With the addition of Kamigawa: Neon Dynasty, I feel there was a much needed influx of great cards and a return to even greater mechanics. I, personally, haven’t been this excited about a set in a while. But, although I’ve took a tour of the many strong deck builds, I’ve found myself enamored with one card in particular: Mirror Box.
Mirror Box, for those who haven’t had to pleasure of janking with it, is a colorless artifact three drop that brings a trifecta of unbelievable excitement and possibilities to Standard. Each level of card text brings with it a whole new world of infinite jank. So, of course, I’ve gotten lost in Mirror Box build and, since it can go with any color, there may be no end to it!
LEGENDARY, FROM THE START!
Right out of the block, the first sentence of Mirror Box is a gamechanger!
“The Legendary rule does not apply to permanents you own”
This is all this card needs to flip the paradigm on its head! Giving us the chance to play all four of a particular legendary absolutely breaks all we’ve been taught and conditioned in terms of standard gameplay. They’re legendary for a reason. Most of those cards are too dangerous to be allowed to run in packs. But that is exactly what Mirror Box allows.
This is the ability that gives Mirror Box an infinite amount of possibilities. There is just so much you can do with it. And you have every color of the MTG color wheel at your disposal. Beyond removal of artifacts, there is just no limit to what you can do here. The hardest part of building Mirror Box is deciding what color(s) and what legendaries to build.
The possibilities are too endless to list all of them here. And we welcome your input of what you’ve done with Mirror Box. But there are some prime movers and shakers in standard that will benefit from the freeing ability of the BOX.
In white, the first to come to mind are Halvar, God of Battle which will give you the ability to move more than one equipment or aura right before combat. If you go wide enough, your opponent will have a hard time knowing what’s coming! It’s also good to have four Sigrid, God Favored handy for plenty of that Flash removal.
speaking of FLASH, Kyodai, Soul of Kamigawa, can bring indestructible to more than one creature when played multiple times. And imagine having more than one Shadrix Silverquill out dropping all that value and attacking with double strike more than once a turn! Orah, Skyclave Hierophant, out in multiples will be bringing so many clerics back from the graveyard. A small army of Bruenor Battlehammers will further ramp those equipped creatures. Drizzt Do’Urden makes for quick width since every one makes that legendary cat to fight or block along side it. And this is just the ones in white!
There a lot of great cards in black that you can amplify multiply with Mirror Box. Ebondeath, Dracolitch can just keep coming with flash and the ability to be cast from the graveyard. Taborax can be an army of ramp with either a sacrifice engine or just a lot of weenie fodder. Taborax may come in handy in ramping one of his other selves also. Tatsunari can only make one of his frog buddies no matter how many you get on the field, but they can ALL be made unblockable with this ninja’s ability. Killian, Ink Duelist is becoming a favorite of mine with menace and lifelink, but imagine with several of him on the field taking down the cost of a Grisly Ritual, Smite the Monstrous, True Polymorph, Synchronized Spellcraft or, even, Introduction to Annihilation for free!? And need I go into the possibilities of not one, but four Meathook Massacres out?
I’ve already spun Magda, Brazen Outlaw into an army of ramped, treasure-making Berserkers! And it might be a little cost prohibitive for Inferno of the Star Mounts to go wide. But, if you don’t think attacking with four Delina, Wild Mage, wouldn’t be a thing to behold, I really can’t help you!
Green, as usual, gets the nicest toys and, especially in Legendary. My favorite legendary to create armies for is Toski, Bearer of Secrets. The only creature in standard with indestructible, mighty Toski runs interference for all of your other ‘Big Stompys’ to set up for the final kill. And the possible card draw isn’t bad. Esika and Esika’s Chariot are another favorite. Esika’s a great blocker, mana maker and it takes only one to make all of your creatures instant mana. The Chariot has been a favorite of people since it was introduced. But more than one out and you’ve got tokens for days making multiples. Multiple Vorinclex’s out and the counter ramp will be phenomenal (although there’s the cost). Four Blex‘s out and your spiders, snakes, pests, bats and insects all have a +4/+4. In finally, but totally not least, is the master of the poison counters, Fynn, the Fangbearer. Load up a deathtouch deck and watch your opponent fall hard and fast!
Obviously, not every legendary will work with Mirror Box. Those that do a specific thing once (like Jadar) or bring back certain things back from the graveyard (like Gisa, Glorious Resurrector) once a turn, won’t be that helpful a second time. You will benefit from the additional attack and block fodder or if it ramps to something, but some of the cool triggers and abilities just don’t translate in duplicate.
Also, don’t forget that no legendary rule means planeswalkers too. Having the ability to drop more than one of your favorite planeswalker means more value in your deck and less dead weight in your hand.
And speaking of no dead weight, don’t worry about having too many of those legendary lands from Kamigawa in your hand. With Mirror Box, you can play all four!
Let us know in the comments below or on our Facebook page (themagictavernlgs) about the janky builds you’ve made with Mirror Box. We do not build decks in a vacuum and we can help each other have more fun in paper or on Arena. You will also see several of my builds with Mirror Box on our Video’s page.
AoE Table Top 