By Russell Tassicker and Neale Talbot

Second sets are generally in quite an unfortunate place – they have to build on the themes begun by the first set, while also introducing some new 'wow factor' to get the packs racing off the shelves. Unfortunately because of this balance they are often the most forgettable sets of each block. The first set defines the block: it is our first look at the new themes, flavor and mechanics that we are going to be playing with over the next couple of years. The last set, on the other hand, gets to go a bit crazy. Looking over the last couple of blocks - even though Wizards have been screwing with the block format – we can see evidence of this pattern.

Shards of Alara introduced the multi-colored themes that virtually obsoleted mono-colored decks for a couple of years, gave us the Ultimatum cycle, a quartet of powerful new planeswalkers, and entered new design space with colored artifacts. It also gave us simple names for the allied three-colored combinations which have stuck firmly in the collective magic lexicon – hats off to creative for that excellent piece of work! The third set of that block, Alara Reborn, made its mark with the absurd cascade mechanic that would utterly dominate block constructed and create multiple influential decks across multiple formats – Jund, Naya Vengevine, Hypergenesis, Living End; all these decks owe their existence to Alara Reborn. Poor old Conflux was stranded in the middle. It didn't help that the Domain mechanic – a returning favourite, and the major new theme of the block – was on used on such weak cards. Conflux had a number of memorable cards: Noble Hierarch, Knight of the Reliquary, Progenitus and Nicol Bolas, Planeswalker to name a few. They aren't remembered as "Conflux" cards, though. They are strong cards, but they could really go anywhere in the block, there is no mechanical tie to the middle set, and if there is a thematic one it is not obvious.

Zendikar a year later hit the world with 'land matters'. Plated Geopede and Steppe Lynx meant suddenly our aggro decks were packing 25 or 26 land. Valakut, Oran-Rief, the Vastwood and Emeria, the Sky Ruins were new lands that have made their presence felt in both standard and extended. The most eagerly-awaited cycle completion in magic history finally arrived, with the enemy color fetchlands. Zendikar is apparently the new yardstick of design excellence within R&D, and you can certainly see why. Everything works together splendidly. Skipping ahead to Rise of the Eldrazi, and unusually we have another large set. This set was deliberately singled out as mechanically different and its identity is unmistakeable – humungous, world-destroying monsters. Emrakul, the Aeons Torn is the biggest, scariest creature ever printed (yes, even including a certain Colossus from Mirrodin Besieged). Worldwake managed a bit better than Conflux to establish itself, with an unprecedented cycle of dual-color man-lands. Without these it would have shared the fate of its middle set predecessor, being memorable only as the set that had Stoneforge Mystic, Basilisk Collar, and of course Jace, the Mind Sculptor. Even so, Worldwake is remembered as a weaker set than those before or after it. So it's obvious that Mirrodin Besieged has some work to do to fix itself in our collective memories.

Mirrodin Besieged Within The Historical Narrative

Like any sequel, it's impossible to talk about Scars without talking about what has come before - and it's a heady, twisted storyline. We have to go back - way back - to Antiquities, the first set to have an original back-story and first set to revolve around artifacts. It is here we are introduced to the brothers Urza and Mishra. Antiquities took place on the plane of Dominaria. Here the brothers attempt to unlock the gate to the plan of Phyrexia, before falling out and attempting to kill each other, as brothers often do. Mishra incorporated artifacts into his own flesh becoming the Dragon Engine, and the brothers went to war. The reason Mishra turned upon Urza was the unholy influence of Phyrexia, which had sort to dominate Dominaria through the destruction of the brothers. Mishra was defeated, but Urza recognizing the Phyrexian influence, swore revenge upon the entire plane.

