In that I'm not very impressed with the Black cards you were passed. I think you did well to pass them up. You seem to think that last Craw Wurm was a mistake - I disagree. I didn't see very much removal in the packs going around and you were taking some of it yourself. Because of that, I think I'd lean toward loading up on the fatties, like you did. 3x Craw Wurm is nice when you can back them up with Llanowar Elves, Rampant Growth and Overgrowth. Nicely done. Good article, by the way.
Well regarding game five I had a similar issue with cascade played card.... I think it's fare to get a ruling (not always rude) if you aren't certain if exactly when you can interrupt a cascade combination.
Well written, well done. I agree with both the round 2 game 3 strategy, and the round 5 judge call.
Regarding round 2, I think your using Primal Command to attack his mana-light hand was the right play. At the least, it was a risk that paid off; but it's less of a risk and more of a good play, since even if he draws more lands he'll be off to a slow start, I'd think.
I once managed to keep a Dragon Stompy player who kept a one-land hand, off of other sources of mana via a Thoughtseize, Duress, and FoW, long enough to kill him with a 2/3 goyf and 2 1/1 slivers. So plays like that seem good to me, since they worked for me.
Regarding round 5, IMO it's not his right to "take back" a block at that point if he didn't realize there was an exalted trigger. If he messed up, that's his fault. And calling a judge is the right thing to do.
I just really hate people who consider enforcing the rules as they are "impolite", or any variation thereof. The game is meant to be played according to the rules of the game, and doing so is not "impolite".
I would have chosen aven fisher over the elves P1P3 which would have ended up netting you an awesome U/R deck with the next picks being remove soul, sift, sift, cloud elemental, cloud elemental. You then get to take the looter P2. Of course, hindsight is 20/20, but a 2/2 flyer that draws a card is definitely on par with the elves and in XXX evasion is excellent, especially when paired with DD.
I disagree, I don't see Black being that good in this draft, especially when you have to pick Platinum Angel over Gravedigger in pack 2. I would have also picked the Llanowar Elves over Mass of Ghouls or Knight of Dusk, because of the removal from the first 2 picks. Green allowed for a more offensive attack with efficient creatures and fatties at your disposal. Black would have taken a more controlled but more defensive approach that I think would have caused you to have to be more defensive with the shades because I think you would have taken an earlier hit without the efficient crits and mana acceleration of green. Congrats on the win.
Can't argue with the results, congrats on the win.
My take on a few picks. I like Rod of Ruin a lot. If not over Shock in the first pack, then over Craw Wurm in the 3rd pack, as you suggested in hindsight. Also, Civic Wayfinder is one of the top green commons imo, and should have been taken over the Wildebeasts in pack 2. Between Terramorphic Expanse, Chromatic Sphere, and the Wayfinder, splashing for some of the powerful Black commons (like Essence Drain, Terror, and Recover) is not a huge stretch and can really help a deck out.
In Pack 2, Pick 8, you definitely would not take Composite Golem for this deck, but if you are not in green I find the Golem to be a solid, if slightly over costed creature that can block Severed Legions and trade with the Green's common fatties. It can also help get off high casting spells like Plague Wind and Reya in a pinch.
I didn't even give a thought to Black until the Essence Drain was passed to me. I didn't value the 2 black creatures over the Elves in pick 3, maybe even. But it wasn't an overwhelming indicator to go Black. I guess it also depends on your preference. I have since changed mine and look to go RB now. Maybe I would have drafted it different this week.
I completely agree, going Black was the ideal play all the way, starting with pick 3. also why are you running cards like chromatic sphere, sylvan scrying and overgrowth in a 2 color deck especially when you ran 11 creatures, you needed to be at 13-15. just my 2 cents
Your draft turned on pick 3 with the choice of green as your second color. While I would have chosen black as the second color here, you DID 3-0 the draft after all, GJ! (I realize that sending signals in a swiss draft is a dicey proposition, but the first pack had the next best card being blue, and the second had a white and also a green card passed)
It is nice to read your draft coverage from swiss events as opposed to most of the other draft recaps being 8-4's. I cannot stand 4-3-2-2's because of the one pack prize drop from either of the other queues.
I haven't played 100-card singleton, but some of the combos that are banned are played in Classic, so I've seen how they function there. Some of this may be relevant to singleton.
Gifts Ungiven: In a Gifts Rock deck I and some of my clanmates used to play, the important card we used was Genesis. The ability to get a creature back every turn with it is quite useful against, well, pretty much anything.
If we didn't desperately need something else, the best gifts pile would be: Genesis, Eternal Witness, Cabal Therapy, something useful such as Loxodon Hierarch or Pernicious Deed.
