Well,I'm a big leotau fan but the corpse seems a better fit.The Blister Bettle may have been a wrong pick since later I got a fixing issue with the deck.Regarding Rafiq,well picking it and not playing it its a possibility but its a Resounding Thunder. Thunder kills rafiq and also kills almost every other creature. So whats the point of hate picking a card Im not going to play while I can pick a bomb removal for my deck that deals with rafiq? The chances are that I may not even face it during the matches but if I do I prefer to have an asnwer instead of a dead card in my sideboard.Dark temper is nuts either in grixis or jund since it KILLS a creature.I would love to have picked more if the oppurtunity arised and I dont see the shambling being superior in power.
clannie....how did u in game three with sandydog play a turn two counterbalance after play a turn one academy ruins.....JUDGE!!!!!! lol great tourney report and great job....now its my turn to qe for med/med2
interesting draft
I mostly agree with your picks & your strategy strategy, however i disagree in some case :
> P1P6 : Corpse is a nice effect provider, but i probably would have taken Undead Leotau because at this point, you know you would probably play BR at least, in which leotau is pretty good. It is an expansive creature, but a nice recuring fatty; that is only a preference choice.
>P2P1 : i would definitely have taken Rafiq. This card is simply an absolute bomb in limited imho. Even you could not play it, it is better to have it "dead" in your SB instead to play against it. Resounding is a great card for sure, so understand your choice, but i wouldnt have done the same than you
> P2P3 : here i dont agree at all. Beetle is much better if you are expecting to play grixis, especially if you are running bone as removal. Druid of the anima & necropolis seem to be much better choice to me, to fix mana or to accelerate your deck. I see here no reason to have taken beetle.
> P3P2 : shambling is a bomb in limited (a pretty good unearth power), assuming you are running RB... and you did ! So i dont see better card in this pick, especialy when i saw your previous picks. Temper is a great removal for sure, but you could expect to have it in other picks (i saw 3 opportunity to get it in this draft). So i definitely have taken shambling here.
That's all folks !
Thank for this article, and waiting for the next one
I would have picked either the squire or the plowbeasts. As you said double R was hard to cast in your deck. The Aven is a great aggro card while the plowbeast provides late game gas and a great creature. Dark temper in naya is only a last resort.The spore bust could have an argument if you picked that rockslide elemental earlier.I would have gone with the Plowbeast imo.
I dont actually get if its a critic,but still I dont see a point.I didnt get the critic to the mana, since both the double red or green are on 4th or 4th turn. Having a Obelisk of Jund as fixing, a Elvish Visionary as cycling and Viscera dragger as well, I dont see the mana as a big problem to the deck.Of course I would have loved to have a Panorama or 2 but still even on paper and not playing,the deck seems quite solid.
Who needs mana fixing when your playing solid three colors...screw it. Just rely on drawing the land you need to cast your bombs with double red and only one fixer and win every game with them.
Thanks for your comments. I'm still no very confortable with conflux and mispicks from cards that I haven't used much already will probably happen once in a while. I still feel that Kraniceros is going a bit later than it should. I thought it would be picked earlier but with this in mind I'll probably also pick it later because there are good chances it will come back.
Liked the article, it really felt like a quick journay exploring Alara.
About the spellbooks shown, i would make some changes here and there.
Great hard work.
Hopefully this isn't aimed at me! I didn't mean to brand you as a Classic-hater!
I was in the Daily Events room then, and the Classic event failed to fire with 23 (and several trying to join)... while the Standard event fired with 26 or 27 - so it's not like there was a huge chasm between those two. The sealed events had a lot of players though.
I have experienced the sideboard lag issues as well. I played an entire AAC draft yesterday without being able to change from my original deck build. I would make my sideboard changes click submit and sat there watching the validating deck submission message for three minutes and no changes were made. Anyone else noticed that with the collection lag, the "mark all in excess of 4 tradable" function flat out does NOT work.
Keep up the good work, can't wait for the next episode.
