A thing I’d started on reddit, let’s see if it works better on this platform. Will set up a new page to collate these, I think doing a blogpost per deck is reasonable? And yeah: Mirage’s decks were weird as they were released onto MTGO approx 10 years after that set originally was printed. Why am I starting with them? Why not, essentially. I find them fascinating, and have you seen the art from Mirage block?
Burning Skies
A blue and red theme deck with a tempo plan of playing aggressive evasive creatures and backing that with blue trickery and red burn.
Wizards product information page (archived)
The “Burning Sky” deck was constructed by the readers of MagicTheGathering.com through a series of online polls. The result of the “You Make the Mirage Theme Deck” campaign is a deck filled with deception, aggression, power, and guile. The forces of an angry earth are at your command. The “Burning Sky” deck’s wide range of Efreets, Djinns, and Elementals let you scorch clear the battlefield or simply fly above any defenders.
Decklist and card images via the mtg.wtf archive.
Reviews
Beats and Skies
Beats and Skies does a bracket. Pool 1, Week 1. Round 1: decks 1 to 8.
Rather than a mechanical theme it was constructed around the idea of representing the elements of fire and air. With a solid amount of blue fliers the air part is definitely well covered. It’s the fire which is the issue. The red creatures are thematically good: for instance Pyric Salamander and Flame Elemental. The later can even sacrifice itself to shoot another creature which is certainly flavourful. But Burning Sky really needed more than one Incinerate and Kaervek’s Torch for it to function better as an actual deck.
Yes, I am now linking myself. That internal battle between modesty and that nagging feeling that my list of reviews isn’t complete unless I do so.
Cubic Creativity
Budget Deckbuilding: Burning Sky
If you keep in mind that the community was set the usual restrictions that come with a Preconstructed Deck like only using two Rares, they did a fine job.
Ertai’s Lament
Mirage: Burning Sky Review (Part 1 of 2)
As you might expect from a deck that harvests the elemental might of air and fire, Burning Sky has a solid element of both flying creatures and burn/direct damage. Intriguingly, there’s not a lot of the latter amongst the noncreature support- as well see, much of the damage the deck is directing will come through the very creatures themselves, above and beyond the numbers in the lower right corner of the card.
Mirage: Burning Sky Review (Part 2 of 2)
Hits: Solid mana curve allows for steady creature deployment; weak burn slightly offset by recourse to countermagic; feels a bit more polished than the other Mirage decks; Mystical Tutor! (hey, she was in From the Vault: Exiled)
Misses: Inferior removal package, especially for Red
OVERALL SCORE: 4.15/5.00
Good bit of history in the first part: including a summary of the Mothership articles (sadly not archived) that lead to this deck, and the designer Frank Gilson (including another dead link, fortunately archived) who facilitated it.
Other
Daily MTG
“You Make The Mirage Theme Deck”: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4 and Part 5.
You, the readers of magicthegathering.com, will get to vote five times to help determine what goes into the last Mirage theme deck. The first vote is at the end of this article.
Flaming Row
Mirage – A Portrayal Of Figures (From the album “Burning Sky”)
Some sort of power metal crossed with prog? Those Germans!
Due to the online nature of these decks there’s not going to be that much about the available I suspect. Is going to be mainly just these two blogs for the next 11 of these! If anyone knows of any more then definitely let me know, very interested to read/see it: especially if it’s from a new source! 🙂
Edited 29/6/23: added RKF section
Edited 20/11/23: to bring formatting up to date, removing the RKF section (using the images as section breaks instead as I’m doing with my current posts), and adding my own “review”.
Beats and Skies 
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