EPTShould be playing the Axebane Guardian for sure.
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Judicator
United States7270 Posts
Should be playing the Axebane Guardian for sure. | ||
micronesia
United States24752 Posts
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Judicator
United States7270 Posts
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micronesia
United States24752 Posts
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The Great Taste
389 Posts
Zhur-Taa Druid is a good card but generally only if you can play it early. How often will you be able to play it turn 2 is key to whether it belongs in the deck or not and I don't think you can feasibly play it often enough on turn 2. Signal the Clans, I am not sure if this card is good (I don't think it is?) but haven't played with it enough to know. I am also not sure about including Millenial Gargoyale. If you are playing so many colours the advantage should be being able to play the better cards which it certainly is not one of. Gruul War Chant may not be ideal either, since as you are 4 colour you should win in the later game via bigger creatures so it's not so important for them to be unblockable and more important for you to survive to the later game. Cards I think you should consider are Alm's Beast (playing the Dimir Guildgates), Axebane Guardian (as mentioned before), Kraul Warrior (decent early drop who can be useful later), Syndic of Tithes (extort is king), Kingpin's Pet (Extort) and Golgari Longlegs (good body). Of these mentioned would definitely play Syndic, Guardian and Longlegs. As for ideal mana, the generic guide I use is have 1 more source than you do mana symbols of that colour (for the minor colours in your deck). For example, with Alm's Beast it would be 1 black symbol so 2 Dimir Guildgates covers the splash. Splashing Aetherling would be 3 blue sources assuming no other blue cards. Primary colours of your deck (say 6-7 cards of that colour) you want 7 or more. | ||
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micronesia
United States24752 Posts
On July 02 2013 01:39 The Great Taste wrote: I just finished playing the event with this deck. The guttersnipe worked out pretty well since I had several instants/sorceries. If I remove the skullcrack then I can definitely remove the guttersnipe, though.There looks to be some sub-optimal cards in there. Skullcrack is really bad in limited, even as a sideboard option in most cases. There doesn't seem to be enough spells to justify Guttersnipes inclusion though it definitely is a powerful card. In limited, what kind of a deck do you need in order to justify guttersnipe? Zhur-Taa Druid is a good card but generally only if you can play it early. How often will you be able to play it turn 2 is key to whether it belongs in the deck or not and I don't think you can feasibly play it often enough on turn 2. Yea I think that's a good point.Signal the Clans, I am not sure if this card is good (I don't think it is?) but haven't played with it enough to know. It's a good way for me to get out a couple of my money creatures like aetherling. It didn't end up happening though.I am also not sure about including Millenial Gargoyale. If you are playing so many colours the advantage should be being able to play the better cards which it certainly is not one of. My thinking was, if I'm having trouble getting the right colors for some reason, I still have a 4 drop no matter what. I'd think it would be stronger in multi-colored decks since the cost is colorless. Maybe I misunderstand the value of cards like mellenial gargoyle.Gruul War Chant may not be ideal either, since as you are 4 colour you should win in the later game via bigger creatures so it's not so important for them to be unblockable and more important for you to survive to the later game. This definitely proved to be true in my games.Cards I think you should consider are Alm's Beast (playing the Dimir Guildgates), Axebane Guardian (as mentioned before), Kraul Warrior (decent early drop who can be useful later), Syndic of Tithes (extort is king), Kingpin's Pet (Extort) and Golgari Longlegs (good body). Of these mentioned would definitely play Syndic, Guardian and Longlegs. I've never used alms beast.... is it a very good card despite the weird abililty? I guess a 6/6 4 drop is a beast either way (no pun intended).As for ideal mana, the generic guide I use is have 1 more source than you do mana symbols of that colour (for the minor colours in your deck). For example, with Alm's Beast it would be 1 black symbol so 2 Dimir Guildgates covers the splash. Splashing Aetherling would be 3 blue sources assuming no other blue cards. Primary colours of your deck (say 6-7 cards of that colour) you want 7 or more.[/QUOTE] | ||
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Cel.erity
United States4890 Posts
