Hi Godot - just wanted to say thanks so much for this article and also the 2 part 'Limited Resources' podcasts focusing on the Worldwake commons and uncommons. I attended the pre-release today as a MTG 'virgin' for Sealed and Draft formats and without doubt, the guidance you guys offered meant that I was able to hold my own and make the most of the day.
I ended up securing 11th place out of 30 in the Sealed event and 2nd overall in my draft group - and while the gameplay and good company would have been reason enough for my ear to ear grin, I was in for a great end to the day surprise. My modest success was rewarded wih two booster packs and I was lucky enough to crack a Jace! Keep up the good work and thanks for all of your efforts.
One area I'd like to see everyone comment on is the limited availability of draft sets for older formats. I bought a few packs of RGD the night before the ravnica nix tix was up a few weeks ago, and then once the drafts started the price of guildpact went through the roof. I did about 5 drafts, but then I realized I could sell guildpact for a huge profit. I sold a couple packs for 15 tix each... But, I had to give up my ability to draft and somebody else was willing to pay. It seems like that is fair, since everyone knows what they are getting and paying for.
I think you're trying to ask if the bodyguard can target the Deft Duelist.
This is what I meant:
"Sacrifice Benevolent Bodyguard: Target creature gains protection from the color of your choice until end of turn."
So in short, no. All I did was take out the "you control" clause to make the puzzle solvable. This is the only change necessary.
On another note, I see that despite my two requests that no one post details of the answer, people decided to do so anyway. I assume that it was at least partially encouraged by my mistake when posting the puzzle. I really don't mind since you're not spoiling anything for me, but in the future, assuming a puzzle with no mistakes, would people rather not see the answer in the comment section or not care if they do or don't? I'm not sure I can even enforce a "no spoiler" policy, but I could try again.
Very interesting deck, nice to see the next part to this series of articles, its always nice to see interesting take on alternative win conditions. Also you have given me an idea for a tribal deck :)
Thank you. I was the 80 evangel guy, and it's nice to see that some people understand that there is risk involved, and that I am not evil and don't deserve to "get involved in a fatal car wreck on (my) way home."
Good work! Your post/article is an excellent example of why I keep comming back to read your excellent quality content that is forever updated. Thank you!
Red took enough of a whomping in WWK that I'm now kind of leery of going mono-red, simply because it's possible to get very little for such a deck in pack three. As you note, both the number of playables and the overall quality are down quite a bit, though it does have the advantage of both of its best nonrares being hard to splash for. (Sparkmage and Searing Blaze will get randomly ripped out of packs by people otherwise not really in red much less often than Burst Lightning is.)
I think another subtlety of throwing a pack of WWK into the draft is weakening mono-X drafting strategies as a whole. Zen has multiple strong/decent cards in Black, Green and Red that reward players for monogamy or for at least staying heavy in those colors. (White and Blue have cards that reward that too, but they're generally worse, and there are fewer of them.) Worldwake not only has fewer (Bloodhusk Ritualist, Lightkeeper of Emeria, Voyager Drake and Deathforge Shaman are uncommon, Wolfbriar Elemental is rare), but they don't require the same level of dedication to be rewarding. Meanwhile, there's a good-to-excellent cycle of creatures at uncommon that reward branching out. While it's hard to say for sure, I feel that the loss of some Crypt Rippers, Timbermaw Larvae, Spire Barrages and friends and the addition of the "Kird Ape" creatures will result in a bit of a shift away from monocolor or monocolor with splash strategies that seem rather prevalent in Zendikar. (The only draft format that I remember where monocolor seemed maybe more common was 3xColdsnap, and my sample size on that is low.)
Thanks for a great article to read just before leaving for the PR. Not only I feel better prepared, but I have some hope that the aggro menace of ZZZ will be slightly subdued.
My biggest gain from this is the realization that green lost so much early anti-aggro power in the last pack. Looking at the green power uncommons in the spoiler, I had kinda missed this fact.
BTW, I also have an alarm clock by the name of Oliver that goes off at 7 every morning. He's not that into Magic, though, and he wakes me up to get some cat food.
"...magic design is not based on keeping parity from big set to small."
Where did I say that Magic design is based on keeping parity from big set to small set? Identifying the areas that lack parity was the thrust of this article!
Understanding the analog concept gives players a good tool to help assess an incoming small set. By seeing where there are analogs, you in turn see where there aren't, which in turn leads to better predictions of where specifically the environment is going to change.
