Mipedians: Invisi-Lizards with Warbeasts and Their Warbeast Pals

The Mipedians: Invisi-Lizards and Their Warbeast Pals

Iflar, the Crown Prince, 

These guys, like the Danians, all share a common theme. I'm sure it won't take long for your to spot it.

The Mipedians all have a yellow card color. During the Dawn of Perim Set (DoP, ZotH, and SS), the Mipedians went from being the one trick pony tribe to one of the most popular, versatile, and powerful tribes in the game. These desert dwelling lizard people are closely linked with the element of Air and the Speed stat, but like all other tribes, there are outliers that provide the elemental and stat diversity you might need. 

The leader of the Mipedians, Kehn-Sep, is the only tribe leader to never be released as a card. The king had to do a little soul-searching as part of his duties as leader of the Mipedians, but his sons Iflar and Mudeenu lead the tribe in his absence.

Blazvatan, a Mipedian Warbeast

Warbeasts and Conjurors

Mipedians have an interesting sub-group that gave the tribe a much needed boost when they were released in Silent Sands. The Warbeasts are powerful entities that are summoned and controlled by Conjurors. This interesting dynamic of containing and harnessing power at the risk of self-destruction is played out excellently through the Recklessness mechanic, an ability that was originally introduced in DoP as a little extra thing to slow some of the more brutish Underworlders down.

Take Blazvatan and Ranun here for example. While you can have Blazvatan on your team to help plow through enemies, he won't get very far if he's dealing 25 damage to himself everytime he attacks. Conjurors like Ranun reduce Recklessness and allow you to safely direct all that Warbeast angst towards your enemy. It also means that when you have a Warbeast deck, your Conjurors had better be well protected                                                                 or your whole strategy might fall apart. 

Different quirks and gimmicks to make different Warbeasts and Conjurors unique were implemented in sets after Silent Sands, but the idea that having a Warbeast on your side meant some sort of sacrifice remained constant.

Invisibility

Ranun, a Mipedian Conjuror

Invisibility is a group of skills possessed by many Mipedians. Often, Invisibility means that the creature with the ability gets some advantage right at the beginning of combat. It only works against creatures without Invisibility.

Invisibility: Strike X: Your creature deals bonus X damage on their first attack.

Invisibility: Disarm: The opposing creature does not gain the effects of their battlegear

Invisibility: Surprise: Your creature wins Initiative

There are ways to play with Invisibility through Mugic, Battlegear, Locations, Attacks, and Creature abilities. Often this involves taking away invisibility, like with Spectral Viewer battlegear, or changing the next attack to act as if it was the first attack of combat, reapplying Strike damage, for example.

Kolmo, a Mipedian with Invisibility: Disarm and
another conditional Invisibility: Strike 20

So that's a brief introduction to the Mipedians!