My sealed pool at the pre-release was hilarious, featuring;
Jace
Kazuul, tyrant of the cliffs
anowon the ruin sage
rampaging baloths
gigantiform
and quite literally no mana-fixing. I ran black, as I had double gatekeeper (and double grim discovery [and quicksand!]), anowon, a couple of other vampires and some scorpions. I ran green as my initial second colour, but boarded into all three other colours at least once during the day (mostly for fun).
I can't remember the name, but I didn't notice you mention the new grizzly bears with multikicker 1G: +1/+1 counter. He seems very good for limited?
Edit: Hey! You also didn't mention the shroud turtle! That guy is absolutely nuts.
Isn't this article exactly the same as your one on scg today? I do think damping matrix is decent tech, mind (had been trying spreading seas for lols)..
Kind of agreed. Btw after matrix they can still kill you with dark depts.Its narrow but if u refered a 2/1 as kill condition vs zoo you should at least refer to the 20/20 flyer one.
Is it fair to write two articles in the same day hyping damping matrix and then be selling them online in the classified section??? Just wondering... seems kinda like insider trading to me.
Well, packs become more and more scarce from older sets, because more are opened than given out as prizes (24 packs busted per draft, and only 11 given out as prize). Additionally, if the payout pays less of one particular packs (ie only the winner gets a pack of Guildpact), then that pack is the first to dry up, making it obviously the most valuable. When people are trying to draft, and they are given RD as their prize, only G becomes more valuable because people don't want to buy draft sets anymore, only the pack they need to draft again. It sucks, and WotC should really do something about it, because when 3 packs of the same block are 4-12-4, it is not healthy for anything they are doing, including nix tix drafts.
I was playing the Saturday Pre-release and while I cracked a Kalastria Highborn, I did not find enough vamps to support her (I guess she's just high maintenance...) nor any black or red removal (not including Searing Blaze). I decided to go UW.
2 Journey to Nowhere
1 Brave the Elements
1 Refraction Trap
1 Bold Defense
1 Treasure Hunt
1 Into the Roil
1 Spreading Seas
1 Mysteries of the Deep
1 Everflowing Chalice
1 Seer's Sundial
Land
1 Scalding Tarn
2 Quicksand
7 Plains
7 Islands
I was impressed with Seriji Merfolk while a plains is out. A 2/1 first striking, lifelinker makes a lot of the opponents creatures want to stay home. Perimeter Captain was amazing, as well.
Best topdeck of my day: Eel, and 2 Lynxes on the board....Draw: Scalding Tarn...
Wow moment #1: Drawing 6 cards with Treasure Hunt.
Wow moment #2: Playing Everflowing Chalice kicked 4 times, followed next turn by an Enclave Elite kicked 5 times (big enough to hold off opponent's Felidar Sovereign).
I was pleased with the Chalice. The other time I drew it, it allowed a Snapping Drake to come out a turn earlier, just in time to hold off my opponent.
Although my Deck performed well (barring the couple of misplays I made), I had to drop after Round 3 due to time constraints. Overall it was a lot of fun.
I basically agree with everything you said except one thing: Regarding Surrakar Banisher...you can bounce a creature thats been beating on you to give yourself a two turn break. You can also bounce an Enters the Battlefield creature. Both are valid...also possible to bounce an enemy creature like Roil Elemental to remove (gain back) a creature you own that is standing as a blocker. Just my 2.5cents.