If the responses I've received to last week's article and the Limited Resources podcast on the subject are any indication, it was a concept many players in my target audience didn't have at all or didn't have consciously, and are happy to have now. If my use of the concept in the last two articles felt heavy handed to you, it probably just means you are a very good drafter who, consciously or unconsciously, has already absorbed it.
Just before I read your article I did my own analysis of the new cards based on the Visual Spoiler that's now complete on the mothership, and it makes me feel pretty good that I came to mostly the same conclusions as you did. My method was pretty simple, I just counted up the number of commons and uncommons in each color that I would be happy about or OK with playing. Here's what I came up with (obviously someone else doing this could quite likely come up with different numbers):
Commons: White - 8, Blue - 7, Black - 9, Red - 6, Green - 8.
Uncommons: White - 7, Blue - 7, Black - 6, Red - 3, Green - 5.
The biggest thing that jumped out to me was that, just like you said, red really sucks in this set. The uncommons are almost all terrible except for the Sparkmage, and having just one burn spell kills. You're probably right that it was what this format needed, though. I was kind of surprised that they didn't nerf black more, though. It does look to be weaker than in Zendikar, but still plenty strong.
Blue and white have a lot of similarities in their card quality distribution. In the common slot, there is a decent enough number of good cards and playable but unexciting ones, but the uncommons for these colors are really powerful (blue moreso than white though). Tideforce Elemental, Vapor Snare, the two 3-power fliers, all great stuff. Additionally, there's Permafrost Trap, which I kind of dismissed at first but now I think will be really great. Originally I didn't catch that the creatures don't untap during their next untap step, which obviously makes a big difference. On the podcast you guys basically said it was like a worse Sleep, which on the surface is true, but there are a couple different things going on here. First off, this is an instant, which means you can play it before an opponent's attack phase to keep two of their creatures from attacking and blocking for 2 whole turns, as opposed to keeping all of their creatures tapped for two turns on defense and only one turn on offense as Sleep does. Secondly, the formats are quite different. M10 was all about breaking the ground stall, which Sleep did wonderfully, but Zendikar is often about winning the race, and for that purpose, tapping 2 of their creatures as opposed to all of them is going to be just fine. So yeah, I definitely want to see some of these if I'm playing blue.
Last up, green has me somewhat conflicted. Almost all of green's commons are solid, but none are spectacular, which is often the case with green. It definitely has a higher density of early drops compared to Zendikar, which should help the green decks keep up in the race a bit better. It does hurt to lose Gladeheart and not get a replacement landfall dude, but I'm actually not too worried about losing some of the fatties, since I almost always had enough of those by the end of pack 2 anyway. Green's uncommons are a bit worrying, though. There are only 2 really good uncommons (unless you're heavy allies), and those are Bestial Menace and Leatherback Baloth, and I'm not even sure how good Baloth really is if you're not mono-green. I can't wait to start making Jungle Book tokens, though.
Anyway, great article and good luck at the Prerelease!
I think you use this analog talk too much as magic design is not based on keeping parity from big set to small. Regardless most stuff seems right on. White was great in trips zen but I think it's gained a lot of speed and a better curve. Black removal also got better IMHO. Honestly black is more rounded and stronger just a lil less agro now. Red took a huge hit and might only be 3 rd or 4th best now. White will end up second IMHO. Expecially with cunning sparkmage being splashably and effecting white less than black, red, or blue. Green still sucks but is less susceptible to quicksand than all but blue
I can think of one other hording case besides Vampiric Tutor - Natural Order. Someone tried to hoard that (around Conflux time) because it was supposed to be "the nuts" with Progenitus. This person did drive the price up from 3 to 12 tix while no one was using the card. And then Oath of Druids hit. I'm pretty sure the reason Natural Order hasn't fallen is because Visions is so rare online. That and I guess no one really cares about the card. It's been at 12 forever and I don't think many copies of the card are even traded.
I think speculation is actually somewhat commendable. It does two good things for everyone:
1) It increases trade. More digital objects moving around. Drafters can sell their cards easier and they don't care if you're making money from being patient. Buyers can at least find the card they want. Casual traders can more easily estimate if a Garruk (M10) is a fair trade for a Platinum Angel (M10).
2) It increases the value of cards. I guess this is bad if you don't own stuff and you want to get it in on Legacy or something. But if Force of Will, for example, is important enough to someone that they won't sell it for less than $30 even if they're quitting the game, then that means Magic is healthy. And it means that this other person's work is increasing the value of my FoWs. That would make me happy. (Well, I don't own FoW, that was an example.)
