One question I always ask myself about an article is how I want to begin. How much space should I dedicate to a preamble before heading into the meat? When staring at a blank page, how does one begin the conversation of an article? These are not easy questions, and most easy ways have been used by now.
Today, I wanted to look at three cards in particular and explore their intricate interactions with certain cards. One card is the recently printed Mizzium Transreliquat. I just submitted a question to the Ask the Judge about the interactions of this card with a couple of other cards, and the answer came back that my idea does, in fact, work. (By the way, Chris Richter, the Ask the Judge guy, has been very efficient with my questions. He’s responded quickly and completely and I cannot imagine anyone doing a better job. He gets the official Abe Gold Star of the week.) The other two cards are both cards that have used by me before in previous articles. Both times I used them I said, “I could write a whole article about this card.” Well, now I am. These two cards are Mages’ Contest and Portcullis.
So, you can expect for me to seriously explore the use of all three of these cards. There will be decklists and ideas a-go-go, for these are three very tricky cards.
Card Trick #1: Mizzium Transreliquat
One interesting thing about the Mizzium Transreliquat is that the card’s second ability does not end at the end of the turn. If you copy, say, a Darksteel Colossus on your turn, it’ll still be ol’ Indestructy himself during your opponent’s turn, and your next turn, and so forth.
It’s pretty obvious that the Mizzium Transreliquat can fit into a lot of decks. What sort of decks, you may ask? Well, let’s take a look at a few.
The first sort of deck that springs to mind is your casual multiplayer deck. In multiplayer, you can expect there to be lots of tasty targets for you to copy. There are targets from Fellwar Stones to Feldon’s Canes, Millstones, and Mind Stones, and Mind’s Eyes, and Mindslavers. Sometimes all you’ll get is a minor mana producing artifact, like that Mind Stone, or a Talisman of Dominance or something. Other times you’ll get a creature like a Living Wall or a Juggernaut. Still other times you’ll get a great card like Scroll Rack, or the above mentioned Mind’s Eye.
There’ll be plenty of targets for your Mizzium Transreliquat, though. There are usually enough artifacts in play in multiplayer to give you a lot of options.
Another choice for your Mizzium Transreliquat is to find a nice use in a mono-Brown deck. It fits right alongside your own Darksteel Colossus and your Crumbling Sanctuary. When your deck is very artifact heavy, the Mizzium Transreliquat is a nice adjunct. Red and Blue are perfect colors to use in such a deck. Red gives you artifact inspired ideas like Goblin Welder and Trash into Treasure while Blue, gives you tutoring like Reshape and winning conditions like March of the Machines. Both have nice cards that are benefited by playing lots of artifacts, like Shrapnel Blast, or the affinity cards.
Maybe Mirrodin Block left a bad taste in your mouth for mono-Brown decks. Do you prefer your artifacts to be played in smaller amounts with highly specific purposes? Then look no further than the combo deck. I can think of two uses for Mizzium Transreliquat in a combo deck. In the first combo deck, the Mizzium Transreliquat is a backup plan. For example, if you have a Forge[/author]“]Darksteel [author name="Forge"]Forge[/author] deck, then you can use the Mizzium Transreliquat to either be a backup Forge or to mimic a Coretapper. Either way it serves as a backup piece.
If that is all that you ever use Mizzium Transreliquat for, that’s still an awful lot. However, there is another combo deck that can use Mizzium Transreliquat. Not just as a backup, but to do funky things.
For example, suppose that I have out a Mizzium Transreliquat and a Panoptic Mirror. If I mimic the Mirror, I can imprint any instant or sorcery. Suppose that I imprint Searing Wind. Now, that’s really expensive choice and not that feasible a card, but it doesn’t matter what you choose just as long as it is an instant.
Now, copy an Isochron Scepter. The Isochron Scepter’s activated ability tells you to play a copy of the imprinted instant. As a result, you can play a copy of Searing Wind for just two mana, and you can keep doing it again and again.
