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The Magic Chest 32: Mirari
Mirari plays a big part in the Odyssey novel as a powerful artifact that all the major players want to possess. The set's designers tried to make the card very desirable as well, by giving it the rare spell-copying ability previously only seen in Fork. They didn't succeed completely, though, because Mirari can only be used on spells you play, while a big part of what makes Fork so much fun is that it allows you to use your opponent's weapons against him. Still, Mirari is a good card, considering it can give you double the use of all your instants and sorceries. Quadruple if it has flashback. The first thing to note is that Mirari only works on sorceries and instants, so our deck should consist mostly of those. The second thing is that Mirari needs 3 mana to copy a spell, so we'll also need some mana acceleration and the spells can't be too expensive. As cool as it would be to cast Time Stretch and use Mirari on it to gain an additional 4 turns, getting to 13 mana is just not going to happen. Most spells in the deck should be generally useful and targeted. That means that Shatter is a bad idea, because you'll rarely have a second target for it and Wrath of God is also a bad idea, because getting rid of all creatures in play twice in a row isn't useful. Good cards to use with Mirari are library searchers, like Impulse and Fact or Fiction and useful cantrips, like Accumulated Knowledge and Repulse. That makes blue a good color to start off with. An additional advantage to all these cantrips and searchers is that it becomes easier to find key cards like Mirari, without playing four of each. There is only one color that can give us as much mana acceleration as we need: green. Most of green's mana acceleration comes in the shape of creatures, but there are a few sorceries and instants as well. Harrow is probably the best one. Although I like Mulch and Skyshroud Claim too, Mulch is too unpredictable and a 2-color deck won't have enough Forests to use Skyshroud Claim, considering you can get four with a Mirari in play. With a Mirari in play, Harrow can also get you four lands, at the cost of only the one you had to sacrifice to play the first Harrow, because the copy is put on the stack without you having to pay any of the costs. Some more acceleration would be nice, but isn't really necessary, because all the cantrips will help to fetch land as well. I've considered Werebear, because it doubles as a strong attacker later in the game, when you don't need it for mana anymore. That didn't work too well, though. Exploration is another option. It allows a faster early game and late in the game the Fact or Fictions can get you a lot of extra land. Still, it's not an instant or sorcery. Summer Bloom is and it allows a turn three Mirari as well, but that's only if you have too many lands in your opening hand to begin with. Because the deck is instant-heavy as it is, Cognivore would make a good finisher. Although it costs 8 mana to cast, it has flying and should be huge by the time you cast it, especially if your opponent is playing a lot of instants as well, which a lot of decks seem to do. A few late-game creatures isn't enough, of course, but luckily Odyssey brings us a few instant creatures as well: Beast Attack and Elephant Ambush. Both of them have flashback as well, so they can be used to get up to four creatures with a Mirari in play. They also act as pseudo-removal, because of their surprise value. Wild Mongrel is another good creature for this deck. At 1G for a 2/2, it's good value and the manaless color changing and +1/+1 for each card discarded is a very nice bonus in a deck which plans to draw a lot of cards once Mirari is in play. It's tempting to add a few counterspells as well, but they're not very useful with Mirari. There's usually only one spell on the stack that needs to be countered. A single Emerald Charm in the main deck gives the deck at least some hope against irritating enchantments. As a bonus, it can help get rid of flyers or give you a surprise blocker. Three more go in the sideboard. Creeping Molds in the sideboard will help against enchantments and artifacts. You can always use the Mirari copy on an annoying land. Although Time Stretch is too expensive for this deck, there is a way to get a similar result for half the mana: Plow Under. An early Plow Under on turn four (after a Harrow) means your opponent will be drawing lands he already played for the next two turns. Later on, with eight lands and a Mirari in play, Plow Under means your opponent will be drawing four lands in a row. I've put four in the sideboard to bring in against control decks. Against burn and weenie decks, a few Ivory Towers should help to recover some life. A few Dominates should also help. With a Mirari in play and an opponent attacking with four small creatures, a single Dominate can steal two of them and use them to block and kill the other two, giving you a possible 6 for 1 card advantage (your opponent loses 4 creatures, you gain 2 and all for a single Dominate). That leaves only the land to discuss. Most of the blue cards only require a single blue mana, while Beast Attack requires 2GGG, so I'll go heavy on the green, but with enough blue to be assured of getting some out early. A few Cephalid Coliseums will help in the late game to clear some useless cards out of your hand. I wouldn't play too many, though, because they'll cost you a lot of life early on.
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