I remembered Nameless Inversion, added it to my note for editing, but forgot about it again. Yes, Nameless Inversion does kill Stuffy, but that is mainly being run in Elves decks - and Molten Disaster seems good against Elves.
I'd be surprised if Thoughtseize saw play in Classic any time soon. Decks with shocklands are having a hard enough fight against RDW the way it is, paying two life in the format right now is dangerous.
Nameless Inversion on Stuffy Doll ftw? Stuffy Doll is good against some creatures, it is not good against Garruk's overrun ablity or huge swarms of 2/2 and 1/1 Kithkin.
And yeah I have no idea why people think TurboFog could be good. Thanks for the article, good info can't wait to see how Standard shakes out on MODO over the next month or so.
It;s true all prices drop, but it has to do a lot with supply- demand.
If there is a new hot deck that just won a tournament expect the key cards to go up a few bucks.
But Supply is an even bigger issue.
Look at the prices of TIme Spiral to see what I mean, the best cards ( Greater Gargadon, SHapeshifter, Teferi) are just able to reach 3 bucks each. There are even really good cards like Spectral Force than barely reach 1!!!
The reason for this? Overdrafted. By the 4 months of drafting triple Time SPiral, there have been opened so many packs supply has overwhelmed demand. I think we wll see the same with Lorwyn by the time mourningtide comes out.
just my 2 cents
ps, I love online, moved to a city where no-one plays paper and dont have time to travel to play, so playing online is the only way for me, and it's quick and you can draft anytime you like, which is for me the best thing to do anyway.
Not to steal Walker's thunder, but RDW wins faster against thresh (and many decks) due to the pain involved in playing a deck that relies on fetchlands + ravnica duals. Essentially the Threshold deck starts at 15 life, which is an easy target for such red decks. I imagine he'll go more in depth with this later. This was one of my largest lamentations about the real Duals not being in MED1. A complaint which has apparently come to fruition, based on the last Classic PE (Burn deck won it all)
As for Affinity... many decks are changing their construction to better fight through hate. One such card being run is (sorry) Tarmogoyf. It's brutal in Affinity, survives hate and actually gets stronger if most of the hate resolves... just ridiculous.
The walkthroughs were just a couple of replays from notes from testing that demonstrated decent, but not AWESOME (for the most part) draws on the part of each deck, showing the capability to fight back, and in that game, RDW just didn't have the gas. 24 Lands is high for Affinity, the white lands would probably be the first to drop in favor of something such as Myr Enforcer or more 0CC artifacts that "do things"; that's not a super-tuned or teched out list, just an approximentation of the "average" list you might run into in a PE. Thanks for your feedback, and I'll work on the playthroughs. What would you like to see from them that would make them more entertaining or insightful?
Thanks, anonymous. I might well try Living End, but that feels like a different deck to me. Nothing wrong with that--I play lots of different kinds of decks. The vivid lands sound great. I use the tapped lands from Coldsnap pretty frequently. I'll miss the added mana that the Ravnica lands give you, but you're absolutely right that those lands are useful.
I agree that at the highest levels of drafting, such basics as BREAD won't matter as much, but you have to start somewhere. For those who've never drafted or know very little draft strategy, this is probably the best place to start. It is good to start at the beginning and build up from there.
I like the approach this article takes in teaching the basics and look forward to see how you build on it. =)
Totally agreed with you- it depends on your deck. As I said early in the article, "You have to know how to evaluate the cards based on what you need for your deck." That's why this is a beginner's primer, after all! I don't really stick to "BREAD" anymore, but it helped me out. I plan to go into more advanced drafting tactics as I write more articles. Thanks for your input!
Head Games is just worse than Haunting Hymn. Against other control decks they will often just counter it then cast something on their turn. Even if it hits they can get right back in the game with a topdecked Careful Consideration or Mystical Teachings. Also they will never miss a land drop again when helps. Speaking of that you have to be careful what lands to give them as storage lands, man lands, Tolaria West, and Urza's Factory are all heavily played.
Oros the Avenger - I think he is the worst of the dragons. He needs something to happen before his ablity is relevent. He needs your opponent to have non white creatures in play and needs them to be x/3 or smaller. Teneb is the only other dragon needing a condition to be met and his is much more common, a creature in the graveyard. While I think all the dragons are underused in Standard I don't think Oros is the one to get there. Intet, Numot, and Teneb are where my money is.
Bread is helpful for the noobest of the noobs. Once you get decent at drafting it is just wrong to follow BREAD to the letter. I've picked combat tricks over removal, I've picked card draw over removal, I've picked removal over bombs. It all depends on your deck.
Some decks dont have access to evasion and that is fine. I've split the finals of many a draft with GW decks where 95% of my spells fall in the "AD" of BREAD.
I don't think BREAD is useless, it can take a 1600 player to maybe 1650 or 1700. However I think that becoming a good drafter requires a focus on the "A" more than anything.
Not to mention Lorwyn's tribal theme throws alot of normal card evaluation out the window...
Sorry, but I can't follow your explanation. Percentage increase and percentage decrease have fairly specific mathematical meanings that are not being followed here, unless I'm just really missing something. The percentage change is based on the original price.
