My affection for Artifacts in Mythgard, is, I think, at this point, very well established. While I am inordinately fond of Disk of Circadia[1] and love a good, old-fashioned Valkyrie beatdown as much as, probably more than anyone else, it is hard not to fall in love with Control in most games. There is a fascinating anthropological project to be had in studying how players who want to play competitively fall in love with controlling strategies[2] and I was no exception.
So You Like Control?
When I was a big fish in a little pond at Friday Night Magic events, like so many superscrubs, even when there was a dominant deck that was fast and aggressive, my comfort zone was to play decks that gave me the greatest number of flexible options, strategies, and outs. This was a vital tool to beat up on lesser players[3] but also it occurs to me long after the fact that it was simply fun. Building up larger and more elaborate systems of lasting value was fun. Just as an amateur Civilization player needs to learn to actually try to win the game against an AI or human opponent,[4] CCG players clearly like to build weird and fabulous decks that will lose horribly to unscrupulous opponents actually playing to win[5] with well tuned aggro decks. Artifacts in Mythgard provide a durable and lasting engine for removing opposing Minions, generating excess Mana, and best of all, drawing cards! Just as Enchantments in Magic survived your Wrath of God, you can Armageddon Angel and Misanthropia away as many boards full of Valkyries as you like, and not put a scratch on your Datacores or Ollama Rings! Fires of Creation is similarly a path that requires careful planning[6] rewarding the savvy control player with virtual card advantage as well as Minions in the form of Forgelings which can free up more deckbuilding space for Artifacts. Pushing more Artifacts, though, can also present problems, as I have outlined previously, wherein you need to maintain a balance of Spells and focused defensive Minions to round out a deck and insure that your beautiful Datacores don’t get blown to bits by Trapezists, Ifreets, Toughs, and other ruffians. If only there was a way to make more Artifacts with just one card. What would that world look like?
The Spoiler: Annulus Fabricator
Look no further! The answer to many builders is right here with Annulus Fabricator! Have you ever wondered why Draupnir Band has Stacking? Now you know! Have you ever wanted to see how many Ollama Rings and Singing Stones you can pile up on your board of tokens and chumps?[7] Now you can! Have you ever wanted to see what the biggest Forgeling you can put into play is? Well you get the point.
This Fabricator takes some time to get rolling, and will need some protection, but the ability to churn out a copy of any of your Artifacts in play the very next turn allows for some truly marvelous possibilities, and surely many more than I have already conceived of! Beefier Minions or doubling lifegain from Band is merely the tip of the iceberg. Conjuring up another Imperative Bell to draw and ramp, while making an artifact that won’t take up a slot forever can be a vital play, just as a second Barbed Bolts appearing out of thin air can strike down a pesky minion! Stacking is obviously well worth watching, but more disposable artifacts can have extra life as you may have opportunities to see them cloned again and again!
The bonus for Forging and redrawing your Mythic needs to be considerable, unless you get some help finding it,[8] and this Ring, for my money does not disappoint
With all of your excess Artifacts, you also get to transform the Minion of your choice into a hulking Elder with each new Singing Stone, Datacore, or Autocam! The rewards for stacking up your artifacts, some of which will already be enhancing the board, is a critical investment in a bulky Minion on board, which in Yellow will almost certainly be a towering defender. This can make one of your Twins, Blanque or Junah, into a brutal Overrunning, Regenerating titan, but even humble Yahui will become the Ninja Turtle it was always meant to be! This mythic Artifact can provide a critically flexible foundation for your suite of value-generating Artifacts as you build up an insurmountable fortress around yourself, daring Aggro players, or even midrange and controlling opponent, to topple your beautiful Yellow Citadel.[9]
The low Gem cost similarly encourages the wide array of possible Artifact packages, reproducing only Artifacts with a Gem cost that you have already paid, and I am confident that while I have seen a great deal that can be done with this, we have not even come close to determining what the ultimate possibilities look like, and of all the cards I am excited to see the entire playerbase work with, this is maybe one of the most exciting! We have many other devoted Fires of Creation deckbuilders, and there is no question that Rune, Oneiric, Tunestar, and maybe even our old friend NKL will have plenty to show us all with this dynamic card and it’s very open possibilities!
Be Prepared
As we get nearer and nearer to launch, I can only say, somewhat ominously, that there are more surprises to unveil. I will be back tomorrow with the culmination of a few different things, my colleague Merlin’s approach to new 2v2,[10] my own tinkering with Artifacts, and a brand new, fully formed decklist that utilizes these tricks and more!
Kryptik Gaming is looking to roll out many things and we are very excited to have everyone join us as this builds to a fever pitch around our new and exciting Pantheon Games. Join us as we make the final push to reveal the secrets of Immortality, seizing the Rings with our dutiful players and rocketing toward that final ascent to everlasting glory!
Footnotes
[1] And the obvious partner in crime is my literal favorite card in game!
[2] Defining what this actually means in toto will be a task for another day. [3] “Not today Timmy! Removal! Board Wipe! Ahahahahahaha”
[4] I fear it may be lost to the sands of internet time, but there was an incredible developers’ blog about Civilization IV and the toggle for “Aggressive AI” which is in part preserved here and explains what people actually like in gameplay, as opposed to ideal strategies.
[5] Cf. All of the Commander format, which in turn literally saved Magic, another story once again
[6] For more see: https://kryptikgaming.wixsite.com/mythgard/post/fires-of-creation-the-power-within
[7] AceMartinez’s original ringstones, referenced in the previous article would definitely like to find out! [8] Which is what Forgelings can do and, after all, Yellow is very good at drawing cards!
[9] My editor really loves Yellow so it seems well worth mentioning! *Editor's Note* Minesweeper > Yellow [10] https://kryptikgaming.wixsite.com/mythgard/post/a-whole-new-world-hidden-gems-for-the-center-lane-in-new-rules-2v2