The set was followed up with the Urza's Saga, another artifact-heavy block that led to more bannings than any other. Urza managed to track down Phyrexia, and find it he did; here it was revealed that Phyrexia was an artificial world of living machines, twisted artifact creatures, demons, and mechanical flesh. It was here Xantcha was discovered, Yawgmoth was revealed, and Mishra returned as Urza's ally. Yawgmoth's minions killed Xantcha and Mishra, and the Weatherlight and its crew were dragged into the mix. Thus begins the Masquerade Cycle (which we don't care about) and Invasion Cycle (which we do care about). The Weatherlight crew did a lot of running about the plane of Rath, which the Phyrexians set 'above' Dominaria to host the invasion. Eventually the Phyrexians spawned into Dominaria, but the Weatherlight, Legacy Weapon in tow, returned to save the day. In the end Urza held off the invasion but failed to defeat the Phyrexians. Urza retreated to create Karn in order to help him defeat the Phyrexian creations. With the triggering of the Legacy Weapon Urza sacrificed himself in the process, with his planeswalker 'spark' being inserted into Karn.

Karn left Dominaria and created his own artificial world in contrast to the Phyrexia he abhorred - Mirrodin, the next block in the saga and with artifacts now front and centre. Karn took a piece of the Mirari and turned it into the artifact creature Memnarch as the appointed guardian of Mirrodin. However, Memnarch corrupted by Mirari, was its dominator, rather than its protector, building devices that trapped the souls of living creatures and turning them into artifacts; the Auriok, Neurok, Moriok, Vulshok and Sylvok. Memnarch wanted his own Planeswalker spark, and came to believe Glissa, an elf girl, could provide it. Glissa had an incredibly powerful ability for Mirrodin, the ability to destroy artifacts, and was a danger. Memnarch sent his minions, including Geth, to capture and destroy her. At the same time an artifact plague - the Mycosynth - infect Memnarch, and he discovered Darksteel, the indestructible metal. Eventually Bosh, Karn and Glissa teamed up to take down Memnarch, travelling to the heart of Mirrodin along the way, with Memnarch eventually reverting back to the Mirari. Now we have returned to Mirrodin with Scars of Mirrodin.

But before we talk about Scars, another historical note. In parallel to all this is the story of Nicol Bolas, Elder Dragon. Nicol Bolas has a hard, burning desire for revenge against all planeswalkers. Bolas was the oldest and most powerful dragon in Dominaria and his power fed upon the instability of the rifts between the planes – up until the Planeswalkers stabilized the rifts. Ascended to planeswalker status, he travelled from Dominaria to Madara and attempted to dominate the Umezawa clan. Most adept at influencing others to wage war on his behalf, open warfare didn't suit him and he was defeated and imprisoned. He escaped and fled to Grixis on the plane of Alara. There he manipulated events into open war between and against the four planeswalkers Ajani, Elspeth, Tezzeret and Sarkhan Vol. He managed to corrupt Tezzeret and Sarkhan to his side, but the others rallied, Alara was rejoined and Bolas fled again, back to his Meditation Plane to continue his scheming.

The Scars of Mirrodin story opened to the incoming invasion of the Phyrexians into Mirrodin. With its guardians Karn, Bosh, Memnarch and Glissa missing or dead, Mirrodin is weak and ripe for the taking. The Phyrexians are the opposite of the Mirrans. Mirrans are pure artifact creatures, eschewing the flesh. Phyrexians are more like the Borg, fusing metal with flesh to create hybrid horrors. The Phyrexians have a new weapon, Infect. It makes perfect sense, for the Phyrexians to corrupt their artificial Mirran cousins with their own evil. The Phyrexians have created new, abominable allies, the Mirrans themselves. This has cause Mirrodin to turn upon itself. While the scene of the story was set in Scars of Mirrodin, it appears the narrative action only truly gets going in Mirrodin Besieged with the arrival of Glissa, the Traitor and Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas, in Mirrodin Besieged.

Mirrodin Besieged from a Mechanical Perspective

Mirrodin Besieged's job is to portray a World at War, with the set split down the middle between Mirrodin and Phyrexia. There have been some pretty clever branding techniques used to get us involved in the war – each card, for instance, is watermarked with either a Mirran or Phyrexian logo, allowing players to identify their deck with one side or the other if they so choose. This was taken a step further at the prereleases, with special 'faction packs' being issued in the sealed pools with only either Mirran or Phyrexian cards. Players had to identify with one faction or the other, and this choice would dictate not only what cards were available in their pool but also which promo card they get and what prize packs. Wizards have been doing some excellent work in this area of marketing their sets lately, with the last example being the 'Priceless Treasures' in Zendikar packs – peripheral to design, but an enjoyable enhancement that really emphasizes the set themes. Mechanically speaking, this is conveyed with each side having their own trademarked keywords and abilities, as well as an uneven color identity.