For example, if Goblin King is selling for 50 cents and increases to one dollar, that's a 100% increase (the cost is increased by 100% of its original amount). If it weer selling for 50 cents and dropped to 25 cents, that's a 50% decrease (the cost is decreased by 50% of its original amount).
they kind of did (for paper) they had these battle royale box set thing where all the decks were balanced and there were 4 meant to be played in FFA multiplayer.. i wish they would do this again as i loved getting something like that as a "gift" as thats what they were meant to be.. i still play them from time to time..
yeah at the Lorwyn prerelease me and my buddy showed up at around 10 AM get in a flight and the flight didn't start until 1 we didn't finish until 6 that night.. and we only played 4 rounds.. i do hate how long they take.. unnecessarily long.. they had computer issues.. and that seems to be the biggest problem with paper events is the reporter program it just isn't that good.
i would suggest living end for the reanimator deck (you just lose all the utility creatures like Looters and stuff and then you switch them out for all the big guys you discarded..) if i recall they are like less than 5 bucks a playset .. when lorwyn hits look for the "vivid" lands to replace the bounce lands and signets.. they come into play with 2 counters then you can remove a counter to get any mana you want.. especially in the deck you were looking to play Joiner adept.. or something
there are also the come into play tapped duals from coldsnap that would suffice as good as the bounce lands.. for color fixing..
Wow, 5 stars sounds really cool! Especially after all the color bleeding since Rav block, a format devoted to monocolored strategy would be refreshing.
In paper magic, it might be cool to put together a balnced set of 5 decks and turn it into a more "out of the box" ready to play boardgame experience. A great way to introduce new players. Heck, Wizards should do just that! A 5 Stars Box Set of Core Set cards would make a cool X-mas present.
As for the difference between paper and online magic, the biggest for me is time. I went to the 10th edition release to watch, as I haven't slung real cards since... the Dark? I was appalled at how long it took to set up the limited event. The convenience of the online game is the only way I have time to play!
Love this article! Keep up the good work :)
Great article on a subject I hope to have a go at.
Thanks for taking the time to write it.
I remembered Nameless Inversion, added it to my note for editing, but forgot about it again. Yes, Nameless Inversion does kill Stuffy, but that is mainly being run in Elves decks - and Molten Disaster seems good against Elves.
I'd be surprised if Thoughtseize saw play in Classic any time soon. Decks with shocklands are having a hard enough fight against RDW the way it is, paying two life in the format right now is dangerous.
Great article though!
Nameless Inversion on Stuffy Doll ftw? Stuffy Doll is good against some creatures, it is not good against Garruk's overrun ablity or huge swarms of 2/2 and 1/1 Kithkin.
And yeah I have no idea why people think TurboFog could be good. Thanks for the article, good info can't wait to see how Standard shakes out on MODO over the next month or so.
Great article, lots of information.
I'm glad to see the planeswalkers are seeing play.
It;s true all prices drop, but it has to do a lot with supply- demand.
If there is a new hot deck that just won a tournament expect the key cards to go up a few bucks.
But Supply is an even bigger issue.
Look at the prices of TIme Spiral to see what I mean, the best cards ( Greater Gargadon, SHapeshifter, Teferi) are just able to reach 3 bucks each. There are even really good cards like Spectral Force than barely reach 1!!!
The reason for this? Overdrafted. By the 4 months of drafting triple Time SPiral, there have been opened so many packs supply has overwhelmed demand. I think we wll see the same with Lorwyn by the time mourningtide comes out.
just my 2 cents
ps, I love online, moved to a city where no-one plays paper and dont have time to travel to play, so playing online is the only way for me, and it's quick and you can draft anytime you like, which is for me the best thing to do anyway.
ME LOVE MODO (I need to get a tatto of that!)
Not to steal Walker's thunder, but RDW wins faster against thresh (and many decks) due to the pain involved in playing a deck that relies on fetchlands + ravnica duals. Essentially the Threshold deck starts at 15 life, which is an easy target for such red decks. I imagine he'll go more in depth with this later. This was one of my largest lamentations about the real Duals not being in MED1. A complaint which has apparently come to fruition, based on the last Classic PE (Burn deck won it all)
As for Affinity... many decks are changing their construction to better fight through hate. One such card being run is (sorry) Tarmogoyf. It's brutal in Affinity, survives hate and actually gets stronger if most of the hate resolves... just ridiculous.
Looking forward to part 2!
The walkthroughs were just a couple of replays from notes from testing that demonstrated decent, but not AWESOME (for the most part) draws on the part of each deck, showing the capability to fight back, and in that game, RDW just didn't have the gas. 24 Lands is high for Affinity, the white lands would probably be the first to drop in favor of something such as Myr Enforcer or more 0CC artifacts that "do things"; that's not a super-tuned or teched out list, just an approximentation of the "average" list you might run into in a PE. Thanks for your feedback, and I'll work on the playthroughs. What would you like to see from them that would make them more entertaining or insightful?
kinda nice articles but the playthu's dont really do it for me.
All sounds very theoratical.
I mean, why does the RDW win turn 4 vs the threshold but cant win in 5 turn vs the affinity.
