This test to see if we re paying attention to your rules right?
Rule #1 broken
Rule #2 smashed to pieces with the Recumbent Bliss passing
Rule #3 you said it yourself "had I bothered to check MTGOTraders.com, I would have known "
Then to the first couple of pics which were not easy but.....
p1 commits you to a color and a aura at that.
p2 at least go with the on color hill giant that can actually block well
You are such a better writer/player than this. This article was epic fail. Unless your intention was to get us involved to see if we are paying attention, then EPIC WIN!!
You have always done better than this. I look forward to reading your articles in the future that were not written at 4:30 in the morning.
Really, you should take the opportunity to shuffle your opponent's deck when offered. At high REL events this is mandatory, but you really should do it at any enforcement level.
The math is pretty simple: 4322 pays out a total of 11 packs, Swiss pays out 12. Let's take skill out of the equation first, and assume this is a coin-flipping contest. Obviously, in the long run you will be much better off in Swiss because you have an equal chance at a 12-pack prize pool as opposed to an 11-pack prize pool.
I think Swiss is *so* much better than 4322. People get turned off by Swiss because there's no way to net positive on packs. Here's the big secret though: you aren't netting positive on packs in the long run at 4322, either! You do every once in a while, but you can end up totally empty-handed at 4322.
I'm a solid drafter. Currently at 1770, peaked at 1850. I play Swiss when possible because I average better than two packs per draft and I get three rounds of play, guaranteed.
Once you give up on the idea that you are somehow going to go infinite at drafting, you should set your sights on making each draft cost as few tickets as possible.
If you can average 2+ packs at Swiss, you just need about five tickets worth of cards to break even, three if you are in nix tix. That's fairly doable, and if not, your cost per draft is still very low.
There are many players at my skill level that scoff at the idea of playing Swiss. These are players who haven't yet accepted that they could win more packs in the long run with the steady payouts of Swiss than they win against the top players in 8-4 for 12 packs, or with the worse 11-pack payout of 4322.
I liked the article. A budget card I use for almost the same deck are +4 Trial//Error, -2 Strix, -1 Sygg, River Cutthroat (don't own it), and -1 Dimir Cutpurse (just seems weak unless you have a Helm of the Ghastlord to feed it). I also like Soul Manipulation, but it's usually a side board card.
"One of the main points of the article was to give strategies for doing well in drafts while also doing some rare drafting to pay for more drafts."
Right, but he *didn't do that.* He passed up solid picks in a deck that desperately needed playables to take unsellable rares on multiple occasions. He is incredibly fortunate to have won any packs off this draft.
Checking to see how many copies of a rare he has before making a pick is also bad for what he's trying to impress, here. If you want a second copy of that $0.12 rare, buy it for $0.12, don't sacrifice deck power to take it in the draft!
You check MTGO traders before making a pick, not your collection.
you see.. I don't like putting labels on the things I do or the things I like.. Everything is so mainstream these days is anything *really* geeky or nerdy anymore. I mean if I twitter something and Oprah twitters the same thing is it geeky then?
same thing applies to "hardcore" gamers.. no.. I'm a human being that likes certain forms of entertainment..and it ranges from Comics to Sports.. some consider me geeky.. others consider me a little jocky.. I just really don't care. heh.
but once you start labeling people then segregation and discrimination starts to set in.
P1P2 was rough. I duck black like the plague, it is so bad in Shadowmoor. Gloomlance is about the only monoblack common that's good (the Faerie Macabre is decent).
Armored Ascension is so great in heavy white, I almost want to take the Dragoon or the Wisps to cut it hard, but given how bad black is to draft, I think you took the best card in the pack taking into account the metagame.
P1P4: I think you are abandoning the very principle you are trying to preach with this pick. Reaper King is $0.30. Go buy one if you want another one online, don't take it over the powerful Barkshell Blessing! Not only is your deck weaker, you are sending bad signals downstream.
P1P7: I take the Quest. It allows you to play some green without playing as many Forests, which is what your first pick likes. These packs have been weak! I am concerned you being passed to by a white drafter at this point.
P2P2: That particular removal spell is fairly weak, and I'd rather have the Puresight Merrow, which is decent on its own, but can become nasty with tap effects.
P2P3: Mass Calcify isn't that strong, I've found, because you can be dead before you cast it, and your opponent is likely going to have white creatures because of the hybrid factor. We'll see if it works for you, but I'd actually take the Silkbind in that spot. Without the Silkbind in the pack, then I take Mass Calcify.