The Mirran Forces

The Mirran cards are centred primarily in Red and White, with less in Blue, a few in Green and almost none in Black. Being an artifact plane, the Mirrans have a great affinity (ho ho ho) for artifacts and this is reflected in the metalcraft ability word that carries over from Scars. In addition, there's a new keyword Battle cry, which reflects the last alliance of men and elves (and elephants and vampires) teaming up to fight against the invaders.

Metalcraft

Artifact sets should produce artifact decks, right? Well… not so much, so far. Metalcraft allows you to get highly efficient and/or powerful effects in return for getting artifacts into play – three is the magic number to turn on your metalcraft, so you need to be playing quite a lot of artifacts to get it going in any reasonable timeframe. There are two big problems with metalcraft from a playability point of view.

The first is the potential to get blown out by a Shatter or Into the Roil shrinking your Carapace Forgers and such mid-combat. The same could be said of any anthem effect, except that playing a disenchant against a token deck to remove their four Glorious Anthems is not usually a good strategy, while playing artifact removal against a deck heavy on artifacts is definitely a good idea anyway. There will be a really bad feeling when it happens, and is likely to lead to game losses that are memorable for all the wrong reasons. Indomitable Archangel is a card from Scars that can help avoid these blowout situations, and indestructible artifacts certainly won't hurt.

Mirrodin Besieged has also brought a number of powerful new weapons for those looking to counter a metalcraft based strategy. Creeping Corrosion destroys all artifacts in Green. Steel Sabotage bounces and counters artifacts for Blue. Red gets Crush and Into the Core. White gets Divine Offering, a reprint, and Leonin Relic Warder. Black traditionally has a lot of trouble with artifacts and so gets no new tools here, but every other color has gotten some powerful hosers.

The second problem is that getting three worthwhile artifacts into play has been more trouble than it's worth up to this point. Mox Opal is a very powerful card, but so far constructed players have had to play garbage do-nothings like Ornithopter and Liquimetal Coating to get any use out of it or other metalcraft cards. Mirrodin Besieged looks to help out with this shortfall by providing over forty new artifacts, including some extremely playable ones like Sphere of the Suns. One card of interest is Thopter Assembly, which can give you metalcraft on its own, though it is not what an aggressive deck will want to do with six mana. Master's Call may be the best card for metalcraft aggro from the new set, giving you two artifacts from one card and just three mana.

The obvious comparison for Metalcraft is the much maligned Affinity, one of the most (in)famous mechanics ever, which also encourages you to play a lot of artifacts. While the affinity deck was drastically overpowered – and continues to stake out a small part of the Legacy metagame – the mechanic itself has some charm, for a player who wasn't around during its debut. The most significant advantage affinity has over its descendant is that it starts helping you out immediately – if you have one artifact in play your Frogmite only costs three mana rather than two. If you have two artifacts, you get a two mana discount. With metalcraft, you have to get to three artifacts to get any benefit at all – without those three you are just playing underpowered cards. Amplify is another mechanic worth comparing it to. Like affinity, you can get a small bonus just for having one extra Bird card in your hand, while if you have a hand full of Birds you can get a massive Aven Warhawk for the same price.

The new metalcraft cards are a bit disappointing, unfortunately. There's only six of them and though a couple look like limited all-stars, on the whole they don't inspire a lot of confidence in the Mirrans' endurance. If we are heading towards Phyrexia Reborn in the final set metalcraft will necessarily be an even smaller part of that, and will unfortunately be quickly forgotten by all but those Eternal players who need to know the precise wording of their Mox Opals. It doesn't feel like the Mirrans use artifacts to power up their warriors to take on the Phyrexians – rather it makes one feel like the Mirrans are dependent on their artifacts to put up any sort of resistance, and their enemies will take full advantage and shatter that resistance.