Isnt 24 lands a bit much for affinity anyway?
lookiong forward for part 2
Thanks, anonymous. I might well try Living End, but that feels like a different deck to me. Nothing wrong with that--I play lots of different kinds of decks. The vivid lands sound great. I use the tapped lands from Coldsnap pretty frequently. I'll miss the added mana that the Ravnica lands give you, but you're absolutely right that those lands are useful.
I agree that at the highest levels of drafting, such basics as BREAD won't matter as much, but you have to start somewhere. For those who've never drafted or know very little draft strategy, this is probably the best place to start. It is good to start at the beginning and build up from there.
I like the approach this article takes in teaching the basics and look forward to see how you build on it. =)
Totally agreed with you- it depends on your deck. As I said early in the article, "You have to know how to evaluate the cards based on what you need for your deck." That's why this is a beginner's primer, after all! I don't really stick to "BREAD" anymore, but it helped me out. I plan to go into more advanced drafting tactics as I write more articles. Thanks for your input!
Could you add a real picture if possible? It makes the site look more professional.
So I totally didn't notice that I said Oros instead of Numot. Oh dear. That makes me look kind of bad, doesn't it.
I went ahead and fixed it real quick. Thanks for pointing that out matey.
Not bad but I disagree on a few cards.
Head Games is just worse than Haunting Hymn. Against other control decks they will often just counter it then cast something on their turn. Even if it hits they can get right back in the game with a topdecked Careful Consideration or Mystical Teachings. Also they will never miss a land drop again when helps. Speaking of that you have to be careful what lands to give them as storage lands, man lands, Tolaria West, and Urza's Factory are all heavily played.
Oros the Avenger - I think he is the worst of the dragons. He needs something to happen before his ablity is relevent. He needs your opponent to have non white creatures in play and needs them to be x/3 or smaller. Teneb is the only other dragon needing a condition to be met and his is much more common, a creature in the graveyard. While I think all the dragons are underused in Standard I don't think Oros is the one to get there. Intet, Numot, and Teneb are where my money is.
Bread is helpful for the noobest of the noobs. Once you get decent at drafting it is just wrong to follow BREAD to the letter. I've picked combat tricks over removal, I've picked card draw over removal, I've picked removal over bombs. It all depends on your deck.
Some decks dont have access to evasion and that is fine. I've split the finals of many a draft with GW decks where 95% of my spells fall in the "AD" of BREAD.
I don't think BREAD is useless, it can take a 1600 player to maybe 1650 or 1700. However I think that becoming a good drafter requires a focus on the "A" more than anything.
Not to mention Lorwyn's tribal theme throws alot of normal card evaluation out the window...
I have READ this article, and think something could B missing.
Actually, it's not missing, it's just at the end.
Other than that, good work!
Decent for a first article but def. needs some length and more discussion. Try to add an avatar picture when you get time.
Sorry, but I can't follow your explanation. Percentage increase and percentage decrease have fairly specific mathematical meanings that are not being followed here, unless I'm just really missing something. The percentage change is based on the original price.
For example, if Goblin King is selling for 50 cents and increases to one dollar, that's a 100% increase (the cost is increased by 100% of its original amount). If it weer selling for 50 cents and dropped to 25 cents, that's a 50% decrease (the cost is decreased by 50% of its original amount).
they kind of did (for paper) they had these battle royale box set thing where all the decks were balanced and there were 4 meant to be played in FFA multiplayer.. i wish they would do this again as i loved getting something like that as a "gift" as thats what they were meant to be.. i still play them from time to time..
yeah at the Lorwyn prerelease me and my buddy showed up at around 10 AM get in a flight and the flight didn't start until 1 we didn't finish until 6 that night.. and we only played 4 rounds.. i do hate how long they take.. unnecessarily long.. they had computer issues.. and that seems to be the biggest problem with paper events is the reporter program it just isn't that good.
i would suggest living end for the reanimator deck (you just lose all the utility creatures like Looters and stuff and then you switch them out for all the big guys you discarded..) if i recall they are like less than 5 bucks a playset .. when lorwyn hits look for the "vivid" lands to replace the bounce lands and signets.. they come into play with 2 counters then you can remove a counter to get any mana you want.. especially in the deck you were looking to play Joiner adept.. or something
there are also the come into play tapped duals from coldsnap that would suffice as good as the bounce lands.. for color fixing..
Wow, 5 stars sounds really cool! Especially after all the color bleeding since Rav block, a format devoted to monocolored strategy would be refreshing.
In paper magic, it might be cool to put together a balnced set of 5 decks and turn it into a more "out of the box" ready to play boardgame experience. A great way to introduce new players. Heck, Wizards should do just that! A 5 Stars Box Set of Core Set cards would make a cool X-mas present.
As for the difference between paper and online magic, the biggest for me is time. I went to the 10th edition release to watch, as I haven't slung real cards since... the Dark? I was appalled at how long it took to set up the limited event. The convenience of the online game is the only way I have time to play!
Nice article, keep up the reporting
That's weird, it displays just fine for me. But then again i'm usuing a widescreen so maybe that's it.