Maybe it's a sour taste from two drafts gone horribly wrong, maybe it's an artiface of ZWW instead of ZZW (do we know for sure that ZZW is the 'official' format?), but I think Blue is actually substantially downgraded in Worldwake drafting. The problem isn't that it has no support cards; that side of things is fine, from excavators and turtles to deep mysteries and treasure hunts. But blue in Zendikar had no less than three (well, maybe two and a half depending on your feelings about Windrider Eel) premium flyers at common, cards that you were actively looking forward to finding. It was enough to make it possible to occasionally draft near mono-blue with just a small removal splash; 3x Welkin Tern, 2x Umara Raptor, 3x Windrider Eel-type decks weren't unheard of (and I managed to score 5 Umara Raptor in one particularly egregious draft). Wind Zendikon isn't terrible, but it's not in the same league as any of the other three, and there isn't a blue common that I'm actively happy to see. The more I think about Surrakar Banisher the less interesting he's getting, because 'bounce a tapped creature' doesn't actually *do* anything to change a race. It's arguably actively worse than Paralyzing Grasp, and that falls into the 'I'm not thrilled to run this, but I guess it's serviceable removal' 20th plus-card slot. I can't say that blue can't work, but the days of nearly mono-U seem likely to be dead barring getting a suite of (admittedly) nutty uncommons.
If you were holding a contest you could disqualify anyone who commented and say so in the rules then people who sent in the answer would win. Of course then the problem would be what to award correct answers and how to verify they weren't from the same people who answered in the comments. And of course then the problem is that it's nearly impossible with limited resources to actually verify that. I think it would have been smarter to allow comments with potential spoilers but not comment yourself on whether or not they were correct. That way you still get to write about the people who sent in entries correctly and also discuss how far off people were in the comments in your next article.
Hey, we are expecting a report on how you did with your son at the 2HG Pre-Release event. I hope you guys had fun, 2HG is a little slow but it is tons of fun, I used to play at them with my brother and although we never did well (at Time Spiral for instance we managed to win the last match, due to no show of the opponents :), we really had a good time.
Thanks for the comments and kind words, all, I love hearing everyone's opinion about the new Limited environment. Thanks especially to Joshua (JXClaytor), who responded to my desperate cries and posted this article remotely so it could be up before the prerelease!
geez wife ov a player, lighten up or u might find your husband playing alot more card games.
a good, oldfasioned labotomy might stop him trying to trick and manipulate u into playing.
;)
aye, a heartwarming, adorable article. cant wait to meet a nice girl, take her home,
and finaly destroy her with the endless wurm!h.
If there wasn't an error I wouldn't have posted anything at all regarding the question, but from my experience with other "you make the plays" the only way to stop people from commenting on them is to either moderate the comments (ie, no one can see them unless you approve them), or lock them.
Broadly agree with your comments. I finished 4th out of 30-odd at my prerelease playing black/white (1 loss to guy who eventually won). No bombs, but I did open Nighthawk, Trusty Machete, Disfigure, Smother, 2 Tomb Hex and Lodestone Golem (who rocks, by the way, in a deck that tops out at 4 mana).
Observations: multikicker is underwhelming. You're paying a premium for flexibility but the fact is, most times, you're getting poor value no matter what price you pay. (And in an aggro format like this - which it still is - holding things back in the hope of multikicking them can kick you in the nuts.) I'll make an exception for Apex Hawk - most times it'll be a 2/2 for 3 but you can often save him to be a 3/3.
White is suddenly really, really good (having been fine before). With Perimeter Captain, Lightkeeper, Iona's Judgment, Marsh Threader and the abovementioned Hawks, it's got evasive offence, defence, removal and tricks. (And that's *without* considering Allies.) Although it did get the worst Zendikon.
Black has lost a little but is still (just) the best colour. Pulse Tracker is much better than I thought (certainly if you open 2 Adventuring Gear and Trusty Machete), and Dead Reckoning is amazing - you suddenly *want* them to off your biggest guy. Oh noes, you're killing my Lodestone Golem? Darn, I'll just have to get him back next turn and kill your Hellkite Charger in the process...
As you say, red has dropped from 2nd best colour, possibly even to bottom. Thought Bladetusk Boar was going to get better because of the drop-off in quality of red (therefore fewer people playing it), but the extra artifact creatures - Hedron Rover's pretty nifty with common instant-speed-landfall tricks - say otherwise.
Green has improved slightly - the acceleration and pseudo-removal help - and it feels like a more rounded colour now.
Blue's not changed much. Still a fine draft choice, although I live for the day that I open enough good blue cards to make a sealed deck with it.
