What a Myraculas Tribe!

Another day, another reason to drool. While yesterday provided some lame previews, today (and yes stuff from yesterday that I didn't find until 11:30pm) was unbelievably crazy! In the mix for this article is some Mythics that actually made me smile and get really excited about, and 2 cards that will make hard-casting Emrakul MUCH more possible (and not even in a green deck). So why am I still typing this useless introduction? Let's get to it!

I will start with a pair of awesome reprints from Mirroden block. Both of these cards are very powerful, and so they are both getting a bump up in rarity, one from common to uncommon, and the other from rare to mythic rare (an option not available at the time). What are they? Well first going from common to uncommon, we have the Trinket Mage. Why is this card awesome? First, it provides a little card advantage. Think of it as a slightly worse Ranger of Eos. While I could go into detail bringing up all sorts of cool cards it could retrieve, I am going to mention 2 that remain relevent no matter when you draw them. First, you could get Everflowing Chalice. The Chalice has a cmc of 0, so you could fetch it with the Trinket Mage, but then multi-kick it several times to ramp your mana. Another card you could get is a brand new rare from the set, Chimeric Mass.

So with the Trinket Mage you can tutor a creature that's as big as you can get it to be. Little things like this (and probably bigger and better things, we will see as spoilers pour in) with the card advantage provided by the Mage by effectively cycling itself when you play it makes this reprint a great choice.

But what's the other reprint? None other than the devastating, game changing, mind enslaving artifact itself, Mindslaver! This card was amazingly popular when it first came out, but its power level has decreased since then with the removal of mana burn. Before, you could have your opponent cast kill spells on their own stuff, make horrible attacks, and then finally tap all their lands for mana and let it burn away at their life total. That, coupled with the tempo shift it provides by at worst a time warp, would soon end the game. I don't have a problem with this card getting reprinted, and I actually look forward to using it some time. Be weary though, your opponent could be packing this card to, so artifact removal is premium all of a sudden again.

Next in line to talk about are a pair of powerhouse Mythically rare creatures that if they remain untouched can win you the game by themselves. We will start with the one previewed on today's Savor the Flavor article. Geth, Lord of the Vault isn't a difficult card to figure out. Basically this guy makes everything bad for your opponent. He steals their creatures, then mills them, steals the milled creatures, mills some more, and then rinses and repeates next turn. Oh yeah, and he hits for 5 intimidating damage (nice to see that keyword back finally). That is more than your money's worth for a mere 4BB. I think mono-black control could be resurected with Scars of Mirroden being released. Consider comboing Geth with Consume the Meek. Destroy all the dudes your opponent made for his first few turns, and then bring them all back one at a time under your control. Meanwhile, you can get cards into their graveyard by using Mind Sludge, or you could destroy stuff one by one with Doom Blades and whatnot.

But that's not the only Mythic that can devastate your opponent if never properly dealt with. Check out Platinum Emperion:

Another card featured on a booster pack, with a name that makes me think about Platinum Angel. In fact, this guy is a lot like Platinum Angel because you almost can't lose with him in play (you can still get poisoned and milled). However, this guy is much better than the angel (which started life in Mirroden before it got scarred) because it is twice as fat and can be a much scarier force in combat. Unlike the angel, which doesn't see play because it's body isn't worth the cost, this could see play, especially with the last 2 cards I'm going to talk about which will ramp your mana.

The first mana ramp card is in blue. That's odd... Blue mana ramp? Well it's almost exclusively for artifacts, so it makes much more sense. Of course I'm talking about the Grand Architect from today's Building on a Buget article. This provides lots of ramp for blue decks, making outskirt bombs like Lorthos, the Tidemaker much more playable. Turn 2, play Halimar Wavewatch, Turn 3 play Grand Architect, Turn 4 play an island, tap your lands and the 2 creatures to drop your Legendary Octopus 4 turns early! Other blue cards like Hedron Crab, Enclave Cryptologist, Augury Owl are likely to be played in a mono-blue deck anyways can now double as insane ramp. With 3 creatures and 4 lands on turn 4, you're casting Kozelik!

But if you think that's insane, here's the card that absolutely made my jaw drop by its epicness. It's a lord, it's colorless, it's uncommon. It's Myr Galvanizer!

Ok, so it makes all your myr get +1/+1, making them all go from being 1/1 wimps to 2/2... dudes. Yeah, that's boring, part 2 on this card is what's nuts! On Sunday, I brought up the first wave of previews, which included the cycle of mana producing Myr. There's one more announced so far I didn't mention that costs 3, but taps for 2 instead of C. Let's say you have 1 each of the mana producing Myr in play with the Galvanizer. Tap all your Myr for 2WUBRG. Use one of that mana to untap all of them and then retap them, and you now have 2WWUUBBRRGG, aka enough to hardcast Ulamog with one floating. The fact that you have to have lands in play to cast these Myr means you can probably just cast Emrakul because you have 3 lands poking around. Sweet, nothing like casting Emrakul right?

BUT WAIT, THERES MORE!

All these Myr are colorless, so you could combo them with the Grand Architect. If you're playing mono-blue, you could make all your myr blue with the Architect, then tap them all for 2 mana a piece (netting 1 each so far). Now you untap them all with the Galvanizer and you do it again. If we had the same exact board position except we added the Grand Architect and enough islands to make everything blue, that would result in 20 colorless mana if you do it right. Yeah, that's a big X-spell.

BUT WAIT THERES EVEN MORE!!!

So we talked about the Trinket Mage coming back, so let's use it! How about we play Trinket Mage and search for a Voltaic Key and play it? Now with those 2 cards added we have 32 mana. Basically at that point you have done your job of producing too much mana, and just smile because mana burn is gone. Seriusly, that is insane! I think when Scars gets released, I am going to make a mono-blue ramp deck. Yeah, you heard it from me, mono-blue ramp. I never thought those words would hit the page from my fingers.

As I try to recouperate from getting bear blasted (or I guess Myr blasted) by absolute insanity, I am going to let your mind explode with all the possibilities in stock. Maybe you could just splash green for Helix Pinnacle and leave your opponents wondering what the card even says or what the heck just happened. Anyways, I am going to depart for now. Have many safe magical experiences, and try not to let the awesomeness blow your face up