inanutshell
Member
Yeah that sounds like magic. Now I remember why I stopped playing magic online. Frustrating to see opponent draw well while I get crap. At least these release drafts are swiss but I have to wait for the next round to start.
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Yeah that sounds like magic. Now I remember why I stopped playing magic online. Frustrating to see opponent draw well while I get crap. At least these release drafts are swiss but I have to wait for the next round to start.
divisionbyzorro
Member
Sealed is already the format with the greatest variance; I only ever play it during release events because I like the opportunity to play around with a great big pile of cards. Draft is certainly variant as well, but there's enough opportunity for skill to play a role that over time the luck washes out.
inanutshell
Member
Yeah I agree. In the long run you can get pretty high win rates in both draft and sealed. I used to be good at drafting when I played the game a lot, but getting screwed by the shuffler is much more memorable than the fair games. I like doing sealed also but I haven't put actual money into my magic online account since the month I made it and plan to slowly waste away what tickets/cards I have in it on release events since those are usually the highest EV. I'll probably do a release sealed next week on Monday after work since they're pretty easy to come out ahead early on.
edit: Aww crap. Was looking through my account and I still have rav duals I forgot to sell off. Guess I'll do that before the influx of new lands drop the prices down.
divisionbyzorro
Member
Wow - I am getting my ass kicked in this pre-release event. Hopefully the next one I do doesn't go so poorly.
There was a lot of hype about Rakdos going into this, but my experience has been profoundly negative so far. I've obviously seen the power of Rakdos himself, but unless I absolutely nut draw, I haven't been able to keep up enough pressure to actually survive into the late game.
I think I underestimated how important it is to have the right kind of curve in a Rakdos deck. Looking over my pool again and the deck I ended up building, I'm not convinced that going Rakdos was actually the right decision. I didn't realize how much of a curve deck it really is, rather than just a straight aggro deck. Unleash is absurdly powerful - when you're consistently getting above the curve.
A painful lesson, but a good one to learn. It's certainly making me re-evaluate the Rakdos cards, and realize just how important it is to get the right curve. A good lesson to take into drafting.
EDIT: After starting 0-2, my round 3 opponent has 141 cards in his deck. And waited 8 minutes to start the match. *eyeroll* ... And yep, he never showed. Now to play in the 1-2 bracket, where we'll be fiercely battling for a 2-2 record and the prize of one whole pack!
There was a lot of hype about Rakdos going into this, but my experience has been profoundly negative so far. I've obviously seen the power of Rakdos himself, but unless I absolutely nut draw, I haven't been able to keep up enough pressure to actually survive into the late game.
I think I underestimated how important it is to have the right kind of curve in a Rakdos deck. Looking over my pool again and the deck I ended up building, I'm not convinced that going Rakdos was actually the right decision. I didn't realize how much of a curve deck it really is, rather than just a straight aggro deck. Unleash is absurdly powerful - when you're consistently getting above the curve.
A painful lesson, but a good one to learn. It's certainly making me re-evaluate the Rakdos cards, and realize just how important it is to get the right curve. A good lesson to take into drafting.
EDIT: After starting 0-2, my round 3 opponent has 141 cards in his deck. And waited 8 minutes to start the match. *eyeroll* ... And yep, he never showed. Now to play in the 1-2 bracket, where we'll be fiercely battling for a 2-2 record and the prize of one whole pack!
inanutshell
Member
divisionbyzorro: Nice.
Finished my draft 2-1 since my second round opponent (easydropd) didn't show up and my third round opponent was terrible. Sold the boosters and the Lotleth I money drafted to break even at 15 tickets. Not bad in the end and might try another draft tomorrow as long as boosters stay easy to sell at 4.
Format does seem pretty quick. Rakdos is pretty powerful since once you get out the unleash 2/3 black dude or 2/2 red first strike dude, things can get out of control for the other player. Definitely need to have some early drops to deal with the low power/toughness haste guys and 2 drop unleash guys.
In sealed, I figure the best pools would be rakdos where you get the early 2 and 3 drops with unleash combined with removal and the next best would be selesnya and azorius since card advantage from populate and flyers/evasion are more consistent ways to win in sealed formats than curving out perfectly. I don't think I'm a fan of the izzet commons in general.
I'll do some drafts next week for the avatars and the better payouts. I always feel bad when I get only 1 pack in the prerelease and none of the promo cards seem particularly great.
Finished my draft 2-1 since my second round opponent (easydropd) didn't show up and my third round opponent was terrible. Sold the boosters and the Lotleth I money drafted to break even at 15 tickets. Not bad in the end and might try another draft tomorrow as long as boosters stay easy to sell at 4.
Format does seem pretty quick. Rakdos is pretty powerful since once you get out the unleash 2/3 black dude or 2/2 red first strike dude, things can get out of control for the other player. Definitely need to have some early drops to deal with the low power/toughness haste guys and 2 drop unleash guys.
In sealed, I figure the best pools would be rakdos where you get the early 2 and 3 drops with unleash combined with removal and the next best would be selesnya and azorius since card advantage from populate and flyers/evasion are more consistent ways to win in sealed formats than curving out perfectly. I don't think I'm a fan of the izzet commons in general.
I'll do some drafts next week for the avatars and the better payouts. I always feel bad when I get only 1 pack in the prerelease and none of the promo cards seem particularly great.
divisionbyzorro
Member
And I finish 1-3. I took the first game of match 1, barely lost the second, then mulled to five on game three. Got stuck on land. My opponent dropped at turn 4 Jace. Today was not my day!
I'm very interested to know what you guys think about my pool and how I built:
One thing I absolutely regret was the Forest maindeck. It was a terrible idea. I wanted a 17th creature, and didn't like what was in red or black, so I splashed a single green creature and put in a Golgari Guildgate and a Forest, cutting a swamp for it. That Forest ended up color screwing me twice, and I never even saw the creature.
