Feedback, thoughts, questions, discussion, etc., as promised! (
Mirrorweave referred to as "MW" for short throughout)
I think overall the list is fun, which is what a deck built around MW should be, of course, but it could definitely use some tightening up imo.
First and foremost, a deck built around a single instant will benefit from as many ways to get it into hand or back from the graveyard as possible.
Sunforger,
Mnemonic Wall, and
Mystic Retrieval are a start, but I think you should consider more of the following:
@pokken familiarized me with a sweet bit of tech in
Archaeomancer +
Ephemerate: Cast arch, returning MW to hand, cast MW to do something zany. On the next player's turn, cast ephemerate targeting arch. Ephermerate exiles per rebound's rules text, and when arch etbs you grab MW again. At the beginning of your upkeep ephemerate rebounds, flickering arch, but this time it goes to the graveyard after resolving so you can get it back with the arch etb trigger. Obviously works with any instant/sorcery, not just MW.
While I'm discussing redundancy, I think you should build with games that you won't see MW or a tutor until late in mind. MW is a pretty dang unique effect, but you could still get some similar, albeit much less explosive mileage out of stuff like
Role Reversal,
Cultural Exchange,
Quasiduplicate,
Twinflame,
Cackling Counterpart,
Helm of the Host,
Rite of Replication,
Clone Legion, etc.
If you're interested in sticking a combo or two in the deck,
Dualcaster Mage wins on the spot with
Twinflame, or
Quasiduplicate/
Rite of Replication/
Cackling Counterpart + a haste enabler.
Helm of the Host +
Kykar isn't a combo, per se, but it gets out of hand if it isn't answered immediately since each non-creature spell you cast gives you
in return as soon as you have a second
Kykar, who you can look at as a sort of
Cloud Key for all spell types all by itself anyway.
One last note regarding combos: I include only two in my
Kykar list, and one or both may be worth consideration here as alternate win conditions. The first is
Kykar +
Underworld Breach +
Burning Inquiry, but it really wants more support from stuff like
Sevinne's Reclamation and
Brain Freeze, so I'm not sure it's what you want for this list. The second, however, would be great here since all the cards would be sweet individually in a MW focused build: and it is
Bonus Round →
Turnabout →
Narset's Reversal. Turnabout, looped or not, goes great with the manlands that you'll want to run in a MW build anyhow, and if you manage to weave a creature that taps to do something cool like
Crystalline Crawler,
Goblin Welder, or
Mercurial Chemister, AND you loop
Turnabout with the combo, you get to win in some hilarious fashion.
I also like the idea of having some efficient, passive token generation besides
Kykar to go as wide as possible before you weave something. I'd consider running some combination of
Saheeli, Sublime Artificer,
Efficient Construction,
Sai, Master Thopterist, and
Metallurgic Summonings. The fact that they all make artifact creature tokens is a nice bit of synergy with
Vandalblast, which becomes a one sided board wipe after weaving a 1/1 servo or whatever.
Dandan - I wish it had evasion. It's too bad so many pods include multiple blue players, so oftentimes weaving this won't be a totally one sided board wipe, but even if they have an island you can attack with a bunch of 4 power dudes and either hit em hard or trade off spirits for bigger stuff.
Drooling Ogre - Combine it with MW, an artifact, and a haste enabler (creatures that you have "gain control" of are summoning sick iirc), and you have a strictly better
Insurrection. Even without a haste enabler it's good, but less likely to be game ending. Hilarious and stupid (in a good way
![Cool :cool:](./images/smilies/23-cool-fb.png)
), as intended.
Hunted Phantasm - any critter with reasonable power and unblockable/fear/cannot block is going to go great with
Kykar + Mirrorweave. Honestly, I think you should look to add more creatures that meet those specifications.
Dust Elemental - The flash, fear, and 6 power are all amazing with
Kykar/MW, but the last clause is a bummer. Still, this is offset by the fact that (I think) you can sac the spirits you target to bounce in response before they are returned to your hand and use 2 of that mana for
Mirrorweave. Even better, bounce back
Archaeomancer/
Izzet Chronarch/
Salvager of Secrets/
Mnemonic Wall so you can buy back MW.
Anointed Procession - Belongs in most
Kykar builds IMO.
Hero of Bladehold - Powerful if you attack first, get the battle cry and token triggers (which will carry over after MW), then weave something bigger and nastier, OR if you weave before attacking and stack up massive amounts of both triggers. It's too bad that battle cry isn't +1/+1, because that would be nutso.
Balefire Liege - Awww yeah, that's the stuff. If you have this + 5 creatures on board, weave it, then cast a red spell, you get to distribute 18 damage in chunks of 3 to your opponents. If you happen to have a board of 8-9 creatures before doing so, this is just going to insta-kill someone. Then the combat step is going to be huge. If you're behind, the lifegain is a big deal too. I have a feeling this one has won a lot of games.
Admonition Angel - Permanently exiling a bunch of your opponents' creatures seems good. The only thing not to love here is the fact that it costs 10 mana and a landfall trigger to pull off, so realistically this will be spread across multiple turns or won't happen until turn 7-8 at the earliest.
Spirit Mirror - Trollolololololololololol
Chimeric Mass - :laugh: :laugh: :laugh: :laugh:
Soulblast -
Fling for your whole board, which presumably has been weaved into something huge and attacked opponent A already, now kills opponent B. A delicious haymaker that makes for good, clean, casual fun.
Time Elemental - It took me a second to get it. You weave it after blocks are declared and someone loses a bunch of blockers. It would be amazing if MW could capture the attack/block trigger, but unless I'm mistaken it would only do so if attacks/blocks are declared AFTER the weave into elemental.
Vandalblast - Destroys friendships with
Mycosynth Lattice, but just good old fashioned fun with MW +
Ensouled Scimitar. I don't think the current list has enough artifact creatures to justify it though. That changes if you run some artifact token makers.
Ensouled Scimitar - Good for the same reasons the manlands are good, but really only good defensively with such low power. I think spirits and other tokens give you enough opportunity for defensive weaving without needing to take up a card slot. I see the combo with
Vulshok Battlemaster and/or
Bludgeon Brawl, but that's a lot of stuff that isn't good in a vacuum that has to come together in order to work.
Charmbreaker Devils - There's more reliable options for buying back MW, and even though you may have a LOT of power to swing with after weaving this fella and then casting some instants/sorceries, the lack of evasion makes it less awesome.
Reiterate/
Wild Ricochet/
Radiate - I might be missing something here, but I don't see any reason to stack copies of MW except when targeting creatures with activated abilities that you'd like to use before the next MW copy resolves. I'd rather run
Narset's Reversal which gives me a second MW use later, and
Bonus Round which is part of a combo and is just great all around.
Allay,
Shattering Pulse,
Dismantling Blow,
Mind's Eye,
Kor Cartographer - Jeskai gives you access to many better options for these effects. Unless I'm missing some synergy here with buyback/kicker??? Cartographer isn't really being abused here unless I'm missing something, and MW doesn't give more of the etb trigger, so I don't see why it's worth a slot.
Tears of Rage - Good with evasive stuff like
Dust Elemental I suppose, but kind of "win more". I'd rather find ways to increase creature count.
I'm sure I've missed some stuff in your list that just went over my head. I hope if nothing else I gave you some food for thought!
A few last suggestions for MW targets that may not be good enough, but you could consider: