Legacy Weapon - A Legacy review of Mirrodin Besieged

As with any set review; make your own conclusions of the set.  I'm looking for cards to make it into my Legacy playables binder.  If you're looking for just a summary of cards I think are worth picking up for Legacy, skip to the Leeches!


White:
Accorder Paladin - We're getting closer to a reasonable 2 drop.  But then again: Tarmogoyf.
Ardent Recruit - The only deck that would consider playing this guy is Affinity, and in there he's hard to cast on turn 1.  Thanks Wild Nacatl for being too awesome.
Hero of Bladehold - If this guy were a Soldier that made Soldiers, I would have more to say.  That said, high cost Army-in-a-Cans usually don't see play in Legacy, aside from synergistic Siege-Gang Commander.  I want to be wrong about this one, especially for the Zoo mirror.
Leonin Relic-Warder - Coming soon to an Aether Vial deck near you.  This is far less narrow than War Priest of Thune, but it also is less good.  Still, good enough to play.
White Sun's Zenith - Surprise cats in a Cunning Wishboard?  Awesome.  Go Landstill!  Go and finish rounds on time.

Blue:
Blue Sun's Zenith - Alternatively, this is a really hard to cast Stroke of Genius that shuffles itself back in.  Probably not good enough.
Consecrated Sphinx - Demands a Swords or Path right away or the game will get out of control quickly.  Potential Show and Tell target; though, probably not.
Steel Sabotage - This one's better than Annul the majority of the time... but who plays Annul?
Treasure Mage - What's bigger than a Trinket?  A Trunket.  Don't expect this guy around the block anytime soon in Legacy.  As of yet, there is no reasonable big blue artifact deck, and the big artifacts people play are 3's and 4's.

Black:
Black Sun's Zenith - Too little, too late.
Go for the Throat - Pick up your set.  Replace your Smothers, replace your Doom Blades, 'cause they killin' 'erebody out here.  Don't get me wrong, it's not a cut and dry switch, but it should be relatively painless.  Aside from the usual suspects, here's the breakdown: Doom Blade kills Mishra's Factory and Affinity creatures.  Smother kills Mishra's Factory, Dark Confidant the Affinity creatures you care about.  Go for the Throat kills Dark Confidant, Tombstalker and Disciple of the Vault.  There.  Those are the relevant things in the format.
Phyrexian Crusader - Protection from Zoo removal still doesn't make a 3cc Infect good.

Red:
Goblin Wardriver - 3rd best driver in the game.  While he ranks below Goblin Piledriver and Grixis Slavedriver (The Rusty Machete is an opinionated site.  This may not reflect the views of our sponsors.), he is better than Stampede Driver and Phyrexian Driver.  Goblins needed another 2 drop, but this one isn't it.
Hero of Oxid Ridge - Not an effect we were looking for in Legacy.  Sorry.
Slagstorm - I think I'll settle for either Firespout or Flamebreak.

Green:
Green Sun's Zenith - This one is exciting.  It's a 1cc ramp spell (Dryad Arbor), it's a Counterbalance dodge, it's whatever creature you need at the time if you're willing to spend another dollar.  Expect to pick up a set of these guys and play them for a while.
Lead the Stampede - This Beast Hunt is very good, but probably not going to get the job done in Legacy.  Strangely enough, any deck that can generate this kind of mana and play enough creatures can already play a Ringleader effects.
Praetor's Counsel - How sweet would this be to help you cast Tendrils of Agony?  Unfortunately, it's far too expensive as an enabler.  Though, someone should prove me wrong.
Thrun, the Last Troll - I am not experienced enough in Trolling to get a reasonable review of this guy going.  He can't fight most Tarmogoyfs or Knights by himself, and the Legendary portion provides incredibly diminishing returns (especially now that we don't have Survival of the Fittest).

Multi:
Glissa, the Traitor - Doesn't survive any removal spell and requires your opponent to have creatures for her to not be a Trained Armodon.  Not exactly what we want.
Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas - Costs 4?  Check.  Can end the game quickly?  Check.  Playing Affinity?  Ooh, I don't know.  But Affinity decks can play this guy as an incredibly huge reach card.  I'm not even cautiously optimistic about this one.  This guy is good.  Affinity right now can play 3cc guys on turn 2 pretty consistently with Mox Opal and Springleaf Drum, and if turn 3 is casting Tezzeret, expect to Drain your opponent something around 14-16 points at least.

Artifact:
Bonehoard - Make any random guy into a huge dumb guy?  I think I'd rather have Jitte.
Decimator Web - Target opponent loses 2 life, gets a poison counter, mills 6, the round time gets 5 minutes knocked off of it and a Judge comes over and gives your opponent a caution.  Not quite there, guys.
Ichor Wellspring - Very good at what it does, but not in this format.
Phyrexian Revoker - This should not come as a huge surprise as this guy gets the job done, but keep in mind: This format is very creature oriented, and decks prepare accordingly, and this can't Needle lands.  If you're prepared for that, we're golden.  This guy is awesome, and might even make maindecks.
Spine of Ish Sah - As much as I like Vindicates, this one is too expensive.
Sword of Feast and Famine - I think this one is more relevant than Sword of Body and Mind in Legacy, but that doesn't mean the same thing as 'good'.  This card is very effective for casting attrition cards, things like Ranger of Eos.  Play it, equip to evade their green creatures, play a big creature post-combat.  I'll be picking up exactly one of these for myself, but who knows if I'll actually play it.

Land:
Contested War Zone - This is actually very exciting to me.  Consider your Goblins vs. Landstill match.  You've got a reasonable opener, but don't have any mana disruption.  In many regards, you're trying to race the Humility or the Moat from coming down.  What if Humility didn't solve their problems anymore?  This land makes it so they can't brickwall you with a Mishra's Factory, it turns your ragtag team of awful creatures into twice the fighting force.  They're still suicidal.  And they're still awful by themselves, but this is such a powerful effect for a land, for how cheap it is to activate.  Yes, there will be a lot of times where this backfires; but I am willing to take that risk.
Inkmoth Nexus - If there's going to be a poison deck in Legacy, this is going to be one of the lynchpins of it.  When I get the physical cards in my hands, I will likely try to build an infect deck to mess around with at Legacy weekly events.




Leeches!

In the case you were looking for a full set of Legacy cards for this set:

4x Leonin Relic-Warder
1x White Sun's Zenith (If you're a man who uses Cunning Wish)
4x Go for the Throat
4x Green Sun's Zenith
3x Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas (If you want to play Affinity)
4x Phyrexian Revoker
1x Sword of Feast and Famine
3x Contested War Zone
4x Inkmoth Nexus (If you're feeling sassy)

If you don't want the very niche cards:

4x Leonin Relic-Warder
4x Go for the Throat
4x Green Sun's Zenith
4x Phyrexian Revoker
1x Sword of Feast and Famine
3x Contested War Zone

Overall, I'm pretty disappointed with the set.  It'll likely be very fun for the prerelease and for limited, but there just aren't a lot of cards that look like they have a sufficient build-around-me attributes.

-G