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United States24761 Posts
On July 01 2013 12:34 Cel.erity wrote:
If you convert the draft file, convert it to image format, the text is really hard to follow. Otherwise just post the format of the original. From what I see it gives me html... how do I use that?
Pack 1 your picks were pretty much okay. I wouldn't have taken any of the gatekeepers, I would've taken Cluestones or Deputy of Acquittals or something. You also took Riot Control (a totally unplayable card) over two decent white cards. Riot control seems good to me. If there's something I've learned, it's just because a magic card seems good to me doesn't mean it's actually valuable in a draft. I used it several times just now in this tournament. When my back is against the wall, my opponent attacks expecting me to block and sacrifice creatures, but I let them all through, and then prevent the damage. I follow up by swinging back at them after their creatures are tapped, finishing them off. Why is it that the card is bad? The health gain can also be quite nice later in the game if there is a big standoff (which orzhov often has).
Pack 2, pick 1, I guess you took Foundry as a money pick? You don't have any red cards, so the Spectacle is likely much better. Pick 2, Syndicate Enforcer is below average, it's a very expensive low impact creature. It's much worse than Angelic Edict, and at this point you're not committed to black. Pick 9, Debtor's Pulpit is actually fine so I would've taken that over a card you'll never play maindeck.
Yeah as I said the foundry was not picked to win the tourney. Is grisly spectacle very good even if there is 0 chance of you milling the opponent? I'll value debtor's pulpit higher in the future... I've never tried it before.
Pack 3, pick 3, it was a huge mistake to not just slam Collective Blessing. You have only 2-3 good black cards, and your deck quality at this point is extremely low. Blessing is one of the best cards in the entire format and instantly makes your deck twice as good, and you already have a Tomb and 2 good green cards, plus an entire pack of Selesnya to go. The mana would be awkward, but it's better than what you ended up with. Also note grabbing those Cluestones in pack 1 would've put you in a better spot here. Ah, I see what you mean. With that darn timer going it's hard to realize all of this haha. I have not read/talked about collective blessing before so I didn't automatically perk up when I saw it (unlike if I saw a voice for example). I'll keep this card in mind.
P3P4 easy Selesnya Sentry, Swift Justice is not a good card and you should always take a mediocre creature over a mediocre trick when you have so few threats. P3P5 wow, Drainpipe Vermin is a completely unplayable card and Knightly Valor is the best white common in RtR, so I'm not sure why you made that pick at all. P3P7, Ethereal Armor is not good, but better than Cremate. Would selesnya sentry still make sense even if I had zero green mana fixing or other green cards, or are you suggesting it because of my ability to splash/include green? It seems like a bad card unless you are already playing green.
As for knightly valor, I did not know that it is such a great card. I try not to use enchantments that much in general, but I'll do it if an enchantment is very good (and especially since it makes a separate creature token now that I think about it). Drainpipe vermin is a fun card and combines well with the corpse blockade, but now that I have time to think about it I can see why it's inferior to knightly valor and maybe some of the other picks.
As for ethereal armor, I think that card would make sense if I was doing other enchantments (such as including unflinching courage and knightly valor), but if it was the only enchantment I was using, would it be inferior?
Overall: I don't think your choice to stick to white was bad, I think I would have taken the Gruul War Chant and ended up with some kind of gruul or naya deck, but again, it's a hard format to draft. The packs were weak for your colors and you ended up somewhere near where you were supposed to be, but you should've been open to taking the Cluestones/nonblack cards and after a pretty empty pack 2 for Orzhov, you would've been in a good spot to draft Selesnya or Azorious in pack 3. Your biggest mistake was passing Collective Blessing when you weren't too color committed. And again, stop playing 1-mana 1/1's. Even Catacomb Slug would be an improvement.
What about the creature that gives intimidate? I found that very helpful considering this type of deck doesn't give me much opportunity to smash through my opponents' lines.
Thanks for analyzing the picks. I think I'm starting to narrow down the number of cards that I completely under/over value. I need to get better at analyzing how much luck I'm having with guilds, and remembering which guilds are in the next pack to make decisions.
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I don't share his views on Riot control, I think that in the correct deck, it can be amazing. Also, not picking up the warleaders helix P1P2? That card is phenomenal in limited, and should be picked over just about anything else in DGM.
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United States24761 Posts
I was like 50/50 between unflinching courage and warleader's helix. I know they are both very good cards. I'm not sure how to choose between them.
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So, new Chandra was spoiled. For those who can't see it, here's the text version:
Chandra, Pyromaster 2RR
Planeswalker - Chandra [Mythic]
+1: Chandra, Pyromaster deals 1 damage to target player and 1 damage to up to one target creature that player controls. That creature can't block this turn.
0: Exile the top card of your library. You may play it this turn.