In addition to those two benefits for everyone, one person in the community will make or lose money. Basically I just said that whenever someone buys singles, it's good for the game. That's kind of obvious. Personally, I don't speculate because I don't have any/enough extra tickets. I always just buy the next eternal staple on my list instead. But for those who do, by all means. All stores/bots are basically speculators because they buy 10 to 20 copies of a card to resell later. And mtgotraders rocks! =)
Being someone who didn't spend a lot of time drafting in Zen I have to say this article did a great job of previewing some of the WW cards in addition to giving almost a small recap on Zen
Heya sorry for the late comment here, flips. Glad to see another article by you. Seeing how plows are 1 ticket or lower it might be advisable to replace condemn with them anyway.
I like the deck and the idea behind it but it seems to me that it's a bit too much dependant on Bloodchief Ascension. I think that it needs a Plan B in case things go wrong. Most of the Grixis decks pack Sorin-Chandra combo, and maybe you can add one or two copies of each.
Alternatively, you can try the new Chandra. Her second ability is custom tailored for Bloodchief Ascension. The same is true for Hedron Crab as well. Everytime you play a land, you will activate Hedron Crab and thus activate your enchantment.
Thank you for the comment. Identity Crisis is definately not needed. Its mana cost is a problem but that's not the main reason. It isn't needed because of the amount of discard spells the deck already has.
Even if I manage to cast an Identity Crisis on turn six, it would only remove only one or two cards from my opponent's hand. Which I can do with Duress or with Blightning or with Tidehollow Sculler for a much cheaper price.
It's a nice card in theory but practice shows that it is a bit overcosted for what it does; at least in this deck. And the same is true for Mind Shatter as well.
Hi Godot - just wanted to say thanks so much for this article and also the 2 part 'Limited Resources' podcasts focusing on the Worldwake commons and uncommons. I attended the pre-release today as a MTG 'virgin' for Sealed and Draft formats and without doubt, the guidance you guys offered meant that I was able to hold my own and make the most of the day.
I ended up securing 11th place out of 30 in the Sealed event and 2nd overall in my draft group - and while the gameplay and good company would have been reason enough for my ear to ear grin, I was in for a great end to the day surprise. My modest success was rewarded wih two booster packs and I was lucky enough to crack a Jace! Keep up the good work and thanks for all of your efforts.
I just want to know wtf my opponent tapped 23 land for last turn.
One area I'd like to see everyone comment on is the limited availability of draft sets for older formats. I bought a few packs of RGD the night before the ravnica nix tix was up a few weeks ago, and then once the drafts started the price of guildpact went through the roof. I did about 5 drafts, but then I realized I could sell guildpact for a huge profit. I sold a couple packs for 15 tix each... But, I had to give up my ability to draft and somebody else was willing to pay. It seems like that is fair, since everyone knows what they are getting and paying for.
Any thoughts?
I think you're trying to ask if the bodyguard can target the Deft Duelist.
This is what I meant:
"Sacrifice Benevolent Bodyguard: Target creature gains protection from the color of your choice until end of turn."
So in short, no. All I did was take out the "you control" clause to make the puzzle solvable. This is the only change necessary.
On another note, I see that despite my two requests that no one post details of the answer, people decided to do so anyway. I assume that it was at least partially encouraged by my mistake when posting the puzzle. I really don't mind since you're not spoiling anything for me, but in the future, assuming a puzzle with no mistakes, would people rather not see the answer in the comment section or not care if they do or don't? I'm not sure I can even enforce a "no spoiler" policy, but I could try again.
Very interesting deck, nice to see the next part to this series of articles, its always nice to see interesting take on alternative win conditions. Also you have given me an idea for a tribal deck :)
Thank you. I was the 80 evangel guy, and it's nice to see that some people understand that there is risk involved, and that I am not evil and don't deserve to "get involved in a fatal car wreck on (my) way home."
Good work! Your post/article is an excellent example of why I keep comming back to read your excellent quality content that is forever updated. Thank you!
I also remember back in the long, long, ago. where someone tried to hoard foil reya dawnbringers
Red took enough of a whomping in WWK that I'm now kind of leery of going mono-red, simply because it's possible to get very little for such a deck in pack three. As you note, both the number of playables and the overall quality are down quite a bit, though it does have the advantage of both of its best nonrares being hard to splash for. (Sparkmage and Searing Blaze will get randomly ripped out of packs by people otherwise not really in red much less often than Burst Lightning is.)