On July 02 2013 02:39 micronesia wrote: I just finished playing the event with this deck. The guttersnipe worked out pretty well since I had several instants/sorceries. If I remove the skullcrack then I can definitely remove the guttersnipe, though. In limited, what kind of a deck do you need in order to justify guttersnipe? A bad one. But seriously, the problem with Guttersnipe is that even with 8-9 spells (which is a lot), it's usually just going to be a 2/2 that deals 6 to the opponent. In many cases you don't get to trigger every spell you draw with it because it's so small, and thus it's the last guy you want to play. In an aggressive deck with a lot of removal, you'd rather play your big guys first and use your removal to get through, leaving Guttersnipe sitting awkwardly in your hand the whole time. Its best application would be an izzet deck with a lot of cipher and Thoughtflare, but this is not a deck you can just fall into. In a normal Gruul or Boros deck it's probably close to unplayable (due to the high creature count and necessity for your creatures to be effective attackers). I've never used alms beast.... is it a very good card despite the weird abililty? I guess a 6/6 4 drop is a beast either way (no pun intended). Alms Beast is very good. Probably better in draft, but still fine in sealed I assume. You seem to have a consistent weakness in overestimating random damage/lifegain (Skullcrack, Guttersnipe) and underestimating efficient creatures with good P/T for their cost (Kraul Warrior, Alms Beast). As for ideal mana, the generic guide I use is have 1 more source than you do mana symbols of that colour (for the minor colours in your deck). For example, with Alm's Beast it would be 1 black symbol so 2 Dimir Guildgates covers the splash. Splashing Aetherling would be 3 blue sources assuming no other blue cards. Primary colours of your deck (say 6-7 cards of that colour) you want 7 or more. That's not a good way to figure out your mana at all. What about when you draft a deck with 16 green cards and 10 red cards (including multicolored)? You can't play 30 lands. Also, you can't only play 3 sources for a double-costed splash, that means you need to draw 2/3 of your deck to reliably cast it. (Very) general guidelines for mana in limited, using red(R) as the example color in question: 2 sources: Super light splash, like a single powerful bomb that you don't want to strain your mana for, or a cycler, or maybe just half of a split card. 3 sources: Normal splash, 2-3 cards with R in the casting cost. Somewhat risky. 4 sources: Consistent splash for 2-4 cards. 5 sources: Means you have a ton of fixing, or messed up your deck somehow. Can start supporting a fair amount of splash cards and possibly a bomb that costs 4RR or 5RR. 6 sources: Usually should be the minimum if you have anything with a double colored casting cost, like Aetherling. 7-8 sources: Normal amount for a secondary color. You might struggle with early RR, but 2RR should be achievable on curve a fair amount of the time. 9-10 sources: Normal amount for a primary color. You can feel comfortable casting anything. 11+ sources: Means you have a crazy amount of RR 2 and 3-drops, and a good amount of colored mana sinks i.e. Firebreathing. Note that for a card like Isperia, you can't use an Azorius guildgate to pay for its white and its blue cost simultaneously. The gate counts as something like 1 1/2 sources. That means you still need a minimum of ~9-10 independent blue and white sources to be casting it reliably. | ||
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MiyaviTeddy
Canada697 Posts
On July 02 2013 01:16 micronesia wrote: What is an esper deck? I just tried looking it up but don't see a simple explanation anywhere. Esper is one of the shards of Alara. There are: -Bant -Esper -Grixis -Jund -Naya and each shard represents three colors: -Bant (WHITE, green, blue) -Esper (BLUE, white, black) -Grixis (BLACK, red, blue) -Jund (RED, black, green) -Naya (GREEN, red, white) | ||
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Octothorpe
United States52 Posts
On July 02 2013 00:53 micronesia wrote: I am doing a 6 booster draft (phantom for a change) and said 'screw it all!' and built a four color deck: + Show Spoiler + ![[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. I think you had a solid and consistent U/W deck that you could have played here. Cloudfin Raptor is one of Blue's best creatures in this block, and is first pickable out of your Gatecrash pack in basically any deck that runs both islands and creatures. It is very common for him to spend a good chunk of the game as a 3/4 flying for one mana. Denizens (The white one is especially good in this type of deck), Tower Drake, Runewing, Pegasus, Skyjek, Syndic, and Sunspire Griffin are all decent to good playables in those colors as well. You would likely end up sticking a couple less than stellar playables in here to round out the numbers, such as Incursion Specialist or Crosstown Courier, but I think this style of deck would allow for a much higher level of consistency than what you have now. (Remember that two drops are of the utmost importance in this format, and not having enough can break your deck against aggressive