About the pick you weren't sure about, I didn't like carrion thrash at all there. I know you opened an awesome bomb in Jund, but nothing in the next couple packs suggested Jund was wide open. You were in a good position to stay open to naya and splashing the broodmate. I think this was a good opportunity to take a panorama, but soul's fire seemed ok too (I'm less of a fan of it then most and will almost never main deck 2 of them). That pick 7 knight in pack 1 is a pretty strong signal that you didn't allow yourself to take advantage of because you commited to Jund so early (especially with the follow up picks on in pick 5 and 6, they could have been the cycler and the mana elf.).
I liked the article but I disagreed with almost every pick that involved taking a card over a two drop in pack 2. I don't think you can expect to win in this format with such a top-heavy curve unless maybe the overall quality of your late drops are very high (definitely not the case here). Your first two drop was picked in pack 3, and you even said you thought you should have picked the fatestitcher instead! In a vaccuum, the cards you picked (or wanted to pick) were of higher quality, but at some point you need to take a better look at what your deck is missing. I think your deck is 10 times better with 2x Deft Duelist, regardless of whether you think it is the ideal 2-drop in an esper deck.
Did you really mean to hate draft a sb card in pack 3 pick 8 instead of a solid early drop in akrasan squire? Especially when at the point you only had one creature that can be played for less than 3 mana, I hope that was an oversight.
I'm also not a big fan of your final build. I know you mentioned you're not a fan of cancel, but you can't possibly be a fan of playing 3x Serpents in an already top-heavy deck either. You didn't have access to many other choices, but I would have definitely at least played 2 of cancel, bant battlemage, dispeller's capsule or risked splashing necrogenesis (even though it doesn't fit to well), instead of 2 of the serpents. Probably three of them with no serpents.
I didn't know Tezzeret was worth 4 or 5 tix. I thought it was like 1 or 2. But that's not really relevant for an article. Let's forget about tix and concentrate on what each card does for the deck. Oblivion Ring is always good. Even more important if you're lacking removal. Tezzeret might be a bomb or it might be underwhelming even in Esper. At this point it would give 2 of my guys pseudo vigilance or get 1 of the 2 Sanctum Gargoyles. I could very well end up not getting Tower Gargoyle. I think I have made the correct pick. However I have never played with Tezzeret. It's really hard to know how good it can be. Ajani I know it's always good if you can play it. Tezzeret you need to be in Esper so you usually don't get to play it even when you open or get it passed to you. Being a Mythic doesn't help either. And the first time I'm in Esper and see it, it's right next to the all mighty Oblivion Ring. I just took the card that I knew to be good and the one that didn't care about the rest of the picks. And thinking it was worth less actually made be think it or at least something else from the pack was coming back for me. But Tezzeret, battlemage and Strix were gone :(
On Punish Ignorance: Again another card I don't like but I've seen some people use. It's not that it's bad but counterspells make you not want to tap out on your turn and that's not good unless you have creatures with flash. Shards isn't Lorwyn with all those flashy faeries. Also I didn't have any tri-lands to help me play it. On top of that the pack also had a card I actually like more than most people (I think it's still a bit underrated) so I took Grixis Battlemage.
P1P4: I was all over Soul's Fire. You have to be careful with it for sure, but it's generally pretty straightforward to play it when the opponent is tapped out or it is very unlikely that they have instant-speed removal. And it goes to the face. Reach FTW!
P2P3: I don't mind taking the finisher, but look for some Druids or Jund Obelisks now so you can accelerate into those big bombs.
P2P9: Yep, that's the thing. This deck needs an on-shard Obelisk or two for sure.
Something i didnt think about untill after the article was submitted is that although classic cards are rather pricy going from around 5-50 dollars the fact of the matter is that these prices are stable and will almost never drop more then a few percentages in monetary value. After all these cards are expensive because they are the best at what they do, not because its the flavor of the week in Std. Pricy Std cards fluctuate a lot between Real World big money tournys. What was a $15.00 card one week could be $5.00 the next if the meta switches to rapidly. On the other hand a card like Pernicious Deed has benn hovering at 30-34 since october and i fully expect it to go up over time and never drop below the price you paid for it.
I was hopeing for two thing when i went about fully fleshing out this article.
1. that helm/line would be a viable budget deck.
2. that someone would ask about it.
I purposly left out the price tag on this one after seeing what it was. I left the price off because while it worked for us i dont see this as being a good choice unless the meta is filled to bursting with non blue mono colred decks. Anyway at the time of writing it was $443.00for my build and about $530.00 for Bazaar's. Which is way more then i thought it would b.
hey good draft, there just some picks i disagree with:
p1p4 , i pick soul's fire very highly, higher than thrash for sure.
p2p2 , rockslide elemental, dredgscape goes late, rockslide is very good
p3p3 , as you've pointed out bone splinters was the pick
p3p9 , i don't like viashino that much and you had no naturalize effects yet so i'd pick naturalize
the first one i think is a wrong pick, the others are as you like to call them "judgement calls".
the videos are obviously an welcome addition to these articles.
