Cast this turn three. Spend turns four, five,
and six putting charge counters on it, and
casting nothing that costs more than two or
three mana. Finally, on turn seven, your reward
is a vanilla 9/9 artifact creature. Meanwhile,
your opponent has been playing spells that costs
four, five, six, or even seven mana, and has
probably got you on the ropes by now. This just
costs far too much mana, and time, to be of any
practical use. Unless your deck is full of ways
to put charge counters on artifact, or lots of
mana ramp and Voltaic Keys, the ends just aren't
worth what you paid to get there.
Our last stop in this week's look at Mirrodin's
weapons of war is a card that epitomizes
overkill to some. Fortunately, I don't know the
meaning of that word, and I can't think of a
single problem I couldn't solve with large
numbers of golems. At this point in time,
manipulating charge counters is almost as easy
to do as killing creatures, and I wouldn't be
surprised at all if somebody figures out a way
to not have to wait four turns for their first
golem. It's also something for slow decks to do
with their extra mana every turn, and get one
heck of a payoff out of it later on. This card
begs to be built around, and it's hard to say
no.
Today's card of the day is Titan Forge which at
three mana can create
9/9 artifact creatures, but the four turns it
would take to do so without support puts it into
a specialized deck instead of being used
separately. With Proliferate this can be
done far more efficiently and makes it a viable
threat, so it may see some play in those decks.
Otherwise it is far too slow and shouldn't be
used unless the token can be reliably played in
one or two turns instead of the four it would
take normally. It may be argued that this
deserves a high rating because it can produce a
relatively early 9/9 without support, but it
does tie up mana that could be used to more
effect playing other cards which gives your
opponent the advantage. A weakness far too
easily exploited in Constructed formats.
For Limited the slower format does allow this
time to be used and a 9/9 is a big threat, but
it is slow and telegraphed which limits it
somewhat. If any form of Proliferate is
available that does help dramatically and this
can be a good first pick in Booster and does
make use of excess mana throughout the game.
In Sealed this can be included in most builds
without much difficulty as an alternative play
whenever mana is available or a primary win
condition. As one of your rares it becomes
a bit more important to work with it if possible
and being an artifact that can be played
alongside any color combination makes that easy.
Good morning all and welcome
to pojo.com’s Mirran week finale! The last card
of our Mirran week is the great Titan Forge from
Mirrodin Besieged. This card is a lot of fun
right down to its numerical coding. Three mana
for this artifact gets it on the table. Then,
three mana and tapping it puts a charge counter
on it. Tap it and remove three charge counters
to put a 9/9 artifact Golem token on the field.
See what they did there? Three times three
equals nine, a nice little easter egg from the
folks at Wizards.
This card is so easily abused it is ridiculous. And yet, I
see people trading it away and not using it like
it is some piece of scrap. In standard, you
easily could drop a 9/9 every turn. How you ask?
Simple and it is all done with common and
uncommon cards. That’s right budget deck guys,
the only rare necessary would be the Titan
Forge, and you could drop a token every turn.
The how is really quite simple. Using Vedalken
Infusers, which put a charge counter on target
artifact at the beginning of your upkeep, if you
have three Infusers out, that is one token every
turn. But maybe you don’t have three Vedalken
Infusers out. Then just proliferate, and blue
knows how. Steady Progress from Scars of
Mirrodin is one of the best, Proliferate and
then Draw a card. Not to mention Thrumming Bird,
and Contagion Clasp or Contagion Engine and of
course Fuel for the Cause which counters a spell
and then proliferates. But it is not only about
getting the token every turn. If you have one
out, standard blue has a very nifty creature,
and again often overlooked at my store, that
simply becomes the 9/9, that card is Cryptoplasm.
Crytoplasm copies the token at the start of your
turn.
Vintage formats could completely go nuts over this card. And
yet again it is all about one card in
particular, Doubling Season. How crazy is it
that now every time you add one charge counter,
you get two, and then every time you put one
token into play, you get two. Enough said. Once
that starts happening your opponent better pray
they can stop you fast, because that is a bad
day waiting to happen. And since it would then
involve green, you can count on Overruns or
Overwhelming Stampedes to finish off your
opponent in a hurry.
This card is great in any format. The ability to
cheaply get out big creatures, and with how
easily exploitable it is, I can see this card
popping up in several styles of decks. So how do
you use your Forge?