draws) If you really wanted to splash, splashing Black in this type of deck to include more extort cards is a decent idea, as Kingpin's Pet and Tithe Drinker are probably the two best options for the mechanic in this color. This deck would try to fly over the opponent as much as possible, and having some Extort to keep you alive,push the last few points through is fairly powerful. Keep in mind that if you splash a 2 drop with an off color mana cost, you need to be sure that the two drop will get you value in later in the game, as that's when it's more likely to be played. Alms Beast is also a solid body on the ground, which is especially important if you're trying to win the game in the air. The incidental life they gain from the Beast's ability is not that important, because if they are attacking into an Alms Beast, you have most likely forced a pretty bad attack. (Unless they have jumbo large guys on the ground, in which case, you're likely losing anyways.) I can't tell what the top Fuse spell you have is, but if it's profit/loss, that's not a terrible splash card either. Your mana base wouldn't take a huge hit from splashing black, as you have the prism, the cluestone, and the two dimir gates. Regarding cluestones, remember that they cause you to pay quite a bit more of a cost than other fixing options in the format. 5-drops are not that common, so it is fairly unlikely that you will be accelerating into anything in particular. (In your particular example, Righteous Authority and Fortress Cyclops are your only possible options.) In addition, their cycle ability costs two mana, so you need to both have mana open, and of the appropriate colors. This can be fairly tricky if you're using an off color cluestone. I personally try to only include cluestones if absolutely necessary, I would much rather have a guildgate take up a land slot than a cluestone take up a spell slot. The biggest shortcoming in this card pool is a lack of ways to deal with opposing bombs. This is a very important thing in Sealed, as it is fairly common for players to just build decks around bombs they open. I don't think there's a way to build your deck to patch that particular weakness, so I personally think that trying to make a very consistent, yet solid deck would be a better bet for your pool than trying to compete in the power level game. While you have some pretty powerful cards, they are mostly in U/W, and being able to cast them consistently with a strategy that is more synergistic with them would help your cause out a lot. If you were set on running a 4C deck, I would have personally removed the big enchantments in favor of more creatures. 11 creatures is an alarmingly low number, and enchantments such as Death's Approach and Gruul War Chant revolve around you having a lot of creatures in play. However, even at its best Death's Approach just sits there for a while and causes you to tap out for little to no immediate effect on the board. While the chant can accidentally steal games, it's best in decks that have a large number of creatures, and some targeted removal to back them up. Even then, including it over another solid creature is often the wrong decision. To answer your question about building a mana base, there are a few rules of thumb you can use to estimate. Most of these will sound like "I have X number of splash cards, so I need Y number of mana sources to be able to cast them consistently." For formats that have a lot of multicolor/hybrid cards, such as this one, counting the number of mana symbols is also an effective way to look at it. The biggest problem that I see in the mana base you constructed for your deck is how much it relies on mana fixing spells. You're playing 17 lands, which is a good number for a deck whose mana curve ends at 6. In addition to that, however, you are playing 4 mana producing spells. These spells can affect your deck negatively in numerous different days. Most obviously, they create more "dead draws" when you need to topdeck some action to stay alive/win in the mid-late game. They can also alter your mulligan decisions quite a bit, as a hand with 2 lands, a prophetic prism, and a cluestone looks a whole lot less tasty than a hand with 4 lands and 3 spells. Just out of curiosity, how did your event end up going? Are there any games you think you would have won if you had made slightly different card choices? Was there a match you played that you felt you would have matched up against your much better with a different deck archetype? | ||
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MoonBear
Straight outta Johto18973 Posts
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micronesia
United States24752 Posts
Unrelated; after that event I did a 3 booster draft. I felt like the draft was going well, and I was halfway through pack 2 when I lost power (along with half the neighborhood) despite the rain/wind being over for a couple of hours haha. I didn't get power back for like 40-50 minutes, after which point I logged on to see I was dropped from the event. Do I get to keep the cards I had already picked, plus random cards from the remaining choices? Since it was swiss I was annoyed it dropped me as I wanted to play in rounds 2-3, even if I needed to start the match at 0-1 in order to get to construct a quick deck from the sideboard. | ||