Marshal's Anthem: played it, regretted it, because never had the mana and opportunity to kick it, and a Glorious Anthem for 4 mana does not set worlds on fire. Maybe in WG or heavy white that can stall for long enough for it to be relevant.
Walking Atlas: fun but not worth it, as you won't often have that 4th land to drop in their turn and Lightning Burst their Blademaster as they Savage Silhouette it. Although one opponent did randomly Smother it because he feared a trick, which made my turn 3 Nighthawk very happy.
Allies still suck against anyone with removal or a brain.
All in all, WW has brought down the card quality, I think (and introduced far too many unplayable rares), although it has balanced the colours a little.
Thanks to Godot and PureMTGO's editors for the timely article-- which obviously points to the paper Magic pre-releases this weekend. As ever, your insights were refreshing and helpful with my sealed pool. I finished 4-1, but chopped prizes with the top 4 for 8 packs. The heads-up about the lack of solid removal (and solid red cards in general) helped successfully steer me away from R and into a terrific UW deck; I only really had trouble with the decks loaded with black removal. Oh, and Admonition Angel. =(
I hope you and Ollie had a great time playing 2HG.
Since the article is getting older, I thought that I would give an update on my experience in swiss. I have been playing M10 swiss queues (nix tix) and am having a blast. I still can't seem to win match 1, but I have 2-1'ed a bunch, and usually get one or two cards worth enough value to make up for the pack I lost. I feel like I am getting a lot better at drafting this way too, because I can see different deck configurations and what is successful. Thanks!
My sealed pool at the pre-release was hilarious, featuring;
Jace
Kazuul, tyrant of the cliffs
anowon the ruin sage
rampaging baloths
gigantiform
and quite literally no mana-fixing. I ran black, as I had double gatekeeper (and double grim discovery [and quicksand!]), anowon, a couple of other vampires and some scorpions. I ran green as my initial second colour, but boarded into all three other colours at least once during the day (mostly for fun).
I can't remember the name, but I didn't notice you mention the new grizzly bears with multikicker 1G: +1/+1 counter. He seems very good for limited?
Edit: Hey! You also didn't mention the shroud turtle! That guy is absolutely nuts.
Isn't this article exactly the same as your one on scg today? I do think damping matrix is decent tech, mind (had been trying spreading seas for lols)..
where can i find info about the sunday edh tourney
if the first commenter is accurate, i would have to agree. Definitely not a kosher move
Kind of agreed. Btw after matrix they can still kill you with dark depts.Its narrow but if u refered a 2/1 as kill condition vs zoo you should at least refer to the 20/20 flyer one.
Is it fair to write two articles in the same day hyping damping matrix and then be selling them online in the classified section??? Just wondering... seems kinda like insider trading to me.
Well, packs become more and more scarce from older sets, because more are opened than given out as prizes (24 packs busted per draft, and only 11 given out as prize). Additionally, if the payout pays less of one particular packs (ie only the winner gets a pack of Guildpact), then that pack is the first to dry up, making it obviously the most valuable. When people are trying to draft, and they are given RD as their prize, only G becomes more valuable because people don't want to buy draft sets anymore, only the pack they need to draft again. It sucks, and WotC should really do something about it, because when 3 packs of the same block are 4-12-4, it is not healthy for anything they are doing, including nix tix drafts.
I was playing the Saturday Pre-release and while I cracked a Kalastria Highborn, I did not find enough vamps to support her (I guess she's just high maintenance...) nor any black or red removal (not including Searing Blaze). I decided to go UW.
What I played:
Creatures:
2 Steppe Lynx
1 Perimeter Captain
1 Welkin Tern
1 Seriji Merfolk
2 Marsh Threader
1 Enclave Elite
1 Umara Raptor
1 Windrider Eel
1 Kor Cartographer
1 Sky Ruin Drake
Other Spells
2 Journey to Nowhere
1 Brave the Elements
1 Refraction Trap
1 Bold Defense
1 Treasure Hunt
1 Into the Roil
1 Spreading Seas
1 Mysteries of the Deep
1 Everflowing Chalice
1 Seer's Sundial
Land
1 Scalding Tarn
2 Quicksand
7 Plains
7 Islands
I was impressed with Seriji Merfolk while a plains is out. A 2/1 first striking, lifelinker makes a lot of the opponents creatures want to stay home. Perimeter Captain was amazing, as well.