Battle cry

Battle cry is the Mirran's new mechanic, and although the keyword hasn't been seen before the function has been seen in similar form on various other cards – essentially, a card with Battle cry represents a figure in the Mirran army that inspires his or her fellow warriors to fight better. This is represented in game terms by giving your team a minor power boost when the Battle cry creature attacks. Hero of Bladehold is the poster girl for this mechanic, not only boosting your existing forces but also bringing some of her own soldiers immediately into the battle when she attacks.

Battle cry is a very simple mechanic, and it dodges the metalcraft pitfalls in that just having one Battle cry creature in your swarm deck will be perfectly fine, and you'll be happy to have them. They give off the right feel by becoming the focal points of your opponent's concern, as your army's officers and champions should be. It's also better positioned than metalcraft as mostly the seven Battle cry creatures are ones you'd happily play anyway. The Hero of Oxid Ridge and Hero of Bladehold, Goblin Wardriver, Accorder Paladin and Signal Pest all look like they may be constructed playable, and you shouldn't be surprised to see each of them in the "Decks of the Week" at some point. Oddly, these are all the non-common Battle cry creatures. From a design perspective, would Wardriver/Paladin/Pest be too much at common? Could it be a concern for pauper?

In any case Battle cry gets two big ticks. It's on some potentially playable creatures for more than one deck type and it helps portray the Mirran army as using their unity as a weapon against the mindless Phyrexians. The only mark against the mechanic is that it is so vanilla as to be forgettable. Exalted is a good comparison. It gave Bant a similar flavour, an army of united soldiers gaining strength from one another. However where exalted did something quite different, by charging up a single attacker, Battle cry does something seen on dozens of cards already by boosting everyone. It's a fine mechanic, but unfortunately probably won't prove to be a memorable one.

The Phyrexian Invaders

The Phyrexians are the insidious, Black/Green centered invaders of Mirrodin. The Phyrexians as presented in Scars of Mirrodin and Mirrodin Besieged haven't been terribly compelling. Their identity as a zombie plague created by Doctor Frankenstein remains clear, largely in part due to the excellent artwork, but so far we've just seen the drones and the mindless footsoldiers and the effects of the Phyrexian corrupting influence. Cards like Contagious Nim, Phyresis and Contagion Engine are typical of Phyrexian cards so far – an infected zombie guy, a card that makes normal every day monsters into Phyrexian servants, and a machine that grinds down your opponent's army with sickness in the form of -1/-1 counters. The problem with this is that we haven't really seen the leaders of the Phyrexians in card form yet – they have popped up here and there in flavour text, but unless they are realized in the third set, it will be a major loss for the block. The Mirrans are much easier to empathise with than the mindless drones of Phyrexia, even though they're made up of pretty generic fantasy races that we've seen loads of times before. A great Phyrexian card from Mirrodin Besieged, for this reason, is Vedalken Anatomist. He ties into the overarching Phyrexian flavour by putting -1/-1 counters on things, but he also has a science-y twist by tapping and untapping things. The flavour text really puts the icing on the cake.

Infect

Poison has a lot of detractors. It's parallel to your life total in that once you take 10 poison damage you're dead, the same as when you take 20 normal damage. You take poison damage by being attacked by creatures, and from 'pingers' in the form of proliferate cards, same as you do normal damage from creature attacks, pingers and burn spells. The difference is that where there are thousands upon thousands of cards that interact with your life total – life gain, paying life as a cost, etc – there are almost none that interact with your poison total. There is a camp that thinks poison is boring and parasitic, and we'll all be writing JACE 2UU across our infect cards when Scars block leaves standard. Mark Rosewater, loves poison, and it has its followers, but it certainly isn't for everyone. Infect is the "next step" in poison technology, introduced by the Phyrexians in Scars of Mirrodin.

Infect has evolved slightly in Mirrodin Besieged. In Scars of Mirrodin Infect was contained to Black and Green, with Blue supporting it through proliferation. The first and most obvious thing is that the infection has spread into white, as seen on Priests of Norn and Tine Shrike. Secondly, we can see much larger infect creatures than we have previously, like Phyrexian Vatmother, and the much maligned Blightsteel Colossus.