P2P4: Safehold Sentry and Turn to Mist are both more appealing to me than Ghastbark. What are your bad memories of Safehold Sentry? It's a 2/2 for 2, for starters, that's perfectly fine. The ability is bonus, and usually does its job without having to actually activate it.
P2P5: Resplendent Mentor is better than you give it credit for in a monowhite deck. It ruins the day for aggro red decks, and can combo insanely with Silkbind Faerie or Puresight Merrow, if you had taken either.
P2P6: White Wisp is great, and definitely better for you than Pili-Pala.
Wow, that's all the relevant cards for the rest of pack two?! Ugh. By my count, after two packs, you have only seven cards I wouldn't be incredibly disappointed about having to play: Ascension, Tatterkite, Cragtreads, Safehold Duo, Last Breath, Mass Calcify, Old Ghastbark, and Kithkin Rabble.
Shielddare, Hexhunter, and Pili-Pala are pretty awful for you. To this point, this is a disaster draft, and you really need Eventide to bail you out. Fortunately, EVE is packed with great white. Unfortunately, there aren't enough good picks in a pack to truly slavage this deck, and you are going to need some luck no matter what to win matches. You'll pretty much need to draw and cast an unanswered Armored Ascension, and not draw your worst cards. Mass Cacify showing up against the decks it would really hurt is also important. I mean, this is an ugly draft to this point.
P3P1: again with the raredrafting of worthless cards! And this pack "sucks" if you are drafting white?! Spitemare is fantastic, but even better is Recumbent Bliss! After Unmake, Recumbent Bliss is the white common I want to see most.
P3P2: "The pick here is either the Nightsky Mimic or Fire at Will" Noooooo! It's RECUMBENT BLISS! Too early for a mimic you can't even trigger yet, and Fire at Will is highly conditional removal that rarely takes out more than one creature, and is easily played around by opponents. Bliss deals with just about everything, and gains you life while it does it.
P3P4: Man, you needed that Unmake.
P3P5: And that. Trapper is so good.
P3P5: We agree that Harvest Gwyllion is underrated, at least. :) Duregar Assailant is good as well, but you need to add some meat to your team for sure.
Man, you got some help from Eventide, but you need to face bad players or really draw your best stuff with this deck.
Wow, you made it to the finals? I'm sorry for being so harsh in my comments, but many of your picks were clear mistakes, and you traded deck power for worthless rares three times, which is exactly the opposite of the "recursive drafting" you are trying to teach! The best cards in your deck are very good, but the bottom end must have looked awful. Nice job eeking out a finals appearance, and good luck in Hawaii!
The problem with waiting too much is longer is that other people with the same idea are going to start selling as well. Once that starts to happen people realize that there's less demand and prices start to shrink leading up to the rotation and then drop drastically once it happens.
If you sell soon, you're for sure going to get today's prices and the longer you wait the higher the risk of prices dropping becomes. We're still a few months out from the next Standard set, but the rotation slump happens quite a ways before that. Usually around the time that Paper Magic starts to get their hands on the cards.
Forget that guy.He doesnt have a clue about how the format works.Basically tak ethe top 5 dex.affinity mbc Cloaker dex WW? Ans muc whether teachings or not.If ur deck doesnt beat at least 3 outta 5,give it up.and im saying this after buying many ug cards,like gush and daze,and losing to just more consistent dex
Only pile shuffling isn't illegal, but it can (and sometimes is) used to stack your deck if you manipulate it properly. Whenever I saw someone just pile shuffle a few times it would certainly get my attention, as it may or may not actually be randomizing the deck. It's a good time to call for a judge if you want someone's deck checked for possibly being stacked.
Not that everyone who does it is stacking their deck, but it's kind of suspicious.
well you can pile shuffle and riffle shuffle.. according to the rules (at least when I last read them a while back..) you only need to riffle shuffle 3 times..
is pile shuffling somehow illegal? thats the first I've heard of it. as long as the cards get mixed in together in a random order it doesn't matter the method. and as always the opponent may have a judge or the player themselves have a right to shuffle your deck. usually its just a cut, but you are entitled to that.
A lot of this criticism seems too harsh, as one of the main points of the article was to give strategies for doing well in drafts while also doing some rare drafting to pay for more drafts. While a lot of the criticism of the picks themselves seems valid a lot of my fellow anonymous posters seem to have forgotten the main point of this particular article. And that's not to mention the "my bads" sprinkled throughout the article acknowledging such mistakes.
Yea, dump any unused Lor/sha cards soon (although I might wait 1 month to see if Season 4 of the MOCS raises prices).
