The Magic Mirror – MTG Review

David
Fanany
Player
since
1995

Mirror, mirror, on the wall, who’s the fairest of them all? I don’t know if The Magic Mirror answers that question, but it comes with some pretty tempting mechanical text. Blue decks do always love instants and sorceries, and you can get The Magic Mirror’s cost down to three surprisingly early in the right deck. Once you do, its impact will eventually put you far ahead, but it can be a little slow to build up a decisive advantage. Competitive spellslinger decks will likely prefer something more aggressive. You could certainly build around it with Maro-style cards, and getting it down early enough could provide an edge in some matchups against control.

Constructed: 3/5
Casual: 4/5
Limited: 2/5
Multiplayer: 3/5
EDH/Commander: 3/5

The Magic Mirror reminds me a lot of an old enchantment called Mind Unbound. Their effects are remarkably similar, actually; each turn, you draw more and more cards during your upkeep. The Magic Mirror is nominally more expensive, but it also has a “no max hand size” effect and carries a potential discount with it; three mana for a flood of cards is quite a nice deal, and the cost reduction kicks in by doing something blue decks (and blue-adjacent decks) like doing a fair bit.

Of course, this is a card that’s nowhere near as good as the best-case scenario; it’s an expensive artifact that needs a turn before really impacting the board, it really doesn’t impact the board much at all, and it has a color-heavy mana cost. It’s definitely a card that can do a lot in a long game, as getting more cards can help you to break a board stall, but I feel like it’s a spell that’s not going to do much outside of really casual decks; the effect is slow, and getting it set up takes a lot of resources.

Constructed: 2
Casual: 3.5
Limited: 2.5
Multiplayer: 3
Commander: 3.25

Phat
Pack
Magic
YouTube

Hello Everyone and welcome back to Pojo’s Card of the Day, this week we’re looking at cards that haven’t been lauded for their immediate standard impact, but to be fair anything that wasn’t Oko was for the most part ignored in Standard. 

Today we’re looking at one of the more flavorful cards in Throne of Eldraine, which doesn’t narrow it down much because almost everything in this set is chock full of flavor! 

Magic Mirror on the Wall is probably the Johnniest Card they tossed in to this set and I’ve been seeing a bunch of local FNM Brewers messing around with it trying to make it work. In the previous Standard where Izzet Phoenix was running around this card might  fit in the sideboard or even get it’s own spot in a Thousand Year Storm deck.

At the FNM Tables where casual decks can kind of get t here, this card has a shot if you’re in a low-tier FNM.

But where it shines is Commander and Multiplayer where you can get the full value of this spells based artifact. Drawing an extra card in a cumulative manner in these formats is essential and if they don’t deal with it immediately, you’ll be dealing with them!

Constructed 1/5 – Not good enough for the benefits in a constructed format like Pioneer or Standard.

Limited 2/5 – If you’re uncommitted or already in the UR spells deck it’s good, otherwise pass and try to hook someone else in it.

Multiplayer/Commander 5/5 – It requires a deck that is already in that gameplan, but it’ll shine as one of the top cards you drop.

Cube 1/5 – There’s too many cards that offer a similar benefit at a cheaper cost.

Phat Pack Magic is a channel dedicated to Magic: the Gathering and creating awesome coverage of local events for formats like Cube, rare pack drafts, and now FNM Pioneer videos!

Check it out at YouTube.com/PhatPackMagic