I think another subtlety of throwing a pack of WWK into the draft is weakening mono-X drafting strategies as a whole. Zen has multiple strong/decent cards in Black, Green and Red that reward players for monogamy or for at least staying heavy in those colors. (White and Blue have cards that reward that too, but they're generally worse, and there are fewer of them.) Worldwake not only has fewer (Bloodhusk Ritualist, Lightkeeper of Emeria, Voyager Drake and Deathforge Shaman are uncommon, Wolfbriar Elemental is rare), but they don't require the same level of dedication to be rewarding. Meanwhile, there's a good-to-excellent cycle of creatures at uncommon that reward branching out. While it's hard to say for sure, I feel that the loss of some Crypt Rippers, Timbermaw Larvae, Spire Barrages and friends and the addition of the "Kird Ape" creatures will result in a bit of a shift away from monocolor or monocolor with splash strategies that seem rather prevalent in Zendikar. (The only draft format that I remember where monocolor seemed maybe more common was 3xColdsnap, and my sample size on that is low.)
Thanks for a great article to read just before leaving for the PR. Not only I feel better prepared, but I have some hope that the aggro menace of ZZZ will be slightly subdued.
My biggest gain from this is the realization that green lost so much early anti-aggro power in the last pack. Looking at the green power uncommons in the spoiler, I had kinda missed this fact.
BTW, I also have an alarm clock by the name of Oliver that goes off at 7 every morning. He's not that into Magic, though, and he wakes me up to get some cat food.
"...magic design is not based on keeping parity from big set to small."
Where did I say that Magic design is based on keeping parity from big set to small set? Identifying the areas that lack parity was the thrust of this article!
Understanding the analog concept gives players a good tool to help assess an incoming small set. By seeing where there are analogs, you in turn see where there aren't, which in turn leads to better predictions of where specifically the environment is going to change.
If the responses I've received to last week's article and the Limited Resources podcast on the subject are any indication, it was a concept many players in my target audience didn't have at all or didn't have consciously, and are happy to have now. If my use of the concept in the last two articles felt heavy handed to you, it probably just means you are a very good drafter who, consciously or unconsciously, has already absorbed it.
Just before I read your article I did my own analysis of the new cards based on the Visual Spoiler that's now complete on the mothership, and it makes me feel pretty good that I came to mostly the same conclusions as you did. My method was pretty simple, I just counted up the number of commons and uncommons in each color that I would be happy about or OK with playing. Here's what I came up with (obviously someone else doing this could quite likely come up with different numbers):
Commons: White - 8, Blue - 7, Black - 9, Red - 6, Green - 8.
Uncommons: White - 7, Blue - 7, Black - 6, Red - 3, Green - 5.
The biggest thing that jumped out to me was that, just like you said, red really sucks in this set. The uncommons are almost all terrible except for the Sparkmage, and having just one burn spell kills. You're probably right that it was what this format needed, though. I was kind of surprised that they didn't nerf black more, though. It does look to be weaker than in Zendikar, but still plenty strong.
Blue and white have a lot of similarities in their card quality distribution. In the common slot, there is a decent enough number of good cards and playable but unexciting ones, but the uncommons for these colors are really powerful (blue moreso than white though). Tideforce Elemental, Vapor Snare, the two 3-power fliers, all great stuff. Additionally, there's Permafrost Trap, which I kind of dismissed at first but now I think will be really great. Originally I didn't catch that the creatures don't untap during their next untap step, which obviously makes a big difference. On the podcast you guys basically said it was like a worse Sleep, which on the surface is true, but there are a couple different things going on here. First off, this is an instant, which means you can play it before an opponent's attack phase to keep two of their creatures from attacking and blocking for 2 whole turns, as opposed to keeping all of their creatures tapped for two turns on defense and only one turn on offense as Sleep does. Secondly, the formats are quite different. M10 was all about breaking the ground stall, which Sleep did wonderfully, but Zendikar is often about winning the race, and for that purpose, tapping 2 of their creatures as opposed to all of them is going to be just fine. So yeah, I definitely want to see some of these if I'm playing blue.
