I didn't understand a few of your picks in this draft.
P1P6: I'm never happy to play this guy, especially without a lot of good unearth combos like bone splinters or corpse connoisseur. Druid on the other hand is great, since jund decks are usually quite slow and druid also fixes for a naya bomb.
P2P1: I can't really think of a time I'd pass elspeth. I'd definitely consider splashing white or making black a splash since you just picked up one of the biggest bombs in the set and naya is a lot stronger than jund imo. Sticking with jund is fine though.
P3P1: The suicidal charge is a sideboard card most of the time. On the other hand, there is an excellent 2 drop here in the viashino slaughtermaster. I've only played this guy twice but he was excellent both times. He's good without backup since he can eat other 2 drops, but with pump or exalted like court archers/rhox charger he's just nuts. You can't be happy playing 2 rip-clans...
P3P3: Double green is too ambitious when you have close to 0 fixing at this point. You're never going to get this guy out turn 4. Go with the rupture spire or gluttonous slime depending on your curve.
I don't know how your deck looks, but it seems like you just don't have the fixing to support wild leotaus. Idk, maybe you're just luckier than me?
ham - I think sideboards will greatly change the way decks look in many ways (like not playing too many islands to avoid getting hit by boil/ boiling seas etc) the main configuration and the sideboard technology will be very crucial to how the format plays out. I'm not very comfortable with this sudden change and it is hard to get any ideas from outside formats (like edh/highlander) as those formats don't use sideboards. In some sense, singleton 100 is going to be its own unique online format altogether.
More on sideboarding in my next article =)
LE - I would think that wishes would be used as a solution/toolbox card rather than a win condition in the 100 card format because i think it'll be easier to search out a card rather than wish it out. There are exceptions like maybe merchant scrolling into a cunning wish.
I like to use glittering wish together with living wish for targets that match both because u can have 2 slots with the same access (plus both have G in the mana cost so they don't conflict with each other much). The swans of bryn argoll + chain of plasma (plus conflagulate and mana) comes to mind in this case if combo is concerned.
max - ooo.. standstill sounds v gd there.. should try it the next time i play the deck. =)
I'm not a fan of patriarch's bidding basically cos the elves deck has a couple of non-elves. Living death is brutal as it is wog+twilight's call at the same time so u can just throw blockers in the way of beaters and suddenly turn the game around =) I would think that goblins would benefit from bidding much more than elves would.
#2. Commenting more in hindsight about the picks and whether they were correct or not
I felt I commented enough. That's more or less what I commented in my 2 other drafts and most people liked it.
#3. A screenshot or two of the games critical points
Like I said Game1 he plays few cards and one of them a very bad card and I win easily. The other one I was screw for a long time, I manage to come back and he topdecks Resouding Silence and Oblivion Ring in a row to kill me. There's seriously no need for screenshots here.
I want to expand this question by adding this: Do you think that the combo decks (or any other deck too) will use the Wishes a lot?
I personally think so. The sideboards will be filled with all sorts of hate cards and maindecks will contain the appropriate Wish to get them in hand. Or if the maindeck Plan A goes wrong, one can Wish for the Plan B from the sideboard.
What do you think? Will the Wishes see play? Would you personally use any of them?
#1. Decklist
#2. Commenting more in hindsight about the picks and whether they were correct or not
#3. A screenshot or two of the games critical points
The decklist is the most critical. Without it the draft review is poor at best. Its pretty challenging to go through and write down all the picks you made and guess whether it became a good/average/great deck.
On the draft itself...Jund Battlemage is the best card in pick three, pack one IMO. He is the game breaker card in Jund since he enables ridiculous Devour tricks and makes tokens for Bone Splinters. The Capsule is good but not as game breaking. It also requires a heavier mana committment since you usually want to play it and use it on the same turn.
Without the Jund Battlemage pick three I would have taken the Souls Fire pick four. The Topan is good but there is more removal in AAC and you are frequently sitting there with no creatures in play. Topan = mediocre without buddies. Also, with the Capsule pick two you probably want to focus on BR as the main colors. Topan being an earlier drop and not pairing well with the Black pick you just made makes him the incorrect pick IMO.
Pick 6 pack one I take the mana elf. This format is about splashing for bombs and the elf not only allows you to splash for bombs but he gets you to the large amount of 5-drop+ 5-power green guys a turn earlier.
Then again, Im not a fan of Undead Lateau as Ive never seen him do anything significant in any of the games Ive ever played.
My philosophy in this format is the strongest decks are base two colors (one if possible) with a third/fourth/or fifth splash color. You drafted a mixed bag pack one (which makes it weaker going into pack two) but the early drops are red and green atm. That should influence later picks, especially in Jund since Jund dies to flying assaults unless its faster.