Salvagers/LED is a combo not played in Classic, despite being able to play 4 of each, 4 Trinket Mage, 1 each of vampiric/demonic tutors and imperial seal, etc., in 60 cards. Painter's Servant + Grindstone is played, and is good, but is nowhere near broken in Classic, again with 4 of each combo piece, 4 Trinket Mages, etc.
Flash is restricted in Classic, but in Singleton it would be "restricted" to one copy also. Protean Hulk and Summoner's Pact, however, are not restricted in Classic. In Classic, Flash decks - with 1 Flash, unrestricted Hulk and Pact (played at 2 each), 1 each of Vamp tutor and Imperial Seal, and UNRESTRICTED Mystical Tutor - which can fetch either combo piece - have only made 5 top 8s in Classic over the course of the 5 months of 2009. And did I mention having 4 Mystical Tutor? I didn't mention the fact that the Virulent Sliver/Heart Sliver kill is immune to the majority of the graveyard hate, or that it serves as a decent plan C for the deck, where plan B is Tarmogoyfs.
And with all that in 60 cards, Classic Flash isn't broken. It might be worth considering if it's really broken in Singleton either.
Aggro in my opinion will always dominate this format, or at the most agro control. The reasons for this are many, and i'd love to discuss the reasons i feel this way online. Bascily the bottom line is, if the agro person doesn't over extend themselves, they have access to many many better 1 of options than a control player does. If you scan some of the top lists, there are good creatures early that must be dealt with, then if you hit mass removal, or targeted removal, you can leave behind a slogger, dues or, the suprisingly amazingly powerful flameblast dragon. Those cards require immediate answers. If i can pose more questions than your deck has answers i'm going to win.
Sidenote: Anyone playing red/green or red green white.... Give flameblast dragon a try. He is retartedly good. Seriously.
Yes much like Kiss, Rebirth really is a limited card - I don't think its just Sealed.
The fact that you can land cycle any of a number of cards (including fiery fall) - and get 6 damage out of rebirth to get a card back that can again do more means it will always have a place in any Naya/Jund deck that I have and 95% of the time be splashed otherwise.
I have to agree the format for sealed is faster than it used to be - you have to curve out much more fluidly than any block I have played in before.
In my limited experience 2-drops are /very/ important in A/C/R draft. I often find myself in situations where I have a bomb (Broodmate, ...) in hand and am dead before I can assemble the mana to cast it because of a number of incredible two and three drops. I think the most essential part (even more than usually) is /not/ sticking to fatties on the crappy side (e.g., steel-clad) but to watch out for the curve, and, if nothing else works, go super-agressive. I have been known to play steel-clad on occasion in A/A/C, but I think I will never again. I think this is going to be the rare case of a draft format where decent but hard-to-cast bombs are sometimes picked below nice cheap dorks. I know I will try.
Ive done 3 of the ala/reborn sealeds and gone 3-1 3-1 2-2. I have found that 2 drops are the key to winning. obv not ripclan, but the blades for sure, and i have found that the 2/2 whitered vigilance haste guy isnt horrible. Of course it all depends on your deck
Well I just got owned by a putrid leech, but in general I still think random 2 drops are not a good idea. Other formats I've felt that you really need to play 2 drops even if they're just 2/1 dorks, but here I think they really need to deserve the slot.
I really don't agree with you about not playing 2 drops. Alot of people don't realize that Reborn has increased the speed of the format and getting down early pressure can sometimes just overwhelm your opponent. This applies alot more to draft than sealed since in draft you really can't play a slow deck anymore but it still holds true in sealed. Sure you're not going to play Rip-Clan but I almost never played it before since it is just a terrible card after turn 2. However there are decks where it's decent in but usually hard to cast two drops are just bad. I'm assuming you include the blades as playable of course.
lol @ eddie112 : u're funnny.. u dun have to apologise for anything. I think nest/earthcraft in a green based deck is fine since u can actually use both sides so some extent but drawing grindstone by itself is probably almost never good for u unless your opponent tries to mystical/enlightened/worldly tutor up something.. Congrats to ur 3rd place.. =) Earthcraft is good for overextending ur hand against decks that don't have wrath effects, that can be quite a beating..
renappel: my bad.. u're right bout fetters n o ring.. they're definitely not creature auras..
IvoMV: While we can see how powerful it is, it has quite a few limitations. With the PEs topped by aggro decks, it is possible that Gifts cannot gifts aggressively to get whatever it wants to work to work without managing pressure from the other side.