First of all, thanks for comments folks! I really feel like we're getting better each week. Hopefully we can start getting some more guest hosts/special guests. I think that would help break things up. :)
Second of all, if you're looking for a "Classic Hater" you're looking at the wrong guy. I've long been a fan of Classic. Back before it was a PE format. Back when it was "Eternal Struggle". Back when DangerLinto was the one and only Classic Enthusiast on the MTGO boards. Back when there was a very small following. Since that time, I have been expounding the greatness of the format. In fact, there's no format I like better than Classic.
But I'm not now, nor am I ever going to, hold my tongue when I think something is going wrong. And right now sitting here and looking at the world of MTGO and what happened to Classic Events... I really think something is going wrong.
Yes, I'm sure that the lag hampered the events (another thing that's going wrong and I'm similarly concerned about that...). I'm also sure that there was less interest in the format due to Conflux (I'm not so concerned about this... the events were huge!). But I'm also sure that when the format is healthy and self-sustaining that neither of those things would matter one whit, and all three events still would have fired. I base that feeling on the other formats that did fire during the same time schedule that these failed to do so. The fact that the last event was "almost there" with people trying to get in is fairly irrelevant to the concerns I have, as it should have not even needed those people to fire in the first place.... in an ideal Classic world anyway.
I hope I'm wrong and that that weekend was an anomaly and we'll be back to solid attendance again soon. That would certainly be a great thing to be wrong about. The only frustrating thing is that taking a 'wait and see' attitude will only get answers that are too late to do anything about. :(
The only pick that I disagree with (besides the mentioned gleam vs Might pick) is going for Kraniceros. The Hunt-pride and the Armillary sphere are both better picks because Kraniceros tends to go very late.
FYI, nacatl hunt-pride is high-pick material. you simply own combat w/ one on the table, and two or more is just ridiculous. Plus it combos nice with gleam.
Well,I'm a big leotau fan but the corpse seems a better fit.The Blister Bettle may have been a wrong pick since later I got a fixing issue with the deck.Regarding Rafiq,well picking it and not playing it its a possibility but its a Resounding Thunder. Thunder kills rafiq and also kills almost every other creature. So whats the point of hate picking a card Im not going to play while I can pick a bomb removal for my deck that deals with rafiq? The chances are that I may not even face it during the matches but if I do I prefer to have an asnwer instead of a dead card in my sideboard.Dark temper is nuts either in grixis or jund since it KILLS a creature.I would love to have picked more if the oppurtunity arised and I dont see the shambling being superior in power.
clannie....how did u in game three with sandydog play a turn two counterbalance after play a turn one academy ruins.....JUDGE!!!!!! lol great tourney report and great job....now its my turn to qe for med/med2
interesting draft
I mostly agree with your picks & your strategy strategy, however i disagree in some case :
> P1P6 : Corpse is a nice effect provider, but i probably would have taken Undead Leotau because at this point, you know you would probably play BR at least, in which leotau is pretty good. It is an expansive creature, but a nice recuring fatty; that is only a preference choice.
>P2P1 : i would definitely have taken Rafiq. This card is simply an absolute bomb in limited imho. Even you could not play it, it is better to have it "dead" in your SB instead to play against it. Resounding is a great card for sure, so understand your choice, but i wouldnt have done the same than you
> P2P3 : here i dont agree at all. Beetle is much better if you are expecting to play grixis, especially if you are running bone as removal. Druid of the anima & necropolis seem to be much better choice to me, to fix mana or to accelerate your deck. I see here no reason to have taken beetle.
> P3P2 : shambling is a bomb in limited (a pretty good unearth power), assuming you are running RB... and you did ! So i dont see better card in this pick, especialy when i saw your previous picks. Temper is a great removal for sure, but you could expect to have it in other picks (i saw 3 opportunity to get it in this draft). So i definitely have taken shambling here.
That's all folks !
Thank for this article, and waiting for the next one
I would have picked either the squire or the plowbeasts. As you said double R was hard to cast in your deck. The Aven is a great aggro card while the plowbeast provides late game gas and a great creature. Dark temper in naya is only a last resort.The spore bust could have an argument if you picked that rockslide elemental earlier.I would have gone with the Plowbeast imo.
I dont actually get if its a critic,but still I dont see a point.I didnt get the critic to the mana, since both the double red or green are on 4th or 4th turn. Having a Obelisk of Jund as fixing, a Elvish Visionary as cycling and Viscera dragger as well, I dont see the mana as a big problem to the deck.Of course I would have loved to have a Panorama or 2 but still even on paper and not playing,the deck seems quite solid.