Suicidal Charge pick one I believe is the biggest mispick. Its good but you will almost always get one late and the Manaforged Mace is pretty nuts. Drop that turn 4 and turn 5 drop Rip Clan Crasher, equip, and swing for 5 seems pretty good. Having Unearth + the Mace on the table can earn a cheap win too. The Sylvan Bounty would also get some considerations since you wont see those as late as the Suicidal Charge.
The rest of the picks are not individually incorrect but as a whole you end up pretty evenly divided between the three colors. This is especially bad since you probably had to play some of the 2-drop 2-color guys without too much hope of getting them into play turn two.
Anyway, hope to see a few more drafts with a little more detail in the deckbuilding and playing areas.
Thanks for the comments guys - I appreciate the feedback.
Some comments in response:
I guess the Thallid isn't terrible, but I really just find him too small to make more than a minimal impact. Sure, I guess he can chump block twice...but I'd rather play a better creature to begin with and force my opponent to chump block it instead. I suppose if your really creature light, he's playable- Devour aside, I just really don't want to be playing him.
I think the Savage is a fine card - I like to have a couple of viable early drops, and two power for two mana seems fine in my book - I'm not saying to try and get this guy early, but there are a lot worse creatures that could be played, so towards the late-mid pack, grab one if you see him.
The Slime - yeah, I agree, 3rd-5th is probably a bit too early - I just got really worked up about the cute tricks you can pull with him, ie, to play him after combat and profit. In retrospect, I'd rather pick him up in the 5-7th range (maybe 4th -6th would better summarize it). Still, he has flash, so that can be relevant even without devour as he can really mess up combat if played at a good time. I guess I just think he's a generally solid creature with some interesting possibilities.
I dunno bout 3rd-5th on Gluttonous Slime bro.. only a 3/3 for 3 if played when a guy is about to die, which means u have to hold the card & keep mana open for it and the right moment may not even come. and throwing 2 of your guys into the bin to net a 4/4 for 3 with no abilities or evasion just doesn't seem that good. Especially when the format includes O-Ring, Path to Exile, and tons of other great removal spells.
I read all the things about how this card sucks. And yet, twice in one sealed event against different opponents was it played against me, which led to me losing the race and losing.
From experience, Tukatongue Thallid is good. Not very good, but good. There are plenty of X/1s in the format and his persistence helps with chumping/devour. He is a decent 1-drop in an aggressive environment. On the other hand, from experience Nacatl Savage is complete garbage. Filigree is higher and maindeck if you're in a 4-3-2-2 queue on MTGO since your opponent will probably be struggling gamely for domain or in some weird Esper hybrid, meaning you will almost always have a good target. In 8-4, good sideboard card.
I wouldn't mind, rather than a subscription service, 'free deck' events, you can play in the event whether or not you own the cards, particularly for classic, where lots of players would like to play competetively but are kept out by the ridiculous prices. It would also mean classic queues would actually fire a bit more often. I can't think of a serious problem with the idea if the events were rare enough, say once a week so that people can try out the broken cards without having to get a second mortgage.
I had a dark wars when I used to play dredge where I comboed off with 4 cards left and killed 4 people then with 0 cards left swung in for lethal on the 1 noob on the table cause I left him for last and he preceded to holy day me. This was the finals btw :(
Imho, before even thinking about generating new users Wizards has to prove that they are able to handle the current amount of users and more without getting burned like last week. Given those events they have lost any credit they still might have had with V3 and I dont think we as users (and you as one of the louder voices) should ignore that and simply pray that it never happens again or just accept it. :/
im in favor for seeing collection status its nice to see how someones collection grows.
kinda feels like when you first started and you would watch in anticipation as your buddy cracks his paks.
( every week me and my buddie would go spend our hard earned allowance on a starter each and open them one at a time as we oohed an ahhed over each others new cards, Force of Nature ftw!)
Good info, but the Painter decks have had a definite impact on Classic as the Whifster had pointed out. Painter builds are strong, albeit slightly meta-dependent.
I didn't understand a few of your picks in this draft.
P1P6: I'm never happy to play this guy, especially without a lot of good unearth combos like bone splinters or corpse connoisseur. Druid on the other hand is great, since jund decks are usually quite slow and druid also fixes for a naya bomb.
P2P1: I can't really think of a time I'd pass elspeth. I'd definitely consider splashing white or making black a splash since you just picked up one of the biggest bombs in the set and naya is a lot stronger than jund imo. Sticking with jund is fine though.
P3P1: The suicidal charge is a sideboard card most of the time. On the other hand, there is an excellent 2 drop here in the viashino slaughtermaster. I've only played this guy twice but he was excellent both times. He's good without backup since he can eat other 2 drops, but with pump or exalted like court archers/rhox charger he's just nuts. You can't be happy playing 2 rip-clans...