Better usage of the videos this time, in another good article.
About the picks, I only don't completely agree with the Manaplasm (with the pick and with the inclusion in the deck) and the Zombie vs Rockslide Elemental situation.
Anything about Pauper, I would run it, However, this is not to say that this does not happen in the future. I am sure if I could SpikeBoyM to free up some time, we could do one of these for pauper as well.
Nice article, so its true... bombs win and in multiples... well you win more! :D
This time the gameplay videos had a nice flow within the article and were just in the right amount, well done.
Another good article, like the picks, do the same except in one case but it is only an option to taste.
Again I liked the idea of the videos end with the deck that you got.
Good Note for this article.
I'm sorry for the videos but I'm not sure if its my bug only or for all the MTGO users since there are games that do not appear saved and others that stop in the middle of the replay. I hope to get some feedback on that too and I'll save the games while playing to make it easier next time. I'll try and bring a videotaped AAC draft.
1) he's worth at least 5 tix. I'm going to take him in most packs just for this
2) he's extremely versatile. You can tutor your tower gargoyle and put it into play that turn, or you can wait 1 turn and turn all of your fliers into tower gargoyles. This threatens to end the game very quickly.
3) he tutors into other bombs, effectively giving you double of each of your bombs
4) if nothing else he's a better filigree sages, comboing with esper battlemage or giving your fliers vigilance
dropping tezzeret in esper is just as devastating as dropping ajani
Tezzeret is never better than Oblivion ring, no matter what your deck is. i might even take tidehollow strix over tezzeret in most cases. i just drafted at a local store and had tezzeret in two esper drafts. he was at best a second tower gargoyle for 5. you take the oblivion ring every time over that! i want you to show me a draft deck where tezzeret is the bomb. oblivion ring is 100% good in any draft deck, not some.
nice article and a pretty solid draft!
About the pick you weren't sure about, I didn't like carrion thrash at all there. I know you opened an awesome bomb in Jund, but nothing in the next couple packs suggested Jund was wide open. You were in a good position to stay open to naya and splashing the broodmate. I think this was a good opportunity to take a panorama, but soul's fire seemed ok too (I'm less of a fan of it then most and will almost never main deck 2 of them). That pick 7 knight in pack 1 is a pretty strong signal that you didn't allow yourself to take advantage of because you commited to Jund so early (especially with the follow up picks on in pick 5 and 6, they could have been the cycler and the mana elf.).
I liked the article but I disagreed with almost every pick that involved taking a card over a two drop in pack 2. I don't think you can expect to win in this format with such a top-heavy curve unless maybe the overall quality of your late drops are very high (definitely not the case here). Your first two drop was picked in pack 3, and you even said you thought you should have picked the fatestitcher instead! In a vaccuum, the cards you picked (or wanted to pick) were of higher quality, but at some point you need to take a better look at what your deck is missing. I think your deck is 10 times better with 2x Deft Duelist, regardless of whether you think it is the ideal 2-drop in an esper deck.
Did you really mean to hate draft a sb card in pack 3 pick 8 instead of a solid early drop in akrasan squire? Especially when at the point you only had one creature that can be played for less than 3 mana, I hope that was an oversight.
I'm also not a big fan of your final build. I know you mentioned you're not a fan of cancel, but you can't possibly be a fan of playing 3x Serpents in an already top-heavy deck either. You didn't have access to many other choices, but I would have definitely at least played 2 of cancel, bant battlemage, dispeller's capsule or risked splashing necrogenesis (even though it doesn't fit to well), instead of 2 of the serpents. Probably three of them with no serpents.
Very nice!
I didn't know Tezzeret was worth 4 or 5 tix. I thought it was like 1 or 2. But that's not really relevant for an article. Let's forget about tix and concentrate on what each card does for the deck. Oblivion Ring is always good. Even more important if you're lacking removal. Tezzeret might be a bomb or it might be underwhelming even in Esper. At this point it would give 2 of my guys pseudo vigilance or get 1 of the 2 Sanctum Gargoyles. I could very well end up not getting Tower Gargoyle. I think I have made the correct pick. However I have never played with Tezzeret. It's really hard to know how good it can be. Ajani I know it's always good if you can play it. Tezzeret you need to be in Esper so you usually don't get to play it even when you open or get it passed to you. Being a Mythic doesn't help either. And the first time I'm in Esper and see it, it's right next to the all mighty Oblivion Ring. I just took the card that I knew to be good and the one that didn't care about the rest of the picks. And thinking it was worth less actually made be think it or at least something else from the pack was coming back for me. But Tezzeret, battlemage and Strix were gone :(
On Punish Ignorance: Again another card I don't like but I've seen some people use. It's not that it's bad but counterspells make you not want to tap out on your turn and that's not good unless you have creatures with flash. Shards isn't Lorwyn with all those flashy faeries. Also I didn't have any tri-lands to help me play it. On top of that the pack also had a card I actually like more than most people (I think it's still a bit underrated) so I took Grixis Battlemage.
