I feel like I’ve been a bit slack here recently, though in reality it’s probably fine. I purposely don’t really set a schedule, it’s an inspiration stikes and/or therapeutic type thing for me. Long story short: the usual work and family stuff, but my Magic time has been going to trying to better organise my collection, or organising Premodern events both in person and webcam.
This post is going to cover something a bit newer than the premodern era though. But hey: all precons are great and the newer ones are no less valid than my precious, precious, early theme decks. 2011 to 2015 was a pretty good time too in the Preconstructed scene. Scars of Mirrodin gave us back the 19 cards they stole from us with the original move to Intro Packs, and the next set Mirrodin Besieged introduced Event Decks. These were a little bit more powerful standard legal decks aimed at being an entry point to Friday Night Magic. The two Event decks per set dropped to one per set in Dragon’s Maze — WoTC seemingly being incapable of selling stores only the more popular of the set’s event decks if they didn’t want extras of the other — and then in M15 we had no Event Decks. Instead we had Clash Packs, which essentially was some unholy combination of Event Deck and Duel Deck. I wasn’t really interested in them at the time, but now… they’re weirdly compelling.
Another quick aside.
So I’d written this intro bit last night, with the idea that I was going to get stuck in on my lunch break today but coincidentally look what showed up in my YouTube subs!
Not that this is a competition or anything, but:
See?
Me being “funny” aside, I’m super stoked that there’s a few others digging into old decks of all sorts in various ways. It’s just interesting that Tri just has landed on this one at the same time as me.
Back to it:
Fate (M15)
Oh damn. It would have been absolutely perfect to work the deck names into the above interlude. It’s Fate that we’re covering the same thing today, or that my level of Fury is… that sort of thing. I mean this is all text based so I could pretend that I was cleverer than I was I guess? Or I can instead just take the awkward meta commentary route. Again.
Anyway: here’s a photo of a deck on my (long overdue for sanding and revarnishing) kitchen table. There’s just something especially aesthetically pleasing about Blue Green decks. Especially old frame, which clearly isn’t the case here. Though I do actually want to talk about frames so that’s a decent enough segue.
Magic 2015 debuted a new frame treatment. It’s more subtle than the 8th Edition changes, the black bar at the bottom being the biggest change, along with the holo stamp on Rares and Mythics. These decks were released in M15, but contained more cards from Theros Block than they did M15. The thing is that the Theros reprints kept their 8ED frames. Why not update everything to the new M15 version for visual consistency? The foil promos, which admittedly also had new art, got them. All the other cards would have been on the same print sheets. And importantly: that’s what happened with the 2003 and 2004 World Championship decks.
The deck itself seems fine: lots of Scry to find what you want, which is likely to be either Evasive creatures, or Enchantments to make them bigger. Which are actually creatures themselves; I did enjoy Bestow as a mechanic. Fate is fairly straightforward, the more tricksy stuff doesn’t really come into play much. The Followers and Prophet essentially just give your things vigilance: which in itself isn’t terrible.
Fury (M15)
Now, despite the general concept of the (p)Reconstructed series, I’ve actually had this one built for a while. Have got some games in and boy can make a lot of mana with it. And then an absolutely massive Hydra. Which then gets Controlled Magic’d away from you and you have nothing left to do with all that mana. Which happened to me. It does feel like it needs more pay offs, and Tri is probably right in his video that it would have been a stronger deck if it were monogreen. Or potentially a White or Black splash might have had a bit more to offer?
I did appreciate however that if you wanted to put together the combined Fate and Fury decklist — yes, there is one of those — then it was as easy as pulling out all the mountains and red cards from this deck. Though Fate isn’t quite as tidy.
Fate and Fury
I like this a lot. The ramp of Fury and the scry of Fate with those untappers now having plenty of things to do.
I think I’m going to keep this version built up, and take it along to my next multiplayer session. Where it probably doesn’t have enough interaction — an issue I had last week with another blue green big dumb creature deck — but whatever. Sometimes it is about trampling over a player or two before you lose to someone else with a more well rounded strategy.
I do intend to get enough extra cards to be able to have all three sleeves up at the same time. I’ve got another version of this half built already in fact. (Should organise another proxy Nyxthos!)
Tranquil.
So: of course I’m pretty keen to try Fate vs Fury and Fate and Fury vs Power and Profit (which I also have recently completed) but if anyone had experience with either these decks or the other Clash packs then I’m keen to hear your thoughts too.
Beats and Skies 
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