Colossus has suffered a fair amount of criticism. He is basically a Test of Endurance style alternate win condition. Unlike Darksteel Colossus, who you generally had to connect with twice, Blightsteel is an instant-win card, much like Phage the Untouchable but without any down sides. There are those that don't like instant-win deck as they are hard to interact with (think TPS or Scapeshift). Blightsteel Colossus encourages people to create similar decks – cheat out this fat guy, your opponent checks if they have a Pacifism on top of their deck, then shrugs and picks up their cards. Instant win cards can lead to terribly boring formats if the format has the tools to use them. It's yet to be seen whether a Shape Anew or Forgemaster deck can adequately make use of Blightsteel Colossus.

There are a couple of other new uses for infect – check out Virulent Wound, which is kind of like a Searing Blaze for infect decks, and Septic Rats, which gets a bonus based on whether your opponent is poisoned or not. Although they are evidently looking to stretch infect's design space is still just a poor cousin to regular damage and there will be many glad to see the back of it, especially in limited formats.

Proliferate

The perils of the new, small set sizes are that each mechanic can only appear on a certain number of cards. Proliferate appears on just four new ones. Fuel for the Cause is great – even though it's not repeatable, being able to proliferate while doing something else, like countering a spell, is just awesome. Spread the Sickness is a little too expensive to be great, while Plaguemaw Beast needs a lot of work outside limited where one could use the mana to proliferate with Contagion Clasp. Core Prowler is probably part of a combo somewhere, and someone is sure to find it.

Perhaps Development were a bit afraid of proliferate's power level – because it is so open ended, having very good proliferate cards could affect what counter-using cards they can produce in the future and so they may well have hit some of Design's proliferate cards with the nerf-bat.

Living Weapon

The other new mechanic in Mirrodin Besieged is Living Weapon, which appears on equipment cards. Essentially when you play one of these equipments, you also create a 0/0 germ creature token and attach the equipment to it. This is a great mechanic, as it means when you draw an equipment on an empty board it's better than the blank it would normally be. Bonehoard is the best of the five Living Weapons in the set as it gives potentially the biggest bonus for a pretty modest cost.

Living Weapons' costs almost demand discussion. Skinwing is the stand-out here. On the front side you pay 4 colorless mana for a 2/2 flier which is fair, but on the back end the equip cost is an apparently exorbitant 6! For comparison, Bladed Pinions, Neurok Hoversail and Kitesail – all equipments which grant flying – had an equip cost of two. Similarly Flayer Husk costs 2 each way, and compares exactly with Leonin Scimitar which costs only 1 and 1 to equip.

Perhaps a better way to consider these Living Weapons is not as an equipment at all, but as a creature first and foremost – Flayer Husk is a 1/1 for 2, Skinwing a 2/2 flier for 4. Once this creature gets killed or becomes irrelevant, you are left behind a little bonus that will help out in a long attrition battle – when you run out of productive things to do with your mana, you can Skinwing up your best guy and get in through the air. Living Weapon gets better if you consider them as creatures, whose remnant parts can be grafted on to your other creatures after they've been killed – very Phyrexian! Props to @ahalavais on twitter for first talking about Living Weapons in this sense.

Overall, the mechanics in Mirrodin Besieged had built on those that have come before Scars – Infect building on fourth edition and Living Weapon building on the original equipment cards from the first Mirrodin set. The only truly new mechanic is Battlecry, and it's not a terribly exciting mechanic to have. So why does it feel like Mirrodin, thus far, has so little new to offer? It's largely because of the extensive use of mirroring in the set.

Mirrodin Besieged from a Design Perspective

What is a Phyrexian other than a Mirran when seen through a corrupted mirror? This mirroring between the factions is important. Since the creation of Red Elemental Blast and Blue Elemental Blast, mirrors and cycles have played a long, important part of Magic's history. No set, however, has had the same level of mirroring than Mirrodin Besieged. Here's some of the mirroring you'll find:

• Affinity / Metalcraft: Affinity was broken and Wizards knows it. But how to play with the same style of keyword, without reprinting the keyword itself? Metalcraft was based on the keyword Presence. It allowed artifacts to matter without allowing them to get onto the battlefield for free, an important distinction.
• Equipment / Living Weapons: Mirrodin was the first set to introduce equipment. Mirrodin Besieged takes equipment one step further with the idea of Living Weapons. Living Weapons are a riff on germ warfare, which harkens neatly back to the idea of the Mycosynth that infected the original Mirrans. Living Weapons neutralise the downside of the need to Equip weapons onto anything by providing their own 0/0 body , a particularly elegant way of marginally improving the card type without necessarily breaking it.
• Finishing Cycles: Two unfinished cycles are being completed in Scars - the Tower cycle and the Swords cycle. While the Tower cycle is relatively uninteresting, the Sword cycle is pretty thrilling. Again, it appears Wizards learnt their lessons and are pushing the power level of the swords down somewhat.
• Internal Mirroring: One only has to look at the design of Phyrexian Crusader and Mirran Crusader to see it in action. The two halves of Mirrodin - the pure Mirran half and the corrupted Phyrexian half - are embodied in these two cards. Anyone looking at the two side by side can quickly see the elements both factions embody and what their chief colors are. It also demonstrates how, for the moment, blue is sitting by the sidelines, playing both sides of the fence, a typically blue thing to do.
• New Versions of Old Cards: The original Spellbombs made a great appearance in the new Scars Spellbombs, as do the Replicas. The stations have turned into foundries. Some exciting examples are Troll Aesthetic as Thrun, the Last Troll and Tezzeret, The Seeker as Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas. Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas is a particularly interesting mirror design. The original's +2 is gone, and it's -X has moved to the new +1. Its -5 ability has moved to the -1 slot, and a new ultimate has been created. This is extremely neat and elegantly done.
• Infect Versions of Old Cards: This is the area of the greatest concern with the design of Scars, and in particular Mirrodin Besieged. The automatic response it to claim the technique is lazy design - sticking Infect on Darksteel Colossus (Blightsteel Colossus), Giant Spider (Blightwidow) and Viridian Shaman (Viridian Corrupter) does not smack of innovative design. However, in the context of the set, it helps reinforce the storyline of the biological warfare, allowing players to look at a card, half-recognize it, and then realize the effects Infect and the Phyrexians are having on the plane of Mirrodin. This reinforcement of the themes is certainly worth a few pseudo-reprints.

It is hard not to see the hand of Mark Rosewater all over Scars of Mirrodin. In some ways it feels like his six-year plan ended with giant red circle around "An Entire Block Based On Poison". Rosewater was the lead designer for Tempest, Urza's Destiny, Odyssey and the original Mirrodin, each featuring a new round of broken artifacts and cards. More than any other set, Scars of Mirrodin reflects the design scars Rosewater has worn over the years, and it's affected the card quality. Creatures have been buffed and buffed in order for them to adequately compete with the busted spells of yesteryear. The mechanics have been toned down to prevent them from overwhelming the metagame. And poison has become new and improved by mashing in wither - it should be of no surprise that Rosewater was also the lead designer on Shadowmoor and Eventide.

Ultimately what we see is something of a culmination of Mark's career, a mashup of Urza's Destiny, Mirrodin and Shadowmoor into a single set, with heavy influence from Invasion and Tempest. However, we seen far less innovation than in previous sets, with only two unique mechanics – proliferate and battlecry – thus far. Some have claimed this is due to lazy or sloppy design. But the fact it's so clearly intentional and we thought out within the set discredits the claim of lazy design. You might not like the effect, but you cannot deny the intention has been successful.

The death of Mirrodin – for that seems to be where it's headed – has built on the flavour lessons that Wizards honed on Lorwyn and Zendikar. Shards was a bit of a miss, largely due to its own sophomore set, Conflux, and the lackluster Alara Reborn, which took a one-trick pony (an all-gold set) and drove it to death. The problem with Shards of Alara that the identities firmly established at the beginning – Bant, Grixis, Jund, Esper and Naya – were lost by the end. However, Lorywn with its tribal themes and Zendikar, with its fantastic art and storyline, were the hits that formed the basis of the world building (or world destruction) in Scars of Mirrodin and Mirrodin Besieged.