Aggro is clearly the way to go (from the results) and with sideboards up, their onslaught on blue just gets better (pyroblast/gutteral response) and also, graveyard hate is very strong vs gifts too. I don't think gifts will be that big a problem if people are prepared to face it but the current configuration of the banned list might contribute to lesser responses to gifts ungiven like being able to using black tutors to fight it aggressively.
I'm very afraid to play borderposts in the first turns of the game because getting one zapped can be crushing.
I've been playing a lot of ALA=ARB sealed in pre- and release events and one thing I've noted is that 2 drops need to be really damn good to warrant being in the deck. Knight of the Skyward Eye makes the cut as he's practically a 5/5, but most others I won't bother with... Rip Clan Gnasher especially. He might get in once on turn 2 but after that he's mostly dead as the big green monsters come down (I have seen maybe 1-2 decks not playing green in all my sealed experience).
So my overall advice is pretty similar:
#1 - Play your bombs - other people will play theirs, so you need some to match up or you won't win packs
#2 - Play your removal - with the caveat that ideally it should be in your bomb colors, and you don't want to play bad removal in place of good creatures
#3 - Play large monsters - If the best you've got is steel-clad serpent, then play it. Everyone else will have large monsters so you need to have your own or you won't win packs
#4 - 2 drop creatures need to be really good or just don't bother.
And a final note... Deadshot Minotaur is really good, I had 2 now in my latest sealed and they were excellent all event. (My Ajani Vengeant and Lord of Extinction helped out too :).
Thanks Alex, great article very informative!
i'm still saddened that i lost that uber close game 3 against bruttibler in rd 7 playing for T8, but looking back i'm glad it made for a much more diverse T8 and metagame in general.
I think your analysis on mothdust changeling is slightly off, as its primary purpose is for the deck to have a chance against slivers. The evasion is almost negligible as every other creature in the deck flies so tapping a flyer to give mothdust flying doesn't really make sense. If it were not for the popularity of slivers, there are some much better options in that slot. So the fact that mothdust is a sliver is much more important than it being a faerie.
In that I'm not very impressed with the Black cards you were passed. I think you did well to pass them up. You seem to think that last Craw Wurm was a mistake - I disagree. I didn't see very much removal in the packs going around and you were taking some of it yourself. Because of that, I think I'd lean toward loading up on the fatties, like you did. 3x Craw Wurm is nice when you can back them up with Llanowar Elves, Rampant Growth and Overgrowth. Nicely done. Good article, by the way.
Well regarding game five I had a similar issue with cascade played card.... I think it's fare to get a ruling (not always rude) if you aren't certain if exactly when you can interrupt a cascade combination.
The exalted trigger really should have been announced before the blocking... But taking back the wrong block certainly wasn't his right.
And that mystery cascade deck sounds extremely similar to 5 color blood. There's a few variants running around, and no one seems too certain which is best. here's a link to an article on them: http://mtgsalvation.com/1039-thirst-for-knowledge-boiling-blood.html
Well written, well done. I agree with both the round 2 game 3 strategy, and the round 5 judge call.
Regarding round 2, I think your using Primal Command to attack his mana-light hand was the right play. At the least, it was a risk that paid off; but it's less of a risk and more of a good play, since even if he draws more lands he'll be off to a slow start, I'd think.
I once managed to keep a Dragon Stompy player who kept a one-land hand, off of other sources of mana via a Thoughtseize, Duress, and FoW, long enough to kill him with a 2/3 goyf and 2 1/1 slivers. So plays like that seem good to me, since they worked for me.
Regarding round 5, IMO it's not his right to "take back" a block at that point if he didn't realize there was an exalted trigger. If he messed up, that's his fault. And calling a judge is the right thing to do.
I just really hate people who consider enforcing the rules as they are "impolite", or any variation thereof. The game is meant to be played according to the rules of the game, and doing so is not "impolite".
nice move on bouncing windbrisk and shuffling away.
I would have chosen aven fisher over the elves P1P3 which would have ended up netting you an awesome U/R deck with the next picks being remove soul, sift, sift, cloud elemental, cloud elemental. You then get to take the looter P2. Of course, hindsight is 20/20, but a 2/2 flyer that draws a card is definitely on par with the elves and in XXX evasion is excellent, especially when paired with DD.
Andrea contact me when you're online, I have something for you.
LE
I disagree, I don't see Black being that good in this draft, especially when you have to pick Platinum Angel over Gravedigger in pack 2. I would have also picked the Llanowar Elves over Mass of Ghouls or Knight of Dusk, because of the removal from the first 2 picks. Green allowed for a more offensive attack with efficient creatures and fatties at your disposal. Black would have taken a more controlled but more defensive approach that I think would have caused you to have to be more defensive with the shades because I think you would have taken an earlier hit without the efficient crits and mana acceleration of green. Congrats on the win.