Obviously, you won’t be imprinting a bad card like Searing Wind. It simply costs too much mana. In fact, most options aren’t going to be any better on a Scepter as they are on a Mirror. In our Searing Wind example, the Mirror would go off each turn and blast someone for ten. That’s the same as tapping a Scepter every turn and blasting someone for ten. They both go off once a turn, only the Scepter requires mana and the Mirror doesn’t even need a Mizzium Transreliquat.
Why play such a clunky combo? I can play Panoptic Mirror and Searing Wind (insert instant or sorcery here). Or I can play Mizzium Transreliquat, Panoptic Mirror, Isochron Scepter and Searing Wind (insert instant here).
There are three instants that I though of that are different. These three instants are really, really good on a scepter. Let’s take a look:
Twitch — This allows you to untap the Scepter and draw a card. It essentially turns the Scepter into:
2: Draw a Card.
That’s a pretty handy ability to have. This is the weakest of the three cards that I thought of, and even it is pretty good. Let’s take a look at the next…
Frantic Search — Although it is restricted in Vintage, I think you can get away with multiples in most casual decks as long as you aren’t using it with Tolarian Academy. With this on a Scepter, you actually make mana while digging though your deck. Tap a Scepter and an extra land, dig, untap lands, and you’ve made a mana while searching. You could use this in a deck that abused the graveyard, maybe through Goblin Welders. It’s also useful to find that one last combo piece that you need while leaving you all of your mana. This card is also pretty good, but I have an even better idea.
Turnabout — This card is the sole reason why you should play this combo. Twitch draws you goods and Frantic Search does a little digging for negative mana, but Turnabout makes this casual combo really work. Let’s look at a few examples:
Let’s suppose that you have out a normal selection of artifacts:
1 Thran Dynamo
1 Mizzium Transreliquat copy of Isochron Scepter
1 Telim’Tor’s Darts
You just won the game. Tap your Dynamo to make three mana. Use the Transreliquated Scepter to untap all artifacts, which would include the mana artifact and the Mizzium Transreliquat. You have an extra mana in your mana pool. Repeat, then use the extra mana to use the Darts and hit someone for one. Then use the Mizzium Transreliquat/Scepter again, this time also untapping the Darts.
The beauty of this combo is that, although it requires a lot of cards, many of these cards can be found in multiples. All you need is mana producing artifacts that total three or more mana and something to put that mana into. For mana producing artifacts, you can use Sol Ring, Fellwar Stones, Mana Vault, Basalt Monolith, Grim Monolith, and more.
As for winning conditions, Rocket Launcher, Telim’Tor’s Darts, Rod of Ruin, Aladdin’s Ring, and Goblin Cannon will all work. I prefer the Darts because they are the cheapest to play.
Let’s take a look at a decklist:
Spells (52)
There’s a lot of tutor action in this deck to help you out. A quartet of Reshape can get you any artifact in your deck. The powerful Tinker is also included. Mystical Tutor can get you the Turnabout when you are about to go off, or grab a Reshape/Tinker for another combo part. Drift of Phantasms is a nice blocker, but can also get a combo part like the Mizzium Transreliquat, Basalt Monolith, or Tinker. Lastly, I tossed in a full set of Impulses. They’ll help in the early game. You’d love to slap down a Scepter with an imprinted Impulse.
As always, feel encouraged to, um, tinker with the deck. Good luck with all of your Mizzium Transreliquat plans.
Card Trick #2: Mages’ Contest
Mages’ Contest is a tool for good players. Bad players simply cannot play the card right. In the hand of a good player, however, the Contest is a scalpel, slicing off the largest chunk of life from your opponent that you can get away with or countering the direst spell for an insignificant amount of life.
In tournaments, I used to sideboard in Contests into my Extended Sligh deck against super control decks and then surprise them with one at just the right time. If you haven’t prepared for a Contest, then you are likely to misplay against it.
In fact, in the hand of a skilled player who has experience with the card, Mages’ Contest is like a split card: Counterspell/Lava Axe. Since you know the card, you know the players (at a casual table), you’ll know where to push in order to get what you want.
There are two basic Contest strategies. One is for players who do not know how the play the card, and the other is for the surgeon who knows exactly where and how hard to strike.