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Kralic
Canada2628 Posts
http://wizards.custhelp.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/26/~/magic-online:-event-reimbursement-policy | ||
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Audemed
United States893 Posts
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/aPBMudX.jpg) EDIT: derp, image too wide. Full view it or just otherwise know it's isperia and aetherling over there past the RA. EDIT2: Okay, now it's resizing it on the forums. Whatever. | ||
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cLAN.Anax
United States2847 Posts
Ugh, and Kalonian Hydra is yet another reason why I hate green. >_< | ||
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Azuzu
United States340 Posts
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Kralic
Canada2628 Posts
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/aVQ4zAK.png) Here is my latest draft, got 0 rares I could use. Thanks DGM for having a high chance at a useless rare. So far I am 1-0 in this draft. It is kind of nice having some control keeping the board clean until I can plop down my giant. I probably just got lucky and faced a really weak deck. /scab clan giant and tenement crasher on the right. First pick was turn and burn. Gatekeepers are weak, but it is all I could pick in the packs. So far they seem okay, 5 gates seems to be the bare min to be able to activate them each game. | ||
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Audemed
United States893 Posts
On July 02 2013 08:31 Azuzu wrote: I would yank sinister possession and probably beckon apparition and put in long legs and tower drake. Hah, did not even see the drake. In that case I would drop the sinister possession. As for long legs, IDK, I guess with 6 black it could be decently castable, but I try to avoid multiple double color cast costs like that. In this situation, the UU is the primary double, with UUWW on isperia. Wanting BB as well just seems rough. | ||
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Audemed
United States893 Posts
On July 02 2013 08:32 Kralic wrote: Here is my latest draft, got 0 rares I could use. Thanks DGM for having a high chance at a useless rare. So far I am 1-0 in this draft. It is kind of nice having some control keeping the board clean until I can plop down my giant. I probably just got lucky and faced a really weak deck. /scab clan giant and tenement crasher on the right. First pick was turn and burn. Gatekeepers are weak, but it is all I could pick in the packs. So far they seem okay, 5 gates seems to be the bare min to be able to activate them each game. Drop the mindstatic. It's trash every way from Sunday, and you even have two cancels in there! There's almost certainly something else you can stick in that spot instead. Otherwise looks pretty good, although cancels might be tough to get off with just those few islands. EDITS: God i'm trash at typing today. | ||
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Kralic
Canada2628 Posts
On July 02 2013 08:40 Audemed wrote: Drop the mindstatic. It's trash every way from Sunday, and you even have two cancels in there! There's almost certainly something else you can stick in that spot instead. Otherwise looks pretty good, although cancels might be tough to get off with just those few islands. EDITS: God i'm trash at typing today. Yeah, the mind static was taken out after each game 1, I forgot I drafted a dredge beetle so it made it's way into that spot. Went 3-2 (2-0 1-2) in that draft. The last game came down to a beetle form mage getting armed lol. Had no answer for that flying menance. For having a handful of uncommons and no rares I was happy with how it turned out. | ||
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Audemed
United States893 Posts
Edit: As I typed this, packs opened. P1P1 Ral Zarek >.> EDIT2: HI MICRONESIA! EDIT3: Here's what we have at the end of the draft: ![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/Izw8DY5.jpg) EDIT R1: Should've checked my settings before playing on this computer, for some reason the "declare attackers" phase pause had been unticked, and it lost me my ral when I couldn't flash in hussar patrol. Also missed a couple things because of F2'ing too quickly. Lost 0-2 due to this. Gotta slow the hell down, I tend to play far more recklessly online than in person and it's biting me in the ass. EDIT R2: Welp. Super fast R/G deck (3 goblin pikers in his opening hand, holy shit). Went 1-2, realizing that ember beasts really are worse than I remembered. Manascrewed G3, couldn't get my Spark trooper off for the finishing blow and an act of treason ate my blocker. EDIT R3: Bye. Yay?  | ||
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