That was exactly my point. It seems unnecessary for that exact reason. I am well aware of how good Karakas is in the right format/deck. But with 2 legendary creatures out of 60 cards how likely is it to be useful often? I think not.
With all due respect, the author more than addressed everything you ranted about. He mentioned that he felt lucky he won this draft, and at the beginning he frames the entire article by saying that he is primarily a pauper player and that he's playing in the less competitive swiss queues.
Additionally, if you don't like draft reports, why read them? I definitely can understand that an experienced drafter could find this article less than educational, but it was well written and did a great job of speaking to its target audience.
Paul, you just have to play the card to understand its power. Why not four? Because it's legendary. And it's not only about Sygg. It's about sending every single legendary annoyance that may appear on the other side of the table back to the opponent.
Karakas is an excellent card but only one is enough as Tribal Wars is not a format where legendary creatures are seen very frequently.
Cancel is so good in this format. Very much disagree about not taking that.
*Rant*
Clearly the first poster is commenting on the quality of the drafters at the table since its pretty clear that the cards this person got late are way above par. P8 Windrider Eel, P10 Sky Ruin Drake. Pirannah Marsh and Kor Duelist were both picked over the Sky Ruin Drake. No good drafters will do that...sorry, but who the hell takes a Priannah Marsh over Sky Ruin Drake?
Thats whats most annoying about draft reports. You write one when you win out, and then when someone else is looking at the picks they realize that you got handed a truly amazing deck. OK, so what I learned is to get lucky at getting passed great cards. Yay.
*End Rant*
In game one of match one Id have played the Kor on turn two. The Lotus Cobra is not all that amazing of an accelerator. Hes basically a Llanowar Elf. Would you use a Journey to Nowhere on a Llanowar Elf? That play basically cost you the game as you might have been able to outrace your opponent without his Grazing Gladeheart in play and keeping the Paralyzing Grasp for his Timbermaw Larve.
Also, the Noble Vestige ONLY prevents damage to player. Yes, that makes it = poo.
I liked your aticle. It's always fun for me to see a couple different decks.
I am not sure what you meant when you said Day of Judgment was a little too expensive for the casual room. How does price have anything to do with casual/non-casual debate? Many "casual cards" have been really expensive. (for example: Reya Dawnbringer used to be around $40)
Oh and p2p3 taking the timermaw larvae was a huge error. Cancel is surprisingly good in this format, especially when you can get an agro start then counter any 5 mana bombs of your opponent.
Nice draft, you basically got the nuts UW landfall deck. Emeria is a house and 3 journey's is bonkers. You even had the deadly duo of hookmaster and skyfisher for multiple tappings.
oh i see, sorry anon guy only slightly though half that deck is not standard legal so you should have known better. I can feel for steve on this one. As a fellow writer i have forgotten to change titles and subtitles many time during writing an article, its suprisingly easy to forget too
Not a bad article, but I agree with the (rather polite, mind you) anonymous user above. I don't really see a rhyme or reason to the article. That is, I don't see anything that will grab a reader's attention and keep it there. (I need to work on this myself, or JXClayton's never gonna approve my articles... :P)
Also, be sure to preview your articles before submitting. It seems like you had a run-in with some bad formatting that never got fixed. It's amazing what a simple spell-check can do to make your article look more professional.
Other than that, keep up the good work! I'd like to see more out of you.
The thing I think you may have missed is that red *could* have just been thin pack one. Also, after playing with him, Ive found the Molten Ravager to be much better than I thought he would be...even in a not-so-mountainous deck. Thing is, he stops a pumped Plated Geopede and stops the 3/2 red intimidate guy. Very few cards do that which come down T3 and are relevant late game like the Ravager can be.
Ravager would have been my pick pack 1 pick 6 and Mark of Mutiny pick 7. At that point you would have passed zero red so even if someone to your Left had taken an early red card like Bolt then they probably have to abandon red by the end of the pack.