Can't argue with the results, congrats on the win.
My take on a few picks. I like Rod of Ruin a lot. If not over Shock in the first pack, then over Craw Wurm in the 3rd pack, as you suggested in hindsight. Also, Civic Wayfinder is one of the top green commons imo, and should have been taken over the Wildebeasts in pack 2. Between Terramorphic Expanse, Chromatic Sphere, and the Wayfinder, splashing for some of the powerful Black commons (like Essence Drain, Terror, and Recover) is not a huge stretch and can really help a deck out.
In Pack 2, Pick 8, you definitely would not take Composite Golem for this deck, but if you are not in green I find the Golem to be a solid, if slightly over costed creature that can block Severed Legions and trade with the Green's common fatties. It can also help get off high casting spells like Plague Wind and Reya in a pinch.
I didn't even give a thought to Black until the Essence Drain was passed to me. I didn't value the 2 black creatures over the Elves in pick 3, maybe even. But it wasn't an overwhelming indicator to go Black. I guess it also depends on your preference. I have since changed mine and look to go RB now. Maybe I would have drafted it different this week.
I completely agree, going Black was the ideal play all the way, starting with pick 3. also why are you running cards like chromatic sphere, sylvan scrying and overgrowth in a 2 color deck especially when you ran 11 creatures, you needed to be at 13-15. just my 2 cents
Your draft turned on pick 3 with the choice of green as your second color. While I would have chosen black as the second color here, you DID 3-0 the draft after all, GJ! (I realize that sending signals in a swiss draft is a dicey proposition, but the first pack had the next best card being blue, and the second had a white and also a green card passed)
It is nice to read your draft coverage from swiss events as opposed to most of the other draft recaps being 8-4's. I cannot stand 4-3-2-2's because of the one pack prize drop from either of the other queues.
Good luck getting to 15.
I haven't played 100-card singleton, but some of the combos that are banned are played in Classic, so I've seen how they function there. Some of this may be relevant to singleton.
Gifts Ungiven: In a Gifts Rock deck I and some of my clanmates used to play, the important card we used was Genesis. The ability to get a creature back every turn with it is quite useful against, well, pretty much anything.
If we didn't desperately need something else, the best gifts pile would be: Genesis, Eternal Witness, Cabal Therapy, something useful such as Loxodon Hierarch or Pernicious Deed.
Salvagers/LED is a combo not played in Classic, despite being able to play 4 of each, 4 Trinket Mage, 1 each of vampiric/demonic tutors and imperial seal, etc., in 60 cards. Painter's Servant + Grindstone is played, and is good, but is nowhere near broken in Classic, again with 4 of each combo piece, 4 Trinket Mages, etc.
Flash is restricted in Classic, but in Singleton it would be "restricted" to one copy also. Protean Hulk and Summoner's Pact, however, are not restricted in Classic. In Classic, Flash decks - with 1 Flash, unrestricted Hulk and Pact (played at 2 each), 1 each of Vamp tutor and Imperial Seal, and UNRESTRICTED Mystical Tutor - which can fetch either combo piece - have only made 5 top 8s in Classic over the course of the 5 months of 2009. And did I mention having 4 Mystical Tutor? I didn't mention the fact that the Virulent Sliver/Heart Sliver kill is immune to the majority of the graveyard hate, or that it serves as a decent plan C for the deck, where plan B is Tarmogoyfs.
And with all that in 60 cards, Classic Flash isn't broken. It might be worth considering if it's really broken in Singleton either.
Aggro in my opinion will always dominate this format, or at the most agro control. The reasons for this are many, and i'd love to discuss the reasons i feel this way online. Bascily the bottom line is, if the agro person doesn't over extend themselves, they have access to many many better 1 of options than a control player does. If you scan some of the top lists, there are good creatures early that must be dealt with, then if you hit mass removal, or targeted removal, you can leave behind a slogger, dues or, the suprisingly amazingly powerful flameblast dragon. Those cards require immediate answers. If i can pose more questions than your deck has answers i'm going to win.
Sidenote: Anyone playing red/green or red green white.... Give flameblast dragon a try. He is retartedly good. Seriously.
Yes much like Kiss, Rebirth really is a limited card - I don't think its just Sealed.
The fact that you can land cycle any of a number of cards (including fiery fall) - and get 6 damage out of rebirth to get a card back that can again do more means it will always have a place in any Naya/Jund deck that I have and 95% of the time be splashed otherwise.
I have to agree the format for sealed is faster than it used to be - you have to curve out much more fluidly than any block I have played in before.