Prices are currently high for many cards, due to the popularity of standard now, and the multitude of viable decks which use a large variety of cards.
Yea, I appreciate the article, but you ignored your own rules of drafting several times and made some silly mistakes.
As mentioned, the two blisses you completely ignored are amazingly good. unconditional removal with lifegain is great. Spitemare is also amazingly good, it forces 2-for-1s a good amount of the time, and trades with *any* creature that doesn't have toughness of it's power+3.
Mass Calcify is slow in a format where mana screw is rare and creatures are efficient, silkbind is pretty much the best white common in Shadowmoor, as it is an evasive creature which acts as removal at the same time.
Other note, Oblivion ring is not in shadowmoor, although the spellduster is still really good because of the god auras. By the way If you had a bliss in the finals, you could have stopped your opponent from killing you easily.
I stopped reading after the countless typos. No offense, but these things need to be run through a spellchecker (and your article isn't the only one!).
I would say yes. They will drop, and drop pretty far.
If you're not dead-set on playing a lot of standard between now and October this would be a good time to start selling Standard cards. Leaving Standard is generally the biggest force on card prices. Although IPA leaving Extended is probably the biggest ever, but that's a special case. :)
It may be worthwhile to hold onto one deck's worth of cards to play in events as the desire grabs you, but all in all, your LRW-SHM cards are going to drop a lot once they're out of Standard.
I'll see if I can graph a few sets' worth of this type of data for next week's charts!
err...Most of your picks are made irrelevant by the fact that he's playing mono-white, a decision I respect as almost every single SSE draft I've ever done has ended me in mono-white (I start out white in SHM, and let's just say that I have an overwhelming attraction for Endless horizens....All 7 I own >_<)
I think he did well, and honestly, rare-grabbing wasn't THAT big of a deal as most of the other stuff wasn't exactly amazing...
Please, Please, Please use a spell checker next time! (Or the editor that puts the articles up, please run a spell check!) It is very distracting.
Well, this contest/article died easy.....
:-(((
This test to see if we re paying attention to your rules right?
Rule #1 broken
Rule #2 smashed to pieces with the Recumbent Bliss passing
Rule #3 you said it yourself "had I bothered to check MTGOTraders.com, I would have known "
Then to the first couple of pics which were not easy but.....
p1 commits you to a color and a aura at that.
p2 at least go with the on color hill giant that can actually block well
You are such a better writer/player than this. This article was epic fail. Unless your intention was to get us involved to see if we are paying attention, then EPIC WIN!!
You have always done better than this. I look forward to reading your articles in the future that were not written at 4:30 in the morning.
When will the final results be announced?
Really, you should take the opportunity to shuffle your opponent's deck when offered. At high REL events this is mandatory, but you really should do it at any enforcement level.
The math is pretty simple: 4322 pays out a total of 11 packs, Swiss pays out 12. Let's take skill out of the equation first, and assume this is a coin-flipping contest. Obviously, in the long run you will be much better off in Swiss because you have an equal chance at a 12-pack prize pool as opposed to an 11-pack prize pool.
I think Swiss is *so* much better than 4322. People get turned off by Swiss because there's no way to net positive on packs. Here's the big secret though: you aren't netting positive on packs in the long run at 4322, either! You do every once in a while, but you can end up totally empty-handed at 4322.
I'm a solid drafter. Currently at 1770, peaked at 1850. I play Swiss when possible because I average better than two packs per draft and I get three rounds of play, guaranteed.
Once you give up on the idea that you are somehow going to go infinite at drafting, you should set your sights on making each draft cost as few tickets as possible.
If you can average 2+ packs at Swiss, you just need about five tickets worth of cards to break even, three if you are in nix tix. That's fairly doable, and if not, your cost per draft is still very low.
There are many players at my skill level that scoff at the idea of playing Swiss. These are players who haven't yet accepted that they could win more packs in the long run with the steady payouts of Swiss than they win against the top players in 8-4 for 12 packs, or with the worse 11-pack payout of 4322.
So yeah. Long Live Swiss!
For why pile shuffling will get you a 'judge' call:
http://fivewithflores.com/2009/05/how-to-cheat/#doublenickel
Beware of he who only pile shuffles.
I liked the article. A budget card I use for almost the same deck are +4 Trial//Error, -2 Strix, -1 Sygg, River Cutthroat (don't own it), and -1 Dimir Cutpurse (just seems weak unless you have a Helm of the Ghastlord to feed it). I also like Soul Manipulation, but it's usually a side board card.