-7: Exile the top ten cards of your library. Choose an instant or sorcery card exiled this way and copy it three times. You may cast the copies without paying their mana costs.
4
Initial reactions: Might actually be playable, though maybe after current Standard rotates out. The +1 being a Fork Bolt + Stagger should make her see play in aggro lists looking to clear the ground of various things. The 0 makes me wonder if it's an attempt to let aggro decks "dig" for better spells, but I also wonder if the 0 can see play in control decks, letting them get another way to turn lands into spells without costing loyalty. The ult is basically triple reverberate, but there needs to be a good spell in the top 10 that's not an X spell (as I'm pretty sure her ult will make X = 0) that's worth casting. Maybe something like Warleader's Helix, or Grapeshot, or Staggershock.
If she sees play, it'd probably be in an aggro list mainly for the +1 and 0 abilities.
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On July 01 2013 13:11 micronesia wrote:
Yeah as I said the foundry was not picked to win the tourney. Is grisly spectacle very good even if there is 0 chance of you milling the opponent? I'll value debtor's pulpit higher in the future... I've never tried it before.
It says "destroy target creature', it is premium removal which is king in limited. It is easily a first pickable card if you can support it. The mill effect is meaningless for the most part.
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On July 01 2013 13:11 micronesia wrote:Show nested quote +On July 01 2013 12:34 Cel.erity wrote:
If you convert the draft file, convert it to image format, the text is really hard to follow. Otherwise just post the format of the original. From what I see it gives me html... how do I use that?
Yeah I guess you're right, just pasting the contents of the draft file should be fine then since then people can paste it into a draft converter to see images.
Show nested quote +Pack 1 your picks were pretty much okay. I wouldn't have taken any of the gatekeepers, I would've taken Cluestones or Deputy of Acquittals or something. You also took Riot Control (a totally unplayable card) over two decent white cards. Riot control seems good to me. If there's something I've learned, it's just because a magic card seems good to me doesn't mean it's actually valuable in a draft. I used it several times just now in this tournament. When my back is against the wall, my opponent attacks expecting me to block and sacrifice creatures, but I let them all through, and then prevent the damage. I follow up by swinging back at them after their creatures are tapped, finishing them off. Why is it that the card is bad? The health gain can also be quite nice later in the game if there is a big standoff (which orzhov often has).
The use you mentioned is incredibly situational. In a lot of cases, your back wouldn't be against the wall if you just had a better card in your hand to begin with. Lifegain is almost never playable, as a general rule, because board presence is more important than life totals. Even if the card just said "gain 12 life" it would be a sideboard card at best.
Show nested quote +Pack 2, pick 1, I guess you took Foundry as a money pick? You don't have any red cards, so the Spectacle is likely much better. Pick 2, Syndicate Enforcer is below average, it's a very expensive low impact creature. It's much worse than Angelic Edict, and at this point you're not committed to black. Pick 9, Debtor's Pulpit is actually fine so I would've taken that over a card you'll never play maindeck. Yeah as I said the foundry was not picked to win the tourney. Is grisly spectacle very good even if there is 0 chance of you milling the opponent? I'll value debtor's pulpit higher in the future... I've never tried it before.
It's instant speed unconditional removal, so...yes. It's the best black common in GTC.
Show nested quote +Pack 3, pick 3, it was a huge mistake to not just slam Collective Blessing. You have only 2-3 good black cards, and your deck quality at this point is extremely low. Blessing is one of the best cards in the entire format and instantly makes your deck twice as good, and you already have a Tomb and 2 good green cards, plus an entire pack of Selesnya to go. The mana would be awkward, but it's better than what you ended up with. Also note grabbing those Cluestones in pack 1 would've put you in a better spot here. Ah, I see what you mean. With that darn timer going it's hard to realize all of this haha. I have not read/talked about collective blessing before so I didn't automatically perk up when I saw it (unlike if I saw a voice for example). I'll keep this card in mind. Show nested quote +P3P4 easy Selesnya Sentry, Swift Justice is not a good card and you should always take a mediocre creature over a mediocre trick when you have so few threats. P3P5 wow, Drainpipe Vermin is a completely unplayable card and Knightly Valor is the best white common in RtR, so I'm not sure why you made that pick at all. P3P7, Ethereal Armor is not good, but better than Cremate. Would selesnya sentry still make sense even if I had zero green mana fixing or other green cards, or are you suggesting it because of my ability to splash/include green? It seems like a bad card unless you are already playing green.
It's a 3/2 for 3, which is not great but better than Swift Justice in most cases, especially here where you had practically no worthwhile creatures and no reason to need an aggressive trick. You just need to value non-1/1 creatures more highly, all of your decks should contain tons of creatures and a few premium spells.