I would think more O-rings would be better than Relics... But that's just my opinion.. Maybe he's looking for the 2-1 with Grave hate and draw..
Have to agree with you on this card. It's very strong - at least in Sealed.
In my limited experience 2-drops are /very/ important in A/C/R draft. I often find myself in situations where I have a bomb (Broodmate, ...) in hand and am dead before I can assemble the mana to cast it because of a number of incredible two and three drops. I think the most essential part (even more than usually) is /not/ sticking to fatties on the crappy side (e.g., steel-clad) but to watch out for the curve, and, if nothing else works, go super-agressive. I have been known to play steel-clad on occasion in A/A/C, but I think I will never again. I think this is going to be the rare case of a draft format where decent but hard-to-cast bombs are sometimes picked below nice cheap dorks. I know I will try.
Ive done 3 of the ala/reborn sealeds and gone 3-1 3-1 2-2. I have found that 2 drops are the key to winning. obv not ripclan, but the blades for sure, and i have found that the 2/2 whitered vigilance haste guy isnt horrible. Of course it all depends on your deck
Well I just got owned by a putrid leech, but in general I still think random 2 drops are not a good idea. Other formats I've felt that you really need to play 2 drops even if they're just 2/1 dorks, but here I think they really need to deserve the slot.
I really don't agree with you about not playing 2 drops. Alot of people don't realize that Reborn has increased the speed of the format and getting down early pressure can sometimes just overwhelm your opponent. This applies alot more to draft than sealed since in draft you really can't play a slow deck anymore but it still holds true in sealed. Sure you're not going to play Rip-Clan but I almost never played it before since it is just a terrible card after turn 2. However there are decks where it's decent in but usually hard to cast two drops are just bad. I'm assuming you include the blades as playable of course.
lol @ eddie112 : u're funnny.. u dun have to apologise for anything. I think nest/earthcraft in a green based deck is fine since u can actually use both sides so some extent but drawing grindstone by itself is probably almost never good for u unless your opponent tries to mystical/enlightened/worldly tutor up something.. Congrats to ur 3rd place.. =) Earthcraft is good for overextending ur hand against decks that don't have wrath effects, that can be quite a beating..
renappel: my bad.. u're right bout fetters n o ring.. they're definitely not creature auras..
IvoMV: While we can see how powerful it is, it has quite a few limitations. With the PEs topped by aggro decks, it is possible that Gifts cannot gifts aggressively to get whatever it wants to work to work without managing pressure from the other side.
Aggro is clearly the way to go (from the results) and with sideboards up, their onslaught on blue just gets better (pyroblast/gutteral response) and also, graveyard hate is very strong vs gifts too. I don't think gifts will be that big a problem if people are prepared to face it but the current configuration of the banned list might contribute to lesser responses to gifts ungiven like being able to using black tutors to fight it aggressively.
I'm very afraid to play borderposts in the first turns of the game because getting one zapped can be crushing.
I've been playing a lot of ALA=ARB sealed in pre- and release events and one thing I've noted is that 2 drops need to be really damn good to warrant being in the deck. Knight of the Skyward Eye makes the cut as he's practically a 5/5, but most others I won't bother with... Rip Clan Gnasher especially. He might get in once on turn 2 but after that he's mostly dead as the big green monsters come down (I have seen maybe 1-2 decks not playing green in all my sealed experience).
So my overall advice is pretty similar:
#1 - Play your bombs - other people will play theirs, so you need some to match up or you won't win packs
#2 - Play your removal - with the caveat that ideally it should be in your bomb colors, and you don't want to play bad removal in place of good creatures
#3 - Play large monsters - If the best you've got is steel-clad serpent, then play it. Everyone else will have large monsters so you need to have your own or you won't win packs
#4 - 2 drop creatures need to be really good or just don't bother.
And a final note... Deadshot Minotaur is really good, I had 2 now in my latest sealed and they were excellent all event. (My Ajani Vengeant and Lord of Extinction helped out too :).
Thanks Alex, great article very informative!
i'm still saddened that i lost that uber close game 3 against bruttibler in rd 7 playing for T8, but looking back i'm glad it made for a much more diverse T8 and metagame in general.
I think your analysis on mothdust changeling is slightly off, as its primary purpose is for the deck to have a chance against slivers. The evasion is almost negligible as every other creature in the deck flies so tapping a flyer to give mothdust flying doesn't really make sense. If it were not for the popularity of slivers, there are some much better options in that slot. So the fact that mothdust is a sliver is much more important than it being a faerie.
Why does the top decklist (mono-black) run 3x Expanse? I think I'm missing something obvious here.