Mirrodin Besieged is gorgeous. Igor Kieryluk's artwork on Skinwing (check out the slight movement blur on the wings) and Daarken's artwork on Praetor's Council are fantastic. One notable piece of artwork is the Spine of Ish Sah. Look carefully and you'll notice its resemblance to the Great Wall of China, also known as the Spine of a Dragon. From common to Mythic, the artwork is almost universally thrilling (Treasure Mage is the notable miss). The theme of mirroring is reinforced in the art; take a look at Viridian Shaman vs Viridian Corruptor, Blightsteel Colossus vs Darksteel Colossus, Hellkite Ingiter vs Pistus Strike, Mirran Crusader vs Phyrexian Crusader and Peace Strider vs Pearce Strider.

Likewise, the flavour text is a step up from the usual dross. Most is dominated by the opinion of the Phyrexians – at the memorable stuff is. Enjoy the sadism of the commentary on Nested Ghoul, Phyrexian Digester and Psychosis Crawler. Even the Mirrans show life liveliness, in particular Spiraling Duelist.

The overall effect speaks volumes about the intentionality of the mirroring and detracts from the accusation of lazy design. It will have its critics – it certainly failed for George Lucas in the Star Wars prequels – but it has been executed flawlessly.

The final question is what might we expect in the future?

Mirrodin Pure or New Phyrexia?

The discombobulation of old mechanics and corruption of cards remembered demonstrate that Mirrodin is truly in turmoil. The appearance of the old hero of Mirrodin, Glissa, on the side of Phyrexia is startling. Her trip Into the Core has coincided with the infection of the core itself by the Phyrexian oil – a faint reminder of the old black goo from the X-Files. Certainly the taint she brings with her has hit her fellow elves first, with the Elfs the hardest hit of creatures reprinted from Mirrodin with an Infection. Perhaps her sorrow for her clans' destruction caused her to make a grander bargain than anyone else expected.

The introduction of Tezzeret as an Agent of Bolas on Mirrodin is very interesting. Tezzeret became a thrall of Bolas on Alara, but rebelled, eventually taking over Esper on Alara and crippling Bolas. However this turned out to be incorrect, and Bolas, actually unharmed and in full power, and still Tezzeret's boss, instructed Tezzeret to go to Mirrodin, no reasons given. There is a lot of synergy between Bolas, Grixis and Phyrexia, so it is yet to be determined whether Bolas is a driving force behind the invasion, or is merely working the angles.

The appearance of the G/B sword in Mirrodin Besieged is actually a bad sign for the Mirrans. Clearly forged to help Fend Off the invasion, it indicates the next sword, Red and White, will surely be the nail in the coffin or the Mirran forces. Certainly, the format of the sets so far indicates a Phyrexian win. The first set was 80/20 Mirrans way. This set is 50/50. If the theme of reflections continues, then surely the next set will be 20/80 for the Phyrexian army. This sets up the Mirrans to either be crushed, or find a way to establish Legacy Weapon #2 and find a noble sacrificee to beat back the attackers, depending on how far Wizards will take history repeating itself.

Certainly Karn is unlikely to be the hero of the story. The Mirrodin Besieged cards show him slowly corrupted by voices from afar. Perhaps it's Sheoldred, Whispering One, referenced on Scars cards. The flavour text states "Karn's creation is now his master." which could mean Memnarch achieved Planeswalker status somehow, found the Phyrexians, and led them back to Mirrodin. What this bodes for the Core of Mirrodin or the Mirari is unclear. It's interesting to note that Odyssey, another Rosewater – led block revolved around the Mirari, which is presumed lost somewhere in the core. Maybe the Phyrexians are after it; maybe Bolas is. Either way one shouldn't be surprised if it manages to make an appearance in some form or other. The art of Distant Memories shows Karn remembering Venser and Urza as he clutches his head in madness. It seems unlikely that Karn will become Mirrodin's savior once again.

At this point the two big points of resistance are Karn and Venser, but Blue and White are succumb to Phyrexia in Mirrodin Besieged, with Red the major holdout. Overall the chances for the Mirran resistance look slim. Depending on how you felt about Mirrodin the first time round, this might be exactly what the little robots needed.