As for knightly valor, I did not know that it is such a great card. I try not to use enchantments that much in general, but I'll do it if an enchantment is very good (and especially since it makes a separate creature token now that I think about it). Drainpipe vermin is a fun card and combines well with the corpse blockade, but now that I have time to think about it I can see why it's inferior to knightly valor and maybe some of the other picks.
Drainpipe Vermin is like Riot Control, it doesn't contribute anything to the board because it's only a 1/1. It basically reads "BB - Gain 3 life, opponent discards their worst card whenever they want to." Not worth a card unless your opponent has shown a million X/1 ground creatures to trade with. It doesn't really combine well with Corpse Blockade compared to, say, a Selesnya Sentry, because the Sentry has a chance at doing something without being sacrificed.
Knightly Valor is good because in most situations it 1.) Instantly lets you attack for 4-5 more damage than you would have been able to normally, and 2.) Leaves you with 2 extra blockers, one of which is rather large.
As for ethereal armor, I think that card would make sense if I was doing other enchantments (such as including unflinching courage and knightly valor), but if it was the only enchantment I was using, would it be inferior?
Even as a +1/+1 first strike, it's playable. Not great, but better than a few of the cards in your deck like Vermin and Cremate.
Show nested quote +Overall: I don't think your choice to stick to white was bad, I think I would have taken the Gruul War Chant and ended up with some kind of gruul or naya deck, but again, it's a hard format to draft. The packs were weak for your colors and you ended up somewhere near where you were supposed to be, but you should've been open to taking the Cluestones/nonblack cards and after a pretty empty pack 2 for Orzhov, you would've been in a good spot to draft Selesnya or Azorious in pack 3. Your biggest mistake was passing Collective Blessing when you weren't too color committed. And again, stop playing 1-mana 1/1's. Even Catacomb Slug would be an improvement. What about the creature that gives intimidate? I found that very helpful considering this type of deck doesn't give me much opportunity to smash through my opponents' lines. Thanks for analyzing the picks. I think I'm starting to narrow down the number of cards that I completely under/over value. I need to get better at analyzing how much luck I'm having with guilds, and remembering which guilds are in the next pack to make decisions.
The black denizen is playable, but he's still fairly bad because, again, he's a 1/1. 1/1 creatures that don't have evasion provide no board presence, and thus are basically just enchantments. You wouldn't play an enchantment that gives intimidate to one of your creatures 4-5 times per game. Even a card like Blood Artist is fairly mediocre in limited, and Denizen is a lot worse than him, but with enough enablers they can both become decent.
Figuring out what colors you want to be is the reason this format is so difficult, so don't beat yourself up if you get stuck in the wrong colors. Your first priority should be to spot a wide open RtR guild, and second priority should be to cut a GTC guild heavily. In this draft, you didn't really have the opportunity to do either of those things, so your choice to remain white was fine. I think you started falling apart in pack 2, when you could have been taking white cards over black cards to leave yourself able to switch into any available second color.
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United States24761 Posts
On July 01 2013 13:35 DarthXX wrote:Show nested quote +On July 01 2013 13:11 micronesia wrote:
Yeah as I said the foundry was not picked to win the tourney. Is grisly spectacle very good even if there is 0 chance of you milling the opponent? I'll value debtor's pulpit higher in the future... I've never tried it before. It says "destroy target creature', it is premium removal which is king in limited. It is easily a first pickable card if you can support it. The mill effect is meaningless for the most part.
Okay, thanks for clarifying.
By the way guys, does this work for visualizing my draft picks? http://www.raredraft.com/watch?d=4dhsh
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Pulpits pretty bad, I have tried that card so many times and it's just too costly, 6 mana tap spell is no thanks.
Spectacle is unconditional removal, which would make it very good in any limited format.
Riot Control is an okay sideboard card, very good in a race since the life swing is big game, otherwise its pretty bleh.
Courage/Helix pick I think you can defend either, I would rank Helix higher simply because its more versatile, in the GTC guild, and a better splash than Courage (not by a whole lot).
Also, the new Chandra, dunno about this card, it wants to be aggressive but it's not, the 0 seems weird as hell. The 1 damage is completely pointless in the environment.
And lastly, the latest candidate to entice/trap people to play mono-black, Dark Prophecy.
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On July 01 2013 13:25 Audemed wrote:
I don't share his views on Riot control, I think that in the correct deck, it can be amazing. Also, not picking up the warleaders helix P1P2? That card is phenomenal in limited, and should be picked over just about anything else in DGM.
Ah, didn't see that. Yeah it's just the best uncommon in the set probably. At least the card taken was pretty good too.
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I assume the card you exile with Chandra's second ability is a card you can look at, or is revealed to everyone, right?