The first strategy is to keep betting more than the other until one folds. You bet one, your opponent bets two, you bet three, your opponent bets four, and so forth until someone says eight, and the other person doesn’t go to nine.
The problem with this is that, psychologically, it’s a flawed strategy. Suppose you really want to counter the spell. The longer you bid, the more likely your opponent is going to up the ante. Let’s say you think that five life is a reasonable cost to counter a spell. If you build up to five, your opponent becomes more involved. She has more time to think, more time to become invested in her card. She’ll possibly think, “I already bid four, why not bid six?”
The second option is to go straight to the key number. If you go straight to five, then she’ll be less likely to say, “Six.”
Before you play Mages’ Contest, you need to know what your own number is. If you are playing mono-Red and your opponent plays Akroma, then you’ll likely pay a lot of life in order to keep Akroma off the table. On the other hand, your opponent knows how good Akroma is, and is likely to bid highly for her. If your opponent is at, say, twelve, and you have an Incinerate and Lightning Bolt in your hand, then bid five. Your opponent will bid six (thinking that they are going to deal six with Akroma this turn) and then you can burn them to death.
This example shows that you need to work your Contest. Always know what you want to do with a Contest before you play it. Then, every time you need to bid, confidently state your bid immediately. You start the bidding at one, as per the instructions on the card. Your opponent likely bids two. Then bid five, or seven, or whatever. Now your opponent is often taken aback by your jump and your confidence. They didn’t have time to plan a strategy. What do they bid? Do they go above you? Do they let you win?
If you want to win, then you want to bid the lowest total that you can without them jumping over you. If their limit is six, then you want to bid six.
If you want to hit them for life, then you want to bid the highest total that you can that they jump over. If their limit is six, then you want to bid five.
What you need to do is figure out what their limit is, what your limit is, and then use the card to exploit the difference. With a clever Mages’ Contest, you can easily change the course of a game.
I wanted to build a nice Mages’ Contest deck to show off its power. I think I may have missed a bit:
Creatures (20)
- 2 Kumano, Master Yamabushi
- 2 Tahngarth, Talruum Hero
- 4 Grim Lavamancer
- 4 Wall of Diffusion
- 4 Ghitu Slinger
- 4 Flametongue Kavu
Lands (4)
Spells (36)
This deck uses several methods to control the game until heavy hitters come online. Wall of Diffusion, Lavamancer, and Slingers come down early and burn, block, and otherwise harass early plays. Later we have Flametongue Kavu and the legendary creatures to establish board dominance. Toss in Incinerates for removal, Ghitu Fire as a surprise kill, and a pair of Urza’s Rages to go to the dome in a counterspell emergency.
In addition to this slate of Red control, I’ve added the aforementioned Mages’ Contest. It will be a surprise at first, then later a nice adjunct to either the control element or the burn element of this deck. Remember to use your opponent’s life total against him. If he is at five life, use Mages’ Contest and bid four.
I also have a quartet of Aftershock. With all of this burn, creatures with high defenses or immune to damage can survive the wake. Dawn Elemental or Child of Gaea can really wreck your day. Incinerate can pop your regenerators and Aftershock can take out Dawn Elementals. Aftershock also doubles as artifact removal and triples as land removal in an emergency.
Enjoy your Mages’ Contest!
Card Trick #3: Portcullis
Let’s recap Portcullis, because I think a lot of people need to be reminded about this card’s power. If there are two or more creatures in play, then any creature that comes into play is removed from the game. If Portcullis leaves play, all creatures that were removed by it come back into play.
Some of you may wonder what is so good about Portcullis… There are several things.
1). Portcullis acts as an Armageddon. I have this theory, the WALD Theory, that cards that have a major impact on the board are one of three cards: Armageddons, Wrath of God effects, or Living Deaths. A Wrath of God takes the game from a losing state and swings it back to neutral in one fell swoop. An Armageddon takes the game from a state that favors you to a state that makes it tremendously likely that you’ll win. A Living Death does both, taking you from a losing state to a dominant state.
Examples of the WALD Theory
Wrath of God effects: Wheel of Fortune, Balance, Obliterate, Sway of the Stars.