Last up, green has me somewhat conflicted. Almost all of green's commons are solid, but none are spectacular, which is often the case with green. It definitely has a higher density of early drops compared to Zendikar, which should help the green decks keep up in the race a bit better. It does hurt to lose Gladeheart and not get a replacement landfall dude, but I'm actually not too worried about losing some of the fatties, since I almost always had enough of those by the end of pack 2 anyway. Green's uncommons are a bit worrying, though. There are only 2 really good uncommons (unless you're heavy allies), and those are Bestial Menace and Leatherback Baloth, and I'm not even sure how good Baloth really is if you're not mono-green. I can't wait to start making Jungle Book tokens, though.
Anyway, great article and good luck at the Prerelease!
I think you use this analog talk too much as magic design is not based on keeping parity from big set to small. Regardless most stuff seems right on. White was great in trips zen but I think it's gained a lot of speed and a better curve. Black removal also got better IMHO. Honestly black is more rounded and stronger just a lil less agro now. Red took a huge hit and might only be 3 rd or 4th best now. White will end up second IMHO. Expecially with cunning sparkmage being splashably and effecting white less than black, red, or blue. Green still sucks but is less susceptible to quicksand than all but blue
I have a feeling vampires are gonna be the deck to beat in ZZW drafts...
Thanks for the great article!
Great article Godot...
ok so some weeks Alex gets crap for writing about new possible decks...and then gets crap for writing about established decks. MAKE UP YOUR MINDS!
I can think of one other hording case besides Vampiric Tutor - Natural Order. Someone tried to hoard that (around Conflux time) because it was supposed to be "the nuts" with Progenitus. This person did drive the price up from 3 to 12 tix while no one was using the card. And then Oath of Druids hit. I'm pretty sure the reason Natural Order hasn't fallen is because Visions is so rare online. That and I guess no one really cares about the card. It's been at 12 forever and I don't think many copies of the card are even traded.
I think speculation is actually somewhat commendable. It does two good things for everyone:
1) It increases trade. More digital objects moving around. Drafters can sell their cards easier and they don't care if you're making money from being patient. Buyers can at least find the card they want. Casual traders can more easily estimate if a Garruk (M10) is a fair trade for a Platinum Angel (M10).
2) It increases the value of cards. I guess this is bad if you don't own stuff and you want to get it in on Legacy or something. But if Force of Will, for example, is important enough to someone that they won't sell it for less than $30 even if they're quitting the game, then that means Magic is healthy. And it means that this other person's work is increasing the value of my FoWs. That would make me happy. (Well, I don't own FoW, that was an example.)
In addition to those two benefits for everyone, one person in the community will make or lose money. Basically I just said that whenever someone buys singles, it's good for the game. That's kind of obvious. Personally, I don't speculate because I don't have any/enough extra tickets. I always just buy the next eternal staple on my list instead. But for those who do, by all means. All stores/bots are basically speculators because they buy 10 to 20 copies of a card to resell later. And mtgotraders rocks! =)
Being someone who didn't spend a lot of time drafting in Zen I have to say this article did a great job of previewing some of the WW cards in addition to giving almost a small recap on Zen
It's a common in Visions, thus Pauper-legal.
im honest here, i havent even read this article yet, but i know its going to be spot on and JUST what i wanted to read about WW right now.
thanks
Some of these links are broken:
The requested page could not be found.
He probably bought the vamps for 40 lol
Heya sorry for the late comment here, flips. Glad to see another article by you. Seeing how plows are 1 ticket or lower it might be advisable to replace condemn with them anyway.
I like the deck and the idea behind it but it seems to me that it's a bit too much dependant on Bloodchief Ascension. I think that it needs a Plan B in case things go wrong. Most of the Grixis decks pack Sorin-Chandra combo, and maybe you can add one or two copies of each.
Alternatively, you can try the new Chandra. Her second ability is custom tailored for Bloodchief Ascension. The same is true for Hedron Crab as well. Everytime you play a land, you will activate Hedron Crab and thus activate your enchantment.
Thanks for the comment.
LE
Thank you for the comment. Identity Crisis is definately not needed. Its mana cost is a problem but that's not the main reason. It isn't needed because of the amount of discard spells the deck already has.
Even if I manage to cast an Identity Crisis on turn six, it would only remove only one or two cards from my opponent's hand. Which I can do with Duress or with Blightning or with Tidehollow Sculler for a much cheaper price.
It's a nice card in theory but practice shows that it is a bit overcosted for what it does; at least in this deck. And the same is true for Mind Shatter as well.
Thanks again for the comment.
LE