Pattern Recognition #259 - Meld

Features Opinion Pattern Recognition

berryjon

20 October 2022

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Good day everyone! My name is berryjon, and I welcome you all to Pattern Recognition, TappedOut's longest running article series. I am something of an Old Fogey and a definite Smart Ass, and I have been around the block quite a few times. My experience is quite broad and deep, and so I use this series to try and bring some of that to you. Be it deck design, card construction, mechanics or in-universe characters and the history of the game. Or whatever happens to catch my attention each week. Which happens far more often than I care to admit. Please, feel free to talk about my subject matter in the comments at the bottom of the page, add suggestions or just plain correct me.

And welcome back! Today's article is the result of me trying to maintain my "I'm totally a relevant content creator, praise me!" criteria, and probably failing to do so. Which means talking about something that is current, or will be, and making myself sound amazing and intelligent about it. And I actually do have a subject to talk about!

Let's talk Meld.

Meld is a mechanic that originated in Eldritch Moon, released in July 2016, which was before I even started writing this! Yeesh, how time flies. Anyway, Meld was a curious experiment by Wizards that combined the in-block continuation of double-faced cards, as well as the Un-card, the B.F.M. (Big Furry Monster), and what would become the Augment mechanic from Unstable. This pedigree should tell you how much this mechanic was being tested, that's for sure.

And when I say that it was experimental, I mean it. Most mechanics get a good 10-12 cards in it in a set, with support and synergies to help make their use fun and exciting. Meld, in its debut set, got a grand total of six cards, split into three dedicated pairs that could only work with each other. In retrospect, Mark Rosewater did admit that they erred too far on the side of caution when it came to Meld, as they, at the time, felt it was too experimental, and worried that players in more Limited formats seeing only one side or the other of a Meld Pair too often would not give a good impression of the Mechanic. One of the most often player-based suggestions for fixing this was mimicking the technology that allowed Partner cards from Battlebond to be in the same set, or print Meld cards into sets where pack variance is a non-issue. Like Commander Precons.

But because of this, Wizards has kept Meld in the back of their minds for use as a special mechanic. Something to break out when the time is right, and the moons align and all the right sacrifices have been made. And because of this patience, with the release of The Brothers War in a few weeks, we will get our next three Meld-Pairs. We have already been spoiled on two of them, but the third is not yet known.

So, we know that Meld is not dead. It's just a very narrow mechanic that requires a lot of set up to work, and can be easily defeated by bad draws. Which makes when it shows up a special thing, not a worrisome thing. Well, for the most part. Your opinions may vary on which emotional response you have to a Meld card hitting the table.

But before I get into more detail about that, let's talk the mechanics of the Meld cards. First, Meld only occurs on two Permanents. You can't Meld with Instants or Sorceries, and while there is nothing stopping an Enchantment from being part of a Meld-Pair, we do not yet have an example of one.

Actually, now that I think about it, you could make the supposition that Splice onto Arcane was a predecessor to all of this, but that's for a different time. I really need to talk about that on its own later.

Anyway, back to the mechanic at hand. When you have to permanents on the battlefield that meld with each other, and a certain condition is met - be it a mana cost and tapping one part of the Meld-pair, or just reaching a certain point in the turn with both cards in play, the two halves of the Meld-Pair are exiled as one, and return to the Battlefield as a single, unified permanent. This new Melded permanent is treated as a single card, not two, and has a mana value that is the combined MV of the two cards that were exiled to create it, while having all other qualities of the now face-up side of the two cards. While in play, it is a single permanent, and if it changes zones, then all the component parts of the Meld go to the same zone, with the exception being if one is your Commander, then you can redirect that part of the Meld to the Command Zone instead of the zone the other card is being put into. This is important when you commander is Bruna, the Fading Light  ^Meld.

Which I suppose is a good segue into the various Meld-Pairs we have.

First, we have Graf Rats  ^{Flip  Meld} and Midnight Scavengers  ^Meld. This is also the only Meld-Pair I actually have, and in Foil too! For that extra shiny. Anyway, this Common pairing was the one most likely to be seen in limited formats, and is how I got mine. ;) Anyway, the Rats are nothing to write home about, while the Scavengers are a decent enough recursion effect for a cheap creature. Which includes the Rats. But, if you have both of them at the start of combat on your turn, they Meld into Chittering Host  ^{Flip  Meld  Meld}, a surprisingly powerful card that not only does a lot of work on the offense, being an 5/6 with Haste and Menace, but also granting your entire team +1/+0 and Menace until the end of the turn, making you impending swing all that much more powerful as your opponents now need to double-block everything.