Great draft, great article... so I guess bombs do win drafts :P
Who needs mana fixing when your playing solid three colors...screw it. Just rely on drawing the land you need to cast your bombs with double red and only one fixer and win every game with them.
LOL.
This format is awesome.
-M
Always love to play against you walkerdog, your a great player and a nice guy!
Sorry I wasn't logged in.
Thanks for your comments. I'm still no very confortable with conflux and mispicks from cards that I haven't used much already will probably happen once in a while. I still feel that Kraniceros is going a bit later than it should. I thought it would be picked earlier but with this in mind I'll probably also pick it later because there are good chances it will come back.
What about the P3P1? What would be the pick here?
not reading anything by "Lord Erman" again.
as someone new to MTGO, I appreciated the effort categorizing the value of cards. This framework helps us new players with drafts in general, thanks
Liked the article, it really felt like a quick journay exploring Alara.
About the spellbooks shown, i would make some changes here and there.
Great hard work.
just because i dont reply it doesnt mean im not here and reading ;)
you can't first pick kranioceros :(
This article was not my style at all. That said, it was very good, and I could still appreciate the creativity involved. Good work.
Hopefully this isn't aimed at me! I didn't mean to brand you as a Classic-hater!
I was in the Daily Events room then, and the Classic event failed to fire with 23 (and several trying to join)... while the Standard event fired with 26 or 27 - so it's not like there was a huge chasm between those two. The sealed events had a lot of players though.
I have experienced the sideboard lag issues as well. I played an entire AAC draft yesterday without being able to change from my original deck build. I would make my sideboard changes click submit and sat there watching the validating deck submission message for three minutes and no changes were made. Anyone else noticed that with the collection lag, the "mark all in excess of 4 tradable" function flat out does NOT work.
Keep up the good work, can't wait for the next episode.
First of all, thanks for comments folks! I really feel like we're getting better each week. Hopefully we can start getting some more guest hosts/special guests. I think that would help break things up. :)
Second of all, if you're looking for a "Classic Hater" you're looking at the wrong guy. I've long been a fan of Classic. Back before it was a PE format. Back when it was "Eternal Struggle". Back when DangerLinto was the one and only Classic Enthusiast on the MTGO boards. Back when there was a very small following. Since that time, I have been expounding the greatness of the format. In fact, there's no format I like better than Classic.
But I'm not now, nor am I ever going to, hold my tongue when I think something is going wrong. And right now sitting here and looking at the world of MTGO and what happened to Classic Events... I really think something is going wrong.
Yes, I'm sure that the lag hampered the events (another thing that's going wrong and I'm similarly concerned about that...). I'm also sure that there was less interest in the format due to Conflux (I'm not so concerned about this... the events were huge!). But I'm also sure that when the format is healthy and self-sustaining that neither of those things would matter one whit, and all three events still would have fired. I base that feeling on the other formats that did fire during the same time schedule that these failed to do so. The fact that the last event was "almost there" with people trying to get in is fairly irrelevant to the concerns I have, as it should have not even needed those people to fire in the first place.... in an ideal Classic world anyway.
I hope I'm wrong and that that weekend was an anomaly and we'll be back to solid attendance again soon. That would certainly be a great thing to be wrong about. The only frustrating thing is that taking a 'wait and see' attitude will only get answers that are too late to do anything about. :(
The only pick that I disagree with (besides the mentioned gleam vs Might pick) is going for Kraniceros. The Hunt-pride and the Armillary sphere are both better picks because Kraniceros tends to go very late.
But its still mana intensive both playing and using. Can also ruin a combat step vs any removal.The 5/2 its a more solid choice
Nice draft, with comments and thoughts on the picks. That Might seemed like the only mistake.
FYI, nacatl hunt-pride is high-pick material. you simply own combat w/ one on the table, and two or more is just ridiculous. Plus it combos nice with gleam.
I really like these podcast. Good jobs guy - a brilliant source of information and great delivery.
Keep up the good work.
Best Wishes
Under_the_hammer
You can clearly see the foil goblin