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So happy something new to draft will be coming soon. RTR was a pain some times. I only had a lot of luck getting the cards I needed when I just went UW w/ as many flyers as possible.
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drafting core sets has always been it's own type of beast
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On July 01 2013 14:10 cLAN.Anax wrote:
I assume the card you exile with Chandra's second ability is a card you can look at, or is revealed to everyone, right?
Yes. Exiled is always face up unless otherwise stated which is why it irks the hell out me when players exile their stuff face down whether it be from stuff like ORing or Rest in Peace.
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On July 01 2013 13:45 Judicator wrote:
Pulpits pretty bad, I have tried that card so many times and it's just too costly, 6 mana tap spell is no thanks.
Spectacle is unconditional removal, which would make it very good in any limited format.
Riot Control is an okay sideboard card, very good in a race since the life swing is big game, otherwise its pretty bleh.
Courage/Helix pick I think you can defend either, I would rank Helix higher simply because its more versatile, in the GTC guild, and a better splash than Courage (not by a whole lot).
Also, the new Chandra, dunno about this card, it wants to be aggressive but it's not, the 0 seems weird as hell. The 1 damage is completely pointless in the environment.
And lastly, the latest candidate to entice/trap people to play mono-black, Dark Prophecy.
Dark Prophecy is at least an auto include in my Teysa EDH  . However I will try to make it work in some with maybe in a B/W deck with rotlung reanimator or maybe gravecrawlers and be horribly disappointed when it fails miserably
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BW or BWX aggro is going to be retarded as I said earlier.
Doomed Traveler
Champion of the Parish
Cartel Aristocrat
Knight of X
Skirsdag High Priest
Blood Artist
Xathid Necromancer
Lingering Souls
Plethora of removal
Then you get your choice of Searing Spear/Pillar/Falkenrath/Reckoner or Voice/Valroz/Gavony
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Just throwing it out there: Why the hell can't they make a good Chandra?
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On July 01 2013 21:26 deth2munkies wrote:
Just throwing it out there: Why the hell can't they make a good Chandra?
I've been perturbed about this too. T_T I mean, you look at Nalaar and are like, "Okay, this makes sense. Not too bad. Pretty powerful." But then you play with it and think to yourself, "Hmmm, this wasn't nearly as effective as his Jace or Garruk I imagined it would be." :-\
Ablaze is a nightmare to defend....
I think Firebrand is the best they've come up with so far. Splashable, not 5+ mana, strong and applicable abilities.
I dunno, I guess Wizards has a really hard time coming up with Planeswalkers that fit red. How do you think Tibault and Koth worked out?
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On July 01 2013 21:26 deth2munkies wrote:
Just throwing it out there: Why the hell can't they make a good Chandra?
I think it is quite difficult to make a good + ability for a mono-red planeswalker. In general the + ability needs to protect the planeswalker in some way but red's only way of doing this is killing stuff via damage which is either overpowered or pathetically weak. They can't really do things which tap, bounce or make tokens that linger in red. Not sure what they could do, maybe like gain control of a creature until the beginning of your next upkeep? but that seems horribly broken. I think a better approach might be to give them bigger + abilities like +2 or +3 to compensate but have harder to reach ultimates and like -3 or -4s abilities instead of -1 and -2
Planeswalkers in general have a bit of tension with red's playstyle which is all about getting in early and fast damage whereas planeswalkers are about gaining incremental advantages and value over several turns.
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Koth was great, it was just Red had a hard time blowing through a lot of decks at the time as that standard format progressed since he mandated actual Mountains. When he was good, he was very good. As a Flare/UB player, I was not sad to see mono Red phased out as it was arguably one of the worst match ups, enough to warrant maindeck Timely Reinforcements and why UB wasn't touched until Red started to fade out.
The problem with Chandra is that she's a spell slinging burn PW, so if you make the + ability a solid burn spell like Shock at 4 mana, it would get out of hand really quick. If you make it the - ability, then you're paying for an over-costed burn spell. So you're stuck with these awkward setups on her.
Firebrand was too weak and there wasn't a deck for her to go into. Chandra needs more than anything an actual threat skill, you have a bunch of tongue in cheek cute abilities and that's about it. I don't think an Arc Lightning or Chain Lightning ability would have been format wrecking, a cursed scroll ability wouldn't be so bad either, threatening but not like she's slinging Lightning Bolts.
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United States24761 Posts
I am doing a 6 booster draft (phantom for a change) and said 'screw it all!' and built a four color deck:
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/ZsvVPRd.png)
I know the best way to win is to focus your deck on less colors, but just in general if you are going 4 decks how much fixing do you need? I have a verdant haven, a prosphetic prism, two opposing gates, and two opposting cluestones. I'm going to try it out now so maybe I'll see for myself.
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EPT
