On the Horizon

Hello, and welcome back to the Feast of Magic blog!

First and foremost, Happy New Year! I must apologize for the absence of new posts through the month of December, but I assure you it was not due to lack of material to write about. All I can say is that you'll see plenty of updates from me over the course of 2011, I promise.

To kick off the new year I think it is appropriate to talk about something new, and with Mirrodin Besieged right on the horizon (and previews already begun) there is no better time to dive right in!

If you don't already know, the current block causes me a great deal of excitement and instills in me a great sense of adventure. Mirrodin was the very first plane I visited as a Magic: The Gathering collector. That being said, you may believe I am routing for "Mirrodin Pure" to be the final set of the block, but I must say that those Phyrexians are some pretty nifty creatures and "New Phyrexia" doesn't sound like such a bad thing to me... But I don't mean to get off topic - Mirrodin Besieged is what today's post is about. It is about the war that has been festering on Mirrodin for some time now and, with Besieged, has finally arrived.

 

In Scars, we watched the Phyrexians dominate black and green, and begin to extend their grasp into blue, but now, in Besieged, the Phyrexians have a firm grasp on the aforementioned colors and have branched out to white as well. One of my favorite new cards in the set is Priests of Norn. 

Originally, I saw the preview art for this card and thought, like many others, that some kind of Phyrexian/Eldrazi abomination was coming our way, but in the back of my mind I think I knew better. Instead, what we got was a pretty sweet looking common white Phyrexian with vigilance and infect. Not bad. I couldn't wait to see some mythics.

And speaking of mythics, one of the most talked about cards that has been previewed thus far is Glissa, the Traitor. We all knew that the original Hero of Mirrodin had to be addressed at some point in the block (much like Karn and Memnarch), but many were unsure how this would be done. From a single line of flavor text to a grand new planeswalker, much was speculated, but now we have our answer:

There is just no hating this card. Deep down, somewhere inside, you know how cool it is that she has been resurrected. First strike, deathtouch, and artifact regeneration are no joke. I was however surprised to find that she was Infect-less. I suppose they had to give the Phyrexian faction a chance to win with more than just poison counters, no matter how much MaRo loves them.

This set has so many cool attributes - cards, abilities, artwork, etc. Although I would love to tell you what I find great about each and every card, I'm sure that's not what you want to hear (and it's probably not too healthy for me either). So let me just show you some of my favorites from previews thus far.

To view the full visual spoiler for Mirrodin Besieged, click here.

Next time I'll be talking about some of my favorite cards of all time, cards I just can't get my hands on, cards I don't want to get my hands on, and, of course, more on Mirrodin Besieged. Until then, Happy Collecting!

- Brasif