Welcome to the second Daily Dose of Conspiracy: Take the Crown where today I’ll be looking at some more of the upcoming mechanics from the new set. At first glance, it appears that they are making the new Conspiracy deck favour those players who are aggressive in their attacking and not the players that will hold back and be defensive. Yesterday, we saw about The Monarch, which will allow you to draw extra cards and awards more attacks (although be it in your direction), and today I’ll be talking about a new mechanic that gives you a major advantage for attacking multiple players at once. Before that though I want to talk about a twist on an old mechanic where voting is the key to success. Council’s dilemma once again makes all players vote for the outcome of a card. Let’s take a look at Capital Punishment.
The sheer power of this card in a multiplayer game is amazing. Just picture in a four player multiplayer game, the ability to make each opponent sacrifice or discard a combination of four cards. That is what they call a twelve for one card advantage. That is absolutely game changing. Even as the number of players get lower, this card will still produce at minimum a two for one card advantage, which can be the difference in getting you the victory.
Not only do they have that new mechanic, but cards that affect how any votes occur. Let’s take a look at Illusion of Choice.
First off, you get a blue cantrip for one mana, which is always a positive right off the bat. Now being able to take over everyone’s votes whenever you or your opponent plays a Council’s Dilemma card could be game changing. Imagine you have zero cards in hand and four creatures on the battlefield and your opponent plays Capital Punishment. Instead of losing all of your creatures, you can force the vote so that players discard four cards, making it ineffective against you, but causing two other opponents to lose four card each. Cards like this add more twists to each card played during a Conspiracy draft.
The next new mechanic I’m going to be looking at favours the player who will attack all players at once. Check out the new mechanic Melee on the card Adriana, Captain of the Guard.
Thanks to Adriana, Captain of the Guard, all of your creatures will get major advantages once you go for an all-out swing on all of your opponents. If you are attacking all three of your opponents with a creature, that means they will all get +3/+3 until end of turn. This will make it very difficult for your opponents to defend and will help you get in some heavy damage quickly. Melee fits quite well into the Red White colour wheel as a mechanic, and in a creature heavy deck, I can see this mechanic being used quite effectively.
It’s now time to look at the reprint of the day. Welcome back, Phyrexian Arena!
This has been a favourite card of many players over the years as a way to gain major card advantage over your opponent. This will be a welcome reprint and will allow players to acquire this card a little easier in the coming months. If you see this card, I would recommend drafting it, the card advantage more often than not outweighs the loss of life.
Thanks again for reading more of the Daily Dose of Conspiracy: Take the Crown and I hope that it’s getting you excited about jumping in some drafts at the end of the month. Tomorrow I’m going to be taking a look at the namesake of the set: Conspiracies. See you then!