P3P3: Double green is too ambitious when you have close to 0 fixing at this point. You're never going to get this guy out turn 4. Go with the rupture spire or gluttonous slime depending on your curve.
I don't know how your deck looks, but it seems like you just don't have the fixing to support wild leotaus. Idk, maybe you're just luckier than me?
ham - I think sideboards will greatly change the way decks look in many ways (like not playing too many islands to avoid getting hit by boil/ boiling seas etc) the main configuration and the sideboard technology will be very crucial to how the format plays out. I'm not very comfortable with this sudden change and it is hard to get any ideas from outside formats (like edh/highlander) as those formats don't use sideboards. In some sense, singleton 100 is going to be its own unique online format altogether.
More on sideboarding in my next article =)
LE - I would think that wishes would be used as a solution/toolbox card rather than a win condition in the 100 card format because i think it'll be easier to search out a card rather than wish it out. There are exceptions like maybe merchant scrolling into a cunning wish.
I like to use glittering wish together with living wish for targets that match both because u can have 2 slots with the same access (plus both have G in the mana cost so they don't conflict with each other much). The swans of bryn argoll + chain of plasma (plus conflagulate and mana) comes to mind in this case if combo is concerned.
max - ooo.. standstill sounds v gd there.. should try it the next time i play the deck. =)
I'm not a fan of patriarch's bidding basically cos the elves deck has a couple of non-elves. Living death is brutal as it is wog+twilight's call at the same time so u can just throw blockers in the way of beaters and suddenly turn the game around =) I would think that goblins would benefit from bidding much more than elves would.
I've noticed you always say "Tropan Ascetic", when it should be "Topan Ascetic". Sorry, OC.
Sorry about the missing list. You can check it here: http://triton.imageshack.us/Himg510/scaled.php?server=510&filename=draft...
#2. Commenting more in hindsight about the picks and whether they were correct or not
I felt I commented enough. That's more or less what I commented in my 2 other drafts and most people liked it.
#3. A screenshot or two of the games critical points
Like I said Game1 he plays few cards and one of them a very bad card and I win easily. The other one I was screw for a long time, I manage to come back and he topdecks Resouding Silence and Oblivion Ring in a row to kill me. There's seriously no need for screenshots here.
I want to expand this question by adding this: Do you think that the combo decks (or any other deck too) will use the Wishes a lot?
I personally think so. The sideboards will be filled with all sorts of hate cards and maindecks will contain the appropriate Wish to get them in hand. Or if the maindeck Plan A goes wrong, one can Wish for the Plan B from the sideboard.
What do you think? Will the Wishes see play? Would you personally use any of them?
Would Standstill be good in your skies deck?
also
Patriarch's Bidding in elves?
Great article ... fun stuff
So with the changes just announced, what are your thoughts on sideboards for this format?
Would like to see a couple things:
#1. Decklist
#2. Commenting more in hindsight about the picks and whether they were correct or not
#3. A screenshot or two of the games critical points
The decklist is the most critical. Without it the draft review is poor at best. Its pretty challenging to go through and write down all the picks you made and guess whether it became a good/average/great deck.
On the draft itself...Jund Battlemage is the best card in pick three, pack one IMO. He is the game breaker card in Jund since he enables ridiculous Devour tricks and makes tokens for Bone Splinters. The Capsule is good but not as game breaking. It also requires a heavier mana committment since you usually want to play it and use it on the same turn.
Without the Jund Battlemage pick three I would have taken the Souls Fire pick four. The Topan is good but there is more removal in AAC and you are frequently sitting there with no creatures in play. Topan = mediocre without buddies. Also, with the Capsule pick two you probably want to focus on BR as the main colors. Topan being an earlier drop and not pairing well with the Black pick you just made makes him the incorrect pick IMO.
Pick 6 pack one I take the mana elf. This format is about splashing for bombs and the elf not only allows you to splash for bombs but he gets you to the large amount of 5-drop+ 5-power green guys a turn earlier.
Then again, Im not a fan of Undead Lateau as Ive never seen him do anything significant in any of the games Ive ever played.
My philosophy in this format is the strongest decks are base two colors (one if possible) with a third/fourth/or fifth splash color. You drafted a mixed bag pack one (which makes it weaker going into pack two) but the early drops are red and green atm. That should influence later picks, especially in Jund since Jund dies to flying assaults unless its faster.