Finally, you never know if your going to get good allies. The Stonework Puma is my pick 4, pack 1. He will always make the deck since he can block all the intimidate guys, regardless if I have an ally theme or not. Intimidate guys are very early picks for black and red and this guy trades with both of them...so hes solid even though he could just be a vanilla 3-drop 2/2.
Fish has been popular since my friend Sean Mckeown showed us the way many years ago (and Mitch Okun (another friend) before that was practically yelling at us about how good Merfolk were.) I couldn't manage the expensive cards on that list though. Same goes for Faeries.
Bitterblossom is indeed a heavy hitter for faeries but I think Fish has the reach. I could be wrong.
Zoo mana base meaning 4x Taiga 4xPlateau + fetches? Yeah thats a pretty penny. Cats are aggro if you get the right draw (I had a few games where I just rolled over a well tuned deck piloted by a good player just because I had the perfect draw.) But my experience is that it is randomly bad. This is very much having to do with the land draw too.
You are right btw about Leyline...Helm is the culprit really. Leyline is strong but not a game breaker by itself and it does staunch defender work vs Dredge and the like and completely kills recursion. (grrr!)
Cool list, is Karakas really worth it though? Seems like with Fish you really want as many blue sources as you can get (Adakar Wastes and the like). How is that deck doing?
I am still up in the air about the league. I am not sure I want to enter with a lackluster deck and I can't actually field the snakes deck above which I think despite Badgers comments is good for many wins, though it could be tuned a lot more.
That was exactly my point. It seems unnecessary for that exact reason. I am well aware of how good Karakas is in the right format/deck. But with 2 legendary creatures out of 60 cards how likely is it to be useful often? I think not.
With all due respect, the author more than addressed everything you ranted about. He mentioned that he felt lucky he won this draft, and at the beginning he frames the entire article by saying that he is primarily a pauper player and that he's playing in the less competitive swiss queues.
Additionally, if you don't like draft reports, why read them? I definitely can understand that an experienced drafter could find this article less than educational, but it was well written and did a great job of speaking to its target audience.
Paul, you just have to play the card to understand its power. Why not four? Because it's legendary. And it's not only about Sygg. It's about sending every single legendary annoyance that may appear on the other side of the table back to the opponent.
Karakas is an excellent card but only one is enough as Tribal Wars is not a format where legendary creatures are seen very frequently.
LE
Perhaps you meant kings there? That sentence does not make any sense with aces.
Cancel is so good in this format. Very much disagree about not taking that.
*Rant*
Clearly the first poster is commenting on the quality of the drafters at the table since its pretty clear that the cards this person got late are way above par. P8 Windrider Eel, P10 Sky Ruin Drake. Pirannah Marsh and Kor Duelist were both picked over the Sky Ruin Drake. No good drafters will do that...sorry, but who the hell takes a Priannah Marsh over Sky Ruin Drake?
Thats whats most annoying about draft reports. You write one when you win out, and then when someone else is looking at the picks they realize that you got handed a truly amazing deck. OK, so what I learned is to get lucky at getting passed great cards. Yay.
*End Rant*
In game one of match one Id have played the Kor on turn two. The Lotus Cobra is not all that amazing of an accelerator. Hes basically a Llanowar Elf. Would you use a Journey to Nowhere on a Llanowar Elf? That play basically cost you the game as you might have been able to outrace your opponent without his Grazing Gladeheart in play and keeping the Paralyzing Grasp for his Timbermaw Larve.
Also, the Noble Vestige ONLY prevents damage to player. Yes, that makes it = poo.
-M
Love the diction in this article. It's always great to hear someone play with the language.
I liked your aticle. It's always fun for me to see a couple different decks.
I am not sure what you meant when you said Day of Judgment was a little too expensive for the casual room. How does price have anything to do with casual/non-casual debate? Many "casual cards" have been really expensive. (for example: Reya Dawnbringer used to be around $40)
~ rushmore111
Oh and p2p3 taking the timermaw larvae was a huge error. Cancel is surprisingly good in this format, especially when you can get an agro start then counter any 5 mana bombs of your opponent.