Best topdeck of my day: Eel, and 2 Lynxes on the board....Draw: Scalding Tarn...
Wow moment #1: Drawing 6 cards with Treasure Hunt.
Wow moment #2: Playing Everflowing Chalice kicked 4 times, followed next turn by an Enclave Elite kicked 5 times (big enough to hold off opponent's Felidar Sovereign).
I was pleased with the Chalice. The other time I drew it, it allowed a Snapping Drake to come out a turn earlier, just in time to hold off my opponent.
Although my Deck performed well (barring the couple of misplays I made), I had to drop after Round 3 due to time constraints. Overall it was a lot of fun.
I basically agree with everything you said except one thing: Regarding Surrakar Banisher...you can bounce a creature thats been beating on you to give yourself a two turn break. You can also bounce an Enters the Battlefield creature. Both are valid...also possible to bounce an enemy creature like Roil Elemental to remove (gain back) a creature you own that is standing as a blocker. Just my 2.5cents.
Maybe it's a sour taste from two drafts gone horribly wrong, maybe it's an artiface of ZWW instead of ZZW (do we know for sure that ZZW is the 'official' format?), but I think Blue is actually substantially downgraded in Worldwake drafting. The problem isn't that it has no support cards; that side of things is fine, from excavators and turtles to deep mysteries and treasure hunts. But blue in Zendikar had no less than three (well, maybe two and a half depending on your feelings about Windrider Eel) premium flyers at common, cards that you were actively looking forward to finding. It was enough to make it possible to occasionally draft near mono-blue with just a small removal splash; 3x Welkin Tern, 2x Umara Raptor, 3x Windrider Eel-type decks weren't unheard of (and I managed to score 5 Umara Raptor in one particularly egregious draft). Wind Zendikon isn't terrible, but it's not in the same league as any of the other three, and there isn't a blue common that I'm actively happy to see. The more I think about Surrakar Banisher the less interesting he's getting, because 'bounce a tapped creature' doesn't actually *do* anything to change a race. It's arguably actively worse than Paralyzing Grasp, and that falls into the 'I'm not thrilled to run this, but I guess it's serviceable removal' 20th plus-card slot. I can't say that blue can't work, but the days of nearly mono-U seem likely to be dead barring getting a suite of (admittedly) nutty uncommons.
If you were holding a contest you could disqualify anyone who commented and say so in the rules then people who sent in the answer would win. Of course then the problem would be what to award correct answers and how to verify they weren't from the same people who answered in the comments. And of course then the problem is that it's nearly impossible with limited resources to actually verify that. I think it would have been smarter to allow comments with potential spoilers but not comment yourself on whether or not they were correct. That way you still get to write about the people who sent in entries correctly and also discuss how far off people were in the comments in your next article.
just top 8ed with this deck in the PE. i appreciate your creation of it
Hey, we are expecting a report on how you did with your son at the 2HG Pre-Release event. I hope you guys had fun, 2HG is a little slow but it is tons of fun, I used to play at them with my brother and although we never did well (at Time Spiral for instance we managed to win the last match, due to no show of the opponents :), we really had a good time.
Thanks for the comments and kind words, all, I love hearing everyone's opinion about the new Limited environment. Thanks especially to Joshua (JXClaytor), who responded to my desperate cries and posted this article remotely so it could be up before the prerelease!
geez wife ov a player, lighten up or u might find your husband playing alot more card games.
a good, oldfasioned labotomy might stop him trying to trick and manipulate u into playing.
;)
aye, a heartwarming, adorable article. cant wait to meet a nice girl, take her home,
and finaly destroy her with the endless wurm!h.
If there wasn't an error I wouldn't have posted anything at all regarding the question, but from my experience with other "you make the plays" the only way to stop people from commenting on them is to either moderate the comments (ie, no one can see them unless you approve them), or lock them.