The other color combination I see in there would be Bant. I briefly considered it, but didn't end up giving it much time. There's no detain, the blue cards in the pool are mostly mediocre to terrible, and the deck doesn't really do anything. Of course, what I failed to see in my first evaluation is that there is theoretically a super-defensive deck in there that stalls until you draw Isperia. I guess that could have been a deck?
I dunno. Critique me! Make it as harsh as necessary. I don't play much sealed, and I'd be interested to hear opinions from anyone who has some experience.
EDIT: I also just realized that was a foil Isperia I just pulled. I wonder if I should just go ahead and sell that thing. MTGO Traders is offering 9 tix; I have to imagine that offer will only go down?
I'm very interested to know what you guys think about my pool and how I built:
One thing I absolutely regret was the Forest maindeck. It was a terrible idea. I wanted a 17th creature, and didn't like what was in red or black, so I splashed a single green creature and put in a Golgari Guildgate and a Forest, cutting a swamp for it. That Forest ended up color screwing me twice, and I never even saw the creature.
The other color combination I see in there would be Bant. I briefly considered it, but didn't end up giving it much time. There's no detain, the blue cards in the pool are mostly mediocre to terrible, and the deck doesn't really do anything. Of course, what I failed to see in my first evaluation is that there is theoretically a super-defensive deck in there that stalls until you draw Isperia. I guess that could have been a deck?
I dunno. Critique me! Make it as harsh as necessary. I don't play much sealed, and I'd be interested to hear opinions from anyone who has some experience.
EDIT: I also just realized that was a foil Isperia I just pulled. I wonder if I should just go ahead and sell that thing. MTGO Traders is offering 9 tix; I have to imagine that offer will only go down?
inanutshell
Member
Wow. The removal in your pool is insane. Your curve seems to be low enough where you could have gone with 16 lands. The second annihilating fire should have been in your main deck. Ultimate price definitely should have been maindeck. Generally in limited you want bombs then removal over everything else. 15 creatures with lots of removal is fine. Jailbreaker probably doesnt fit your deck since you only have two gates that'll remove defender and your deck wants to be aggressive. Maybe dynacharge should be in the deck as a finisher when things get stalled out and so your smaller guys can trade with your opponent's creatures.
Generally all the cards in the set will go down in price in a few days after prerelease as people draft. The only cards that will go up are chase rares and mythics that are part of tournament decks or really popular casual cards. Even in that case, they will go down during release period then rebound up a bit later as fewer drafts fire. Regular isperia is only $3 on starcity games so it'll probably be a 1 or 2 ticket card on mtgo and the foil will probably get it up to 3 or 4 by the end of next week. So probably safe to sell.
divisionbyzorro
Member
...that never occurred to me. Jam all the removal and play more midrange instead of aggro. I had it in my head that I was going to go balls-to-the-wall aggro, and really wanted to play 17 creatures. I dropped the second Annihilating Fire because of the RR cost.
That was my thinking too; I did go ahead and sell it. Maybe it'll go up, maybe it'll go down. But it's probably best to just jump on it now.
acheron_xl
Member
Joined an online release event and my sealed pool seems like some hot garbage.
And piling a bunch of counters on a dude that I want to punch through with a Rogue's Passage only to see my opponent's Jace give them an Azorius Charm feels bad, man.
And piling a bunch of counters on a dude that I want to punch through with a Rogue's Passage only to see my opponent's Jace give them an Azorius Charm feels bad, man.
inanutshell
Member
For sure. I was getting 10th pick stab wound and augur spree in my draft pod today. Drafting is going to be a crap shoot this weekend. Lots of bad players just raredrafting and hoping to luck into a win since packs are selling for more than 4 in the trading areas. Ran into a ridiculous Selesnya deck in the second round. Hopefully my third round opponent's deck isn't similarly overpowered.
streaming?
http://www.twitch.tv/magicprotour
It'll be streaming there, I haven't been able to find a start time though.
EDIT: Looks like it's starting 2 PM PST.
Let me know what you guys think of this deck and I am working on building?
G/B Standard
Creatures
4x Primordial Hyrdra
4x Corpsejack Menace
4x Slitherhead
2x Jarad, Golgari Lich Lord
2x Deadbridge Goliath
2x Dreg Mangler
2x Lotleth Troll
2x Sluiceway Scorpian
2x Deathrite Shaman
Spells
4x Fungal Sprouting
2x Abrupt Decay
4x Grisly Salvage
2x Treasured Find
2x Jarad's Orders
Lands
4x Overgrown Tomb
4x Woodland Cemetery
7x Forest
7x Swamp
I was thinking taking out the Lotleth Trolls and maybe adding two more scavenge creatures. It is a pretty expensive card and I don't know how useful it will be in this deck. What do you guys think?
The deck is mostly based around getting the hydra big and either winning with it + Corsejack or if the opponent makes it useless in some way (such as with pacify) I can win with fungal sprouting or with Jarad's ability.
G/B Standard
Creatures
4x Primordial Hyrdra
4x Corpsejack Menace
4x Slitherhead
2x Jarad, Golgari Lich Lord
2x Deadbridge Goliath
2x Dreg Mangler
2x Lotleth Troll
2x Sluiceway Scorpian
2x Deathrite Shaman
Spells
4x Fungal Sprouting
2x Abrupt Decay
4x Grisly Salvage
2x Treasured Find
2x Jarad's Orders
Lands
4x Overgrown Tomb
4x Woodland Cemetery
7x Forest
7x Swamp
I was thinking taking out the Lotleth Trolls and maybe adding two more scavenge creatures. It is a pretty expensive card and I don't know how useful it will be in this