Some Pre-Mirrodin Besieged Thoughts

Some weeks back Paul mentioned that he used www.tappedout.net to help him with his deck building and to calculate mana curve. The term mana curve is generally used in application of optimizing some theory to actual deck construction. If any of you have spent any time building decks, only to be disappointed by how the deck performed because of too much land or too few land in conjunction to what spells were in hand needing to be cast. That is where the mana curve theory can help. By organizing all of the cards that are going into a deck by their converted mana cost it can be determined how likely the deck is to draw and play certain spells on any given turn. Basically this means that it determines the ability to cast a spell with converted mana cost equal to or less than the mana available on each turn. It is also important to keep in mind the balance of colors if more than one color is being played in the deck.
I find that this is an important tool to learn for all players, and the website has some great graphs to help identify how the curve of your deck looks.

Also, it is nearing the time when the new set: Mirrodin Besieged is releasing. If you have not gone online an checked out the visual spoilers for the new set, go and do it! I have been looking at them to try and figure out which cards are going to be useful to me in my decks. There is a new game mechanic called Battle Cry, which is sure to by right up the alley of anyone who likes playing a lot of creatures quickly, and attacking with them as much as possible. (I'm looking in Snape's direction...) The set also contains more infect, so that is sure to make Paul's day/week/month. And of course, there are artifacts aplenty.
I have some cards from from each color that I am excited to get into my decks!

From the White cards I am excited about, Frantic Salvage.

From the Blue cards I think,Corrupted Conscience, will be useful

From the Black cards, I am waiting for Go For the Throat. I think it will make it into many decks.

From the Red cards I think, Slagstorm, looks promising. So much for playing pyroclasm! Who needs it!?

From the Green cards I really like, Unnatural Predation. It was only a matter of time!

I'm very curious to see how these cards change the landscape of the decks we see. Will we be seeing even more infect? Will will be seeing more creature based decks?

All I know is that when new cards are released, it means new challenges and new strategies to build decks around. And that is something to be happy about.

Until our next gathering.