No, according to the article he bought the Vamps for $20:
"The person in question was hoarding Vampiric Tutors for 20 tix each right up until they were restricted... OOOOOOOOPPPPSSSS".
Looks like he just made 14 tix per Vamp. OOOOOOOOPPPPSSSS.
... don't you play Scramble on Facebook?!
Broadly agree with your comments. I finished 4th out of 30-odd at my prerelease playing black/white (1 loss to guy who eventually won). No bombs, but I did open Nighthawk, Trusty Machete, Disfigure, Smother, 2 Tomb Hex and Lodestone Golem (who rocks, by the way, in a deck that tops out at 4 mana).
Observations: multikicker is underwhelming. You're paying a premium for flexibility but the fact is, most times, you're getting poor value no matter what price you pay. (And in an aggro format like this - which it still is - holding things back in the hope of multikicking them can kick you in the nuts.) I'll make an exception for Apex Hawk - most times it'll be a 2/2 for 3 but you can often save him to be a 3/3.
White is suddenly really, really good (having been fine before). With Perimeter Captain, Lightkeeper, Iona's Judgment, Marsh Threader and the abovementioned Hawks, it's got evasive offence, defence, removal and tricks. (And that's *without* considering Allies.) Although it did get the worst Zendikon.
Black has lost a little but is still (just) the best colour. Pulse Tracker is much better than I thought (certainly if you open 2 Adventuring Gear and Trusty Machete), and Dead Reckoning is amazing - you suddenly *want* them to off your biggest guy. Oh noes, you're killing my Lodestone Golem? Darn, I'll just have to get him back next turn and kill your Hellkite Charger in the process...
As you say, red has dropped from 2nd best colour, possibly even to bottom. Thought Bladetusk Boar was going to get better because of the drop-off in quality of red (therefore fewer people playing it), but the extra artifact creatures - Hedron Rover's pretty nifty with common instant-speed-landfall tricks - say otherwise.
Green has improved slightly - the acceleration and pseudo-removal help - and it feels like a more rounded colour now.
Blue's not changed much. Still a fine draft choice, although I live for the day that I open enough good blue cards to make a sealed deck with it.
Marshal's Anthem: played it, regretted it, because never had the mana and opportunity to kick it, and a Glorious Anthem for 4 mana does not set worlds on fire. Maybe in WG or heavy white that can stall for long enough for it to be relevant.
Walking Atlas: fun but not worth it, as you won't often have that 4th land to drop in their turn and Lightning Burst their Blademaster as they Savage Silhouette it. Although one opponent did randomly Smother it because he feared a trick, which made my turn 3 Nighthawk very happy.
Allies still suck against anyone with removal or a brain.
All in all, WW has brought down the card quality, I think (and introduced far too many unplayable rares), although it has balanced the colours a little.
Nice article!
Thanks to Godot and PureMTGO's editors for the timely article-- which obviously points to the paper Magic pre-releases this weekend. As ever, your insights were refreshing and helpful with my sealed pool. I finished 4-1, but chopped prizes with the top 4 for 8 packs. The heads-up about the lack of solid removal (and solid red cards in general) helped successfully steer me away from R and into a terrific UW deck; I only really had trouble with the decks loaded with black removal. Oh, and Admonition Angel. =(
I hope you and Ollie had a great time playing 2HG.
very nice article and work walkerdog !!
cya at play ;)
Your kid is awesome, good article as usual, will be waiting for the ZZW draft walkthroughs later in the month.
Since the article is getting older, I thought that I would give an update on my experience in swiss. I have been playing M10 swiss queues (nix tix) and am having a blast. I still can't seem to win match 1, but I have 2-1'ed a bunch, and usually get one or two cards worth enough value to make up for the pack I lost. I feel like I am getting a lot better at drafting this way too, because I can see different deck configurations and what is successful. Thanks!
this dead dog is the nuts!!!!! i highly recommend playing it. as of now i have won 75% of my 2 man matches with the deck.
Nice story ending there :) Cracking Jace is a capper indeed.