"One of the main points of the article was to give strategies for doing well in drafts while also doing some rare drafting to pay for more drafts."
Right, but he *didn't do that.* He passed up solid picks in a deck that desperately needed playables to take unsellable rares on multiple occasions. He is incredibly fortunate to have won any packs off this draft.
Checking to see how many copies of a rare he has before making a pick is also bad for what he's trying to impress, here. If you want a second copy of that $0.12 rare, buy it for $0.12, don't sacrifice deck power to take it in the draft!
You check MTGO traders before making a pick, not your collection.
you see.. I don't like putting labels on the things I do or the things I like.. Everything is so mainstream these days is anything *really* geeky or nerdy anymore. I mean if I twitter something and Oprah twitters the same thing is it geeky then?
same thing applies to "hardcore" gamers.. no.. I'm a human being that likes certain forms of entertainment..and it ranges from Comics to Sports.. some consider me geeky.. others consider me a little jocky.. I just really don't care. heh.
but once you start labeling people then segregation and discrimination starts to set in.
P1P2 was rough. I duck black like the plague, it is so bad in Shadowmoor. Gloomlance is about the only monoblack common that's good (the Faerie Macabre is decent).
Armored Ascension is so great in heavy white, I almost want to take the Dragoon or the Wisps to cut it hard, but given how bad black is to draft, I think you took the best card in the pack taking into account the metagame.
P1P4: I think you are abandoning the very principle you are trying to preach with this pick. Reaper King is $0.30. Go buy one if you want another one online, don't take it over the powerful Barkshell Blessing! Not only is your deck weaker, you are sending bad signals downstream.
P1P7: I take the Quest. It allows you to play some green without playing as many Forests, which is what your first pick likes. These packs have been weak! I am concerned you being passed to by a white drafter at this point.
P2P2: That particular removal spell is fairly weak, and I'd rather have the Puresight Merrow, which is decent on its own, but can become nasty with tap effects.
P2P3: Mass Calcify isn't that strong, I've found, because you can be dead before you cast it, and your opponent is likely going to have white creatures because of the hybrid factor. We'll see if it works for you, but I'd actually take the Silkbind in that spot. Without the Silkbind in the pack, then I take Mass Calcify.
P2P4: Safehold Sentry and Turn to Mist are both more appealing to me than Ghastbark. What are your bad memories of Safehold Sentry? It's a 2/2 for 2, for starters, that's perfectly fine. The ability is bonus, and usually does its job without having to actually activate it.
P2P5: Resplendent Mentor is better than you give it credit for in a monowhite deck. It ruins the day for aggro red decks, and can combo insanely with Silkbind Faerie or Puresight Merrow, if you had taken either.
P2P6: White Wisp is great, and definitely better for you than Pili-Pala.
Wow, that's all the relevant cards for the rest of pack two?! Ugh. By my count, after two packs, you have only seven cards I wouldn't be incredibly disappointed about having to play: Ascension, Tatterkite, Cragtreads, Safehold Duo, Last Breath, Mass Calcify, Old Ghastbark, and Kithkin Rabble.
Shielddare, Hexhunter, and Pili-Pala are pretty awful for you. To this point, this is a disaster draft, and you really need Eventide to bail you out. Fortunately, EVE is packed with great white. Unfortunately, there aren't enough good picks in a pack to truly slavage this deck, and you are going to need some luck no matter what to win matches. You'll pretty much need to draw and cast an unanswered Armored Ascension, and not draw your worst cards. Mass Cacify showing up against the decks it would really hurt is also important. I mean, this is an ugly draft to this point.
P3P1: again with the raredrafting of worthless cards! And this pack "sucks" if you are drafting white?! Spitemare is fantastic, but even better is Recumbent Bliss! After Unmake, Recumbent Bliss is the white common I want to see most.
P3P2: "The pick here is either the Nightsky Mimic or Fire at Will" Noooooo! It's RECUMBENT BLISS! Too early for a mimic you can't even trigger yet, and Fire at Will is highly conditional removal that rarely takes out more than one creature, and is easily played around by opponents. Bliss deals with just about everything, and gains you life while it does it.
P3P4: Man, you needed that Unmake.
P3P5: And that. Trapper is so good.
P3P5: We agree that Harvest Gwyllion is underrated, at least. :) Duregar Assailant is good as well, but you need to add some meat to your team for sure.
Man, you got some help from Eventide, but you need to face bad players or really draw your best stuff with this deck.