The next pair is Hanweir Battlements  ^Meld, a Land card that has several abilities, and Hanweir Garrison  ^Meld, which is, frankly, a card that could have been printed at Uncommon if it wasn't for the Meld, that's how... casual it is. I'm sure someone will defend the Garrison by itself, but for here and now, it's only real purpose is to meld into Hanweir, the Writhing Township  ^{Meld  Meld} as an activated ability for - a massive attacker that throws out additional attackers each time it swings. I want to try this one out, but I don't have the Garrison.

Lastly, we have the Commander-friendly Bruna, the Fading Light  ^Meld and her sister, Gisela, the Broken Blade  ^Meld. These two angels Meld at the end of your turn into the frankly terrifying Brisela, Voice of Nightmares  ^{Meld  Meld}. Of course, in this case, while Gisela is the activating Meld creature, Bruna can recur her from the Graveyard to the Battlefield, enabling you to have your Melded monster of an Eldrazi out on the Battlefield whenever you cast your Commander. This is very similar to the first combination, all things considered.

What all three of these have in common is how they represented the merging of two things by the presence of the Eldrazi, Emrakul, the Promised End, on Innistrad, and is part and parcel of the package that comes with Cosmic Horror. The rats that scurry about merge with the people who walk in the dark to create a monstrosity whose sudden presence can terrify ones foes. A small town turns into a roving ... thing, part stone masonry, part flesh and blood as it wanders the world. And two of the four Angels that protect Innistrad are brought low by their efforts to fight the Eldrazi, leaving only Sigarda, Heron's Grace alive to become Sigarda, Champion of Light in order to take up the mantle of her fallen sisters.

Three examples of Meld, on different scales, but oddly enough, the Uncommon isn't represented, which plays back into how Wizards didn't want people to miss out on something. They either had a chance to get it naturally with the Commons, or had their chance with powerful-ish effects by themselves at Rare and Mythic.

And now, six years later, we get our next three Meld Pairs. Of which at the time of this writing, only two have been revealed. First, and most importantly for the game, and for my inner Vorthos, is how Urza, Lord Protector  ^Meld melds with The Mightstone and Weakstone  ^Meld to allow him to ascend to Urza, Planeswalker  ^{Meld  Meld}. Which, holy URZA, that's a brilliant use of the mechanic as it fits and works on all levels from mechanics to flavor to story. Kudos to Wizards for an excellent use of the Mechanic to make everything work out. And Urza, Planeswalker  ^{Meld  Meld} is every bit the powerhouse that he should be.

The other one that has been spoiled so far has been Mishra, Claimed by Gix  ^Meld and how he Melded with a Phyrexian Dragon Engine  ^Meld when they both are attacking to become Mishra, Lost to Phyrexia  ^{Meld  Meld}. Not sure how this plays out, but unlike Urza's iconic transformation, this part of Mishra's story is complicated and not all that well documented. Regardless, this massive attacker does a lot on the offense, so killing him becomes a high priority. And you can Unearth the Dragon Engine, like he did in the story!

Sadly, the third Meld has yet to be revealed, but for the life of me, I can't figure out what it is. I suspect that it might have something to do with Feldon of the Third Path, but that takes away from the focus of the Brother's War. And I can't figure anything out from what little I still have of my texts from that time. I suppose I'll just have to wait and see and then slap myself on the forehead for being a dummy and forgetting the obvious.

In summary though, Meld is a rare mechanic. It's not something like flip cards that can show up more and more often. But in this case, with the Brother's War? It works because we're face to face with two of the larger-than-life characters of Magic's history. Urza, and his brother, Mishra. To see them finally in action at the end of one of the larger apocalypses on Dominaria is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to do it right. Unlike with Teferi, there won't be a second chance.

But that third Meld-Pair? That's bothering me. What is it? What am I missing?!?!?

Thanks for reading! Join me next week when I talk about something else. What, I'm not quite sure yet, so feel free to comment in the comments below. And what do you think of the Melds we've seen? Good? Bad? Amazing? Comment below!

Until then please consider donating to my Pattern Recognition Patreon. Yeah, I have a job, but more income is always better. I still have plans to do a audio Pattern Recognition at some point, or perhaps a Twitch stream. And you can bribe your way to the front of the line to have your questions, comments and observations answered!