Suicidal Charge pick one I believe is the biggest mispick. Its good but you will almost always get one late and the Manaforged Mace is pretty nuts. Drop that turn 4 and turn 5 drop Rip Clan Crasher, equip, and swing for 5 seems pretty good. Having Unearth + the Mace on the table can earn a cheap win too. The Sylvan Bounty would also get some considerations since you wont see those as late as the Suicidal Charge.
The rest of the picks are not individually incorrect but as a whole you end up pretty evenly divided between the three colors. This is especially bad since you probably had to play some of the 2-drop 2-color guys without too much hope of getting them into play turn two.
Anyway, hope to see a few more drafts with a little more detail in the deckbuilding and playing areas.
Cheers,
-M
Classic is only as expensive as you want it to be. There are tournament winning decks ranging from $100.00 to $1,200.00 and everywhere in between.
Thanks a bunch for the planeswalker prices! :-)
Interesting to see, even if it does back up my hunch that I both sold Ajani and bought Elspeth at exactly the wrong times. :-P
Btw, does this info come from MTGOTraders price history?
Thanks for the comments guys - I appreciate the feedback.
Some comments in response:
I guess the Thallid isn't terrible, but I really just find him too small to make more than a minimal impact. Sure, I guess he can chump block twice...but I'd rather play a better creature to begin with and force my opponent to chump block it instead. I suppose if your really creature light, he's playable- Devour aside, I just really don't want to be playing him.
I think the Savage is a fine card - I like to have a couple of viable early drops, and two power for two mana seems fine in my book - I'm not saying to try and get this guy early, but there are a lot worse creatures that could be played, so towards the late-mid pack, grab one if you see him.
The Slime - yeah, I agree, 3rd-5th is probably a bit too early - I just got really worked up about the cute tricks you can pull with him, ie, to play him after combat and profit. In retrospect, I'd rather pick him up in the 5-7th range (maybe 4th -6th would better summarize it). Still, he has flash, so that can be relevant even without devour as he can really mess up combat if played at a good time. I guess I just think he's a generally solid creature with some interesting possibilities.
I dunno bout 3rd-5th on Gluttonous Slime bro.. only a 3/3 for 3 if played when a guy is about to die, which means u have to hold the card & keep mana open for it and the right moment may not even come. and throwing 2 of your guys into the bin to net a 4/4 for 3 with no abilities or evasion just doesn't seem that good. Especially when the format includes O-Ring, Path to Exile, and tons of other great removal spells.
I read all the things about how this card sucks. And yet, twice in one sealed event against different opponents was it played against me, which led to me losing the race and losing.
I've actually had some good results with the Savage against the right deck.
From experience, Tukatongue Thallid is good. Not very good, but good. There are plenty of X/1s in the format and his persistence helps with chumping/devour. He is a decent 1-drop in an aggressive environment. On the other hand, from experience Nacatl Savage is complete garbage. Filigree is higher and maindeck if you're in a 4-3-2-2 queue on MTGO since your opponent will probably be struggling gamely for domain or in some weird Esper hybrid, meaning you will almost always have a good target. In 8-4, good sideboard card.
I wouldn't mind, rather than a subscription service, 'free deck' events, you can play in the event whether or not you own the cards, particularly for classic, where lots of players would like to play competetively but are kept out by the ridiculous prices. It would also mean classic queues would actually fire a bit more often. I can't think of a serious problem with the idea if the events were rare enough, say once a week so that people can try out the broken cards without having to get a second mortgage.
I had a dark wars when I used to play dredge where I comboed off with 4 cards left and killed 4 people then with 0 cards left swung in for lethal on the 1 noob on the table cause I left him for last and he preceded to holy day me. This was the finals btw :(
no way would wizards print decklists in short notice.
does that mean that the cards they print would be removed from your online collection?
maybe in V95 they could implement this >.<
I agree about the personal collection remarks. It's really lame.
Imho, before even thinking about generating new users Wizards has to prove that they are able to handle the current amount of users and more without getting burned like last week. Given those events they have lost any credit they still might have had with V3 and I dont think we as users (and you as one of the louder voices) should ignore that and simply pray that it never happens again or just accept it. :/
Pillar is already up to 5 tix and sold out. I expect it to climb up a bit from there even! Wow!
By the way, it will be very interesting to watch Pillar of the Paruns. You should definately check the price of it for your next article.
im in favor for seeing collection status its nice to see how someones collection grows.
kinda feels like when you first started and you would watch in anticipation as your buddy cracks his paks.
( every week me and my buddie would go spend our hard earned allowance on a starter each and open them one at a time as we oohed an ahhed over each others new cards, Force of Nature ftw!)
I like that you add little comments about where your collection currently stands ... it helps me better relate to your situation.
Good info, but the Painter decks have had a definite impact on Classic as the Whifster had pointed out. Painter builds are strong, albeit slightly meta-dependent.