Wow, you made it to the finals? I'm sorry for being so harsh in my comments, but many of your picks were clear mistakes, and you traded deck power for worthless rares three times, which is exactly the opposite of the "recursive drafting" you are trying to teach! The best cards in your deck are very good, but the bottom end must have looked awful. Nice job eeking out a finals appearance, and good luck in Hawaii!
The problem with waiting too much is longer is that other people with the same idea are going to start selling as well. Once that starts to happen people realize that there's less demand and prices start to shrink leading up to the rotation and then drop drastically once it happens.
If you sell soon, you're for sure going to get today's prices and the longer you wait the higher the risk of prices dropping becomes. We're still a few months out from the next Standard set, but the rotation slump happens quite a ways before that. Usually around the time that Paper Magic starts to get their hands on the cards.
Forget that guy.He doesnt have a clue about how the format works.Basically tak ethe top 5 dex.affinity mbc Cloaker dex WW? Ans muc whether teachings or not.If ur deck doesnt beat at least 3 outta 5,give it up.and im saying this after buying many ug cards,like gush and daze,and losing to just more consistent dex
Only pile shuffling isn't illegal, but it can (and sometimes is) used to stack your deck if you manipulate it properly. Whenever I saw someone just pile shuffle a few times it would certainly get my attention, as it may or may not actually be randomizing the deck. It's a good time to call for a judge if you want someone's deck checked for possibly being stacked.
Not that everyone who does it is stacking their deck, but it's kind of suspicious.
now is not the time, unless the card is figure. Otherwise, wait a few months i think.
well you can pile shuffle and riffle shuffle.. according to the rules (at least when I last read them a while back..) you only need to riffle shuffle 3 times..
is pile shuffling somehow illegal? thats the first I've heard of it. as long as the cards get mixed in together in a random order it doesn't matter the method. and as always the opponent may have a judge or the player themselves have a right to shuffle your deck. usually its just a cut, but you are entitled to that.
A lot of this criticism seems too harsh, as one of the main points of the article was to give strategies for doing well in drafts while also doing some rare drafting to pay for more drafts. While a lot of the criticism of the picks themselves seems valid a lot of my fellow anonymous posters seem to have forgotten the main point of this particular article. And that's not to mention the "my bads" sprinkled throughout the article acknowledging such mistakes.
Yea, dump any unused Lor/sha cards soon (although I might wait 1 month to see if Season 4 of the MOCS raises prices).
Prices are currently high for many cards, due to the popularity of standard now, and the multitude of viable decks which use a large variety of cards.
Yea, I appreciate the article, but you ignored your own rules of drafting several times and made some silly mistakes.
As mentioned, the two blisses you completely ignored are amazingly good. unconditional removal with lifegain is great. Spitemare is also amazingly good, it forces 2-for-1s a good amount of the time, and trades with *any* creature that doesn't have toughness of it's power+3.
Mass Calcify is slow in a format where mana screw is rare and creatures are efficient, silkbind is pretty much the best white common in Shadowmoor, as it is an evasive creature which acts as removal at the same time.
Other note, Oblivion ring is not in shadowmoor, although the spellduster is still really good because of the god auras. By the way If you had a bliss in the finals, you could have stopped your opponent from killing you easily.
I stopped reading after the countless typos. No offense, but these things need to be run through a spellchecker (and your article isn't the only one!).
I prefer shotgun shuffling myself.
I would say yes. They will drop, and drop pretty far.
If you're not dead-set on playing a lot of standard between now and October this would be a good time to start selling Standard cards. Leaving Standard is generally the biggest force on card prices. Although IPA leaving Extended is probably the biggest ever, but that's a special case. :)
It may be worthwhile to hold onto one deck's worth of cards to play in events as the desire grabs you, but all in all, your LRW-SHM cards are going to drop a lot once they're out of Standard.
I'll see if I can graph a few sets' worth of this type of data for next week's charts!
Hi,
Im a standard player and im wondering if its the good time to sell LRW-SHM cards ? Will we see a big drop of price at the upcoming rotation ?
Thanks for your great articles, keep up the good work.
err...Most of your picks are made irrelevant by the fact that he's playing mono-white, a decision I respect as almost every single SSE draft I've ever done has ended me in mono-white (I start out white in SHM, and let's just say that I have an overwhelming attraction for Endless horizens....All 7 I own >_<)
I think he did well, and honestly, rare-grabbing wasn't THAT big of a deal as most of the other stuff wasn't exactly amazing...
he isnt lucky. This set provides stupid drafts. In this set, you would win without any strategy, easly.