Yeah but is it really worth it? That is the question. Is the deck really all about Sygg? if so why not 4?
What an idiotic comment.
Nice draft, you basically got the nuts UW landfall deck. Emeria is a house and 3 journey's is bonkers. You even had the deadly duo of hookmaster and skyfisher for multiple tappings.
Nice work, and keep these articles coming!
oh i see, sorry anon guy only slightly though half that deck is not standard legal so you should have known better. I can feel for steve on this one. As a fellow writer i have forgotten to change titles and subtitles many time during writing an article, its suprisingly easy to forget too
Karakas can act defensively to protect Sygg or offensively to deal with opposing legends.
It is titled as Standard Legal....obviously mistitled
Aw Snap.
wow dude reading is tech...find one spot in his article where he says rings is a standard card. Otherwise you just achieved an epic fail
Not a bad article, but I agree with the (rather polite, mind you) anonymous user above. I don't really see a rhyme or reason to the article. That is, I don't see anything that will grab a reader's attention and keep it there. (I need to work on this myself, or JXClayton's never gonna approve my articles... :P)
Also, be sure to preview your articles before submitting. It seems like you had a run-in with some bad formatting that never got fixed. It's amazing what a simple spell-check can do to make your article look more professional.
Other than that, keep up the good work! I'd like to see more out of you.
Rings of Brighthearth is NOT Standard/Type 2 Legal. It's a Lorwyn card.
well at least he doesnt troll under the anonymous name...
The thing I think you may have missed is that red *could* have just been thin pack one. Also, after playing with him, Ive found the Molten Ravager to be much better than I thought he would be...even in a not-so-mountainous deck. Thing is, he stops a pumped Plated Geopede and stops the 3/2 red intimidate guy. Very few cards do that which come down T3 and are relevant late game like the Ravager can be.
Ravager would have been my pick pack 1 pick 6 and Mark of Mutiny pick 7. At that point you would have passed zero red so even if someone to your Left had taken an early red card like Bolt then they probably have to abandon red by the end of the pack.
Finally, you never know if your going to get good allies. The Stonework Puma is my pick 4, pack 1. He will always make the deck since he can block all the intimidate guys, regardless if I have an ally theme or not. Intimidate guys are very early picks for black and red and this guy trades with both of them...so hes solid even though he could just be a vanilla 3-drop 2/2.
-M
Absolutely beautiful phrasing. You are far too humble imho but a little sarcasm + humility go a long way. :)
!!!!!
That is all I can say about that last paragraph. So right on the money, words fail.
Gifts is totally broken! :P
Sounds like a blast (man I want to go one of these years lol) Anyway glad to hear it wasn't all downer.
Fish has been popular since my friend Sean Mckeown showed us the way many years ago (and Mitch Okun (another friend) before that was practically yelling at us about how good Merfolk were.) I couldn't manage the expensive cards on that list though. Same goes for Faeries.
Bitterblossom is indeed a heavy hitter for faeries but I think Fish has the reach. I could be wrong.
Zoo mana base meaning 4x Taiga 4xPlateau + fetches? Yeah thats a pretty penny. Cats are aggro if you get the right draw (I had a few games where I just rolled over a well tuned deck piloted by a good player just because I had the perfect draw.) But my experience is that it is randomly bad. This is very much having to do with the land draw too.
You are right btw about Leyline...Helm is the culprit really. Leyline is strong but not a game breaker by itself and it does staunch defender work vs Dredge and the like and completely kills recursion. (grrr!)
Cool list, is Karakas really worth it though? Seems like with Fish you really want as many blue sources as you can get (Adakar Wastes and the like). How is that deck doing?
I am still up in the air about the league. I am not sure I want to enter with a lackluster deck and I can't actually field the snakes deck above which I think despite Badgers comments is good for many wins, though it could be tuned a lot more.