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Pojo's Magic The Gathering
Card of the Day


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Artifact Mutation 
Invasion


Reviewed December 26, 2004

 

Ratings are based on a 1 to 5 scale
1 being the worst.  3 ... average.  
5 is the highest rating

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Card of the Day Reviews 


Judge Bill

*Level 2
MTG Judge

*game store employee

Friday - Artifact Mutation

OK, so it's Christmas Eve (Pojo note: Well, it should have been, but Pojo was out gallivanting and didn't post in time). That means I have to pick a card that is red and green for the theme today.

Not to mention we are about 10 months away from Extended rotating, and synching up with MTGO. So naturally, I have to look there for inspiration.

And what do we find is the best deck, online, by far? Of course, it's affinity. When we rotate, we lose some of the really powerful hate such as Energy Flux. so we have to look to cards like this to keep control.

(Side note: Prices of cards from Invasion block are completely insane online, as they are [a] in short supply, and [b] being hoarded by a few people to drive their price further up. If there is a deck that comes mostly from Invasion block, you may still see 2 different metagames after the rotation, due to people not wanting to shell out $1000s of dollars [yes, a deck with 16+ Invasion block rares in it WILL currently cost you over $1000 online] for digital cards.)

When you can hit a card that cost them 0 mana to play, and get 7 1/1s for yourself, life is good. Just make sure to off the Ravager before you do this.

In limited, it's not as big of a factor, as there aren't that many artifacts you'd want to hit.

Constructed: 4.5 (online extended), 2 (other formats)
Casual: 2.5
Limited: 1.5


Jeff Zandi

5 Time Pro Tour
Veteran

 Artifact Mutation

This is the definition of a good utility card. Artifact Mutation not only gets rid of a card that is bothering you, it also provides you with free creatures. In some cases, you could end up with a huge number of 1/1 Saproling tokens, which could be incredibly game-changing. Keeping all this power in check is the deceptive red/green casting cost. As a two casting cost spell, Artifact Mutation SEEMS cheap to cast. In reality, since you need two colors to cast it, the spell is virtually a bit more expensive. The challenge to cast this card, however, is easily offset by its overall usefulness in any red/green deck that needs to get rid of artifacts. This card should probably be a sideboard only card in both constructed and limited formats.

CONSTRUCTED: 2.5
CASUAL: 3.0
LIMITED: 2.5

Ray "Monk"
Powers
* Level 3 DCI Judge
*DCI Tournament Organizer
 Artifact Mutation

Boy, wouldn't this card have been fun with Mirrodin Block? Unfortunately, it was printed in a block without much in the way of powerful artifacts to be removed with it, so wasn't very worthwhile, and was almost entirely useless in limited. In serious constructed formats it seems to rarely get good use as most main decks don't use artifacts that are worth destroying in this way, excepting perhaps the occasional Charbelcher that has yet to blow you up. In Casual, especially type Dan Gray, its a great card to play that nearly always finds a target.

Constructed: 2
Casual: 3
Limited: 1


DeQuan
Watson

* game store owner

 Friday - Artifact Mutation

At first glance, a card like this should be great. For some reason it just never works out though. If this card ever got played, it was usually sideboarded. That's unfortunate though. It's a great mechanic. I wish this card were better.

Constructed: 2
Casual: 3
Limited: 2.5
Paul
Hagan
 Artifact Mutation --

I love this card! It's not because it is over-the-top good or anything, but I am amused with the idea of blowing up my opponent's artifact and then getting a small horde of tokens because of it. It obviously has limited uses because of its casting cost, but if I knew I would be playing against a lot of artifacts, I was playing Green/Red, and I had the ability to play Artifact Mutation (read as: Extended, Casual, etc.), then I would sneak a few copies into my sideboard.

In limited, this card's value dips a little bit more, just because you have to luck out to have the ability to play Green/Red and get this card. If you do, then you have to ask yourself if you think there will be enough artifacts to warrant playing this card. If so, go for it -- the benefits are worth it.

Constructed Rating: 2.5
Casual Rating: 3.0
Limited Rating: 2.5
 

 

 

 

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