God Work ;-)
I meant to say, picks*
P1P4: I was all over Soul's Fire. You have to be careful with it for sure, but it's generally pretty straightforward to play it when the opponent is tapped out or it is very unlikely that they have instant-speed removal. And it goes to the face. Reach FTW!
P2P3: I don't mind taking the finisher, but look for some Druids or Jund Obelisks now so you can accelerate into those big bombs.
P2P9: Yep, that's the thing. This deck needs an on-shard Obelisk or two for sure.
P3P9: Naturalize is my pick here.
nice article, changed my mind in some kind of pics for future
Something i didnt think about untill after the article was submitted is that although classic cards are rather pricy going from around 5-50 dollars the fact of the matter is that these prices are stable and will almost never drop more then a few percentages in monetary value. After all these cards are expensive because they are the best at what they do, not because its the flavor of the week in Std. Pricy Std cards fluctuate a lot between Real World big money tournys. What was a $15.00 card one week could be $5.00 the next if the meta switches to rapidly. On the other hand a card like Pernicious Deed has benn hovering at 30-34 since october and i fully expect it to go up over time and never drop below the price you paid for it.
whiffy out again!
I was hopeing for two thing when i went about fully fleshing out this article.
1. that helm/line would be a viable budget deck.
2. that someone would ask about it.
I purposly left out the price tag on this one after seeing what it was. I left the price off because while it worked for us i dont see this as being a good choice unless the meta is filled to bursting with non blue mono colred decks. Anyway at the time of writing it was $443.00for my build and about $530.00 for Bazaar's. Which is way more then i thought it would b.
hey good draft, there just some picks i disagree with:
p1p4 , i pick soul's fire very highly, higher than thrash for sure.
p2p2 , rockslide elemental, dredgscape goes late, rockslide is very good
p3p3 , as you've pointed out bone splinters was the pick
p3p9 , i don't like viashino that much and you had no naturalize effects yet so i'd pick naturalize
the first one i think is a wrong pick, the others are as you like to call them "judgement calls".
the videos are obviously an welcome addition to these articles.
Better usage of the videos this time, in another good article.
About the picks, I only don't completely agree with the Manaplasm (with the pick and with the inclusion in the deck) and the Zombie vs Rockslide Elemental situation.
Anything about Pauper, I would run it, However, this is not to say that this does not happen in the future. I am sure if I could SpikeBoyM to free up some time, we could do one of these for pauper as well.
Great article Whiffy. Incidentally, what would be the price of the helm/line deck?
nice pics and nice draft
Think I wouldn't change much of what u drafted, as said earlier, bombs do win games!
Another amazing draft... :D
I would have done the same picks as well. Once again, great article. Thanks for sharing your ideas.
Only std :(
I say do some pauper ones /shakes fist
Well nice to see these kind of events. I'm sure quite a few people will want to take the challenge.
Forgot to login :S
Nice article, so its true... bombs win and in multiples... well you win more! :D
This time the gameplay videos had a nice flow within the article and were just in the right amount, well done.
Keep those articles comming!
Another good article, like the picks, do the same except in one case but it is only an option to taste.
Again I liked the idea of the videos end with the deck that you got.
Good Note for this article.
I'm sorry for the videos but I'm not sure if its my bug only or for all the MTGO users since there are games that do not appear saved and others that stop in the middle of the replay. I hope to get some feedback on that too and I'll save the games while playing to make it easier next time. I'll try and bring a videotaped AAC draft.
About Dark Temper, you mention that two shards contain black permanents, but three do - Esper, Grixis, and Jund.
This just isn't true at all
1) he's worth at least 5 tix. I'm going to take him in most packs just for this
2) he's extremely versatile. You can tutor your tower gargoyle and put it into play that turn, or you can wait 1 turn and turn all of your fliers into tower gargoyles. This threatens to end the game very quickly.
3) he tutors into other bombs, effectively giving you double of each of your bombs
4) if nothing else he's a better filigree sages, comboing with esper battlemage or giving your fliers vigilance
dropping tezzeret in esper is just as devastating as dropping ajani
Tezzeret is never better than Oblivion ring, no matter what your deck is. i might even take tidehollow strix over tezzeret in most cases. i just drafted at a local store and had tezzeret in two esper drafts. he was at best a second tower gargoyle for 5. you take the oblivion ring every time over that! i want you to show me a draft deck where tezzeret is the bomb. oblivion ring is 100% good in any draft deck, not some.