John Robertson
>GREEN: Maro might work; keep it at 5 or greater toughness and the burn
>player will be pulling his hair out trying to kill it. However, there
>aren't any good support cards for Maro in Mirage, no Armageddon, Winter
>Orb, Howling Mines, etc. The Centaurs are unboltable, but they're only 2/2.
>Jungle Wurms will be hard to kill with heat. Green has many routes of
>regeneration in Mirage, which is good, except for that darn Incinerate.
>
>Does anyone have anything to add?
Oh yeah... I just played in a Mirage only tourney, and a great card against
red is Uktabi Wildcats! If you're playing (very) heavy green, then throw in
some Rampant Growths and green fetchlands to pump up the forests and watch
these kitties get REAL big! Several times, because of the land boost from
Rampant Growth, they were too big to torch at all! And even if your opponent
does manage to cheese them, just sac a forest and regenerate them! Wonderful
:). In an Armageddon-free environment, these guys are great!
Beware of Shimmer though.
John