Armageddons: Winter Orb, Stasis, Parallax Wave.
Living Deaths: Eureka, Mind Twist, False Cure.
You’d traditionally play a ‘Geddon when you were a bit ahead, and then you’d be really ahead. Portcullis does the same thing, only not as strong. If you have out two or more beaters that are swinging, toss down a Portcullis before your opponent can summon a defense. Then you can keep swinging. This is great if you just played a removal spell.
For example, suppose that you have a Ghitu Slinger and Hunting Moa with a +1/+1 counter. Your opponent has out a newly minted Mahamoti Djinn. You play Terror on the Djinn, swing for four, then slap down the Portcullis. Now your opponent can’t play the Glacial Wall she just drew or the Evil Eye of Orms-by-Gore in her hand. You’ve turned a slightly dominating situation into a much better one.
2). The second use for a Portcullis is to save your creatures from your own mass removal. Play a Portcullis, then toss down a couple of creatures over the next few turns, filling it up. Play your Wrath of God, thereby smiting all creatures in play. At the end of your opponent’s turn, Disenchant the Portcullis bringing back all of your creatures, untap, draw, and attack. This is a pretty straightforward way of using and abusing the Portcullis. There used to be a great way to do this constantly, by phasing out the Portcullis, but Wizards recently neutered the phasing rules for Magic: The Electronic so it no longer works (despite the fact that it worked for years).
3). The third use for a Portcullis is the way I used it in a regular tournament winning deck entitled Abe’s Deck of Happiness and Joy. Use it with Living Death itself. Slap down a Portcullis, then later use Living Death. You get to choose the order the creatures come into play from a Living Death. Therefore, you can have your two best creatures come into play first, then everybody else is Portcullised. Portcullised; what a great verb! [Hmmm… – Craig]
4). A fourth use is to abuse creatures with Comes Into Play (CIP) abilities. With a Portcullis out and two plus creatures in play, whenever you play a creature, it comes into play, and then is removed. That means you can play, say, a Gravedigger. It comes into play. Portcullis and Gravedigger each have abilities that trigger and go on the stack in your choice of order (in this case, it probably doesn’t matter). Then the Gravedigger is removed and you have a new creature in hand. Later, when the Portcullis is zarked, you bring the Gravedigger back into play, and… oh look! Its ability triggers a second time.
I love Portcullis in decks that are heavy with 187 creatures as a result. Let’s combine Portcullis with haunt for an extra special fun deck:
Creatures (25)
- 4 Nekrataal
- 4 Temple Acolyte
- 2 Radiant's Dragoons
- 3 Dimir House Guard
- 4 Keening Banshee
- 2 Absolver Thrull
- 4 Blind Hunter
- 2 Exhumer Thrull
Lands (14)
- 10 Swamp
- 4 Caves of Koilos
Spells (21)
- 10 Plains
- 4 Disenchant
- 4 Portcullis
- 3 Mortify
This deck uses a variety of haunt and creatures with CIP abilities to really throw people for a loop. You have life gaining, life draining, graveyard recursion, creature killing, enchantment popping, and some cheeky “-2/-2’ing.”
Dimir House Guard can transmute for a Portcullis, as well as several choice creatures.
Temple Acolyte provides a decent speed bump with a decent life gain. Radiant’s Dragoons give a more permanent boost to your life total. In fact, between Dragoons, Tacos, and Blind Hunters, you could have quite a life total.
Nekrataal and Keening Banshee combine to take out most creatures. Anything that escapes the grasp of these two creatures will suffer at the hands of a Mortify. There’s also a quartet of Disenchant. You may want to pop your own Portcullis at an opportune time.
I chose to go with Exhumer Thrull over the cheaper Gravedigger because I could use haunt. I felt that with the life gain present, I could afford to go more expensive. You might still want to toss in a single copy of a Gravedigger as a transmute target for the House Guard.
This deck should provide enough fun for now.
…
Between these three cards, you should have several ideas for new decks. Alternatively, use them as spice to bring out the flavor from some of your existing decks. Either way, these are three great cards with lots of silly card tricks around them. Good luck!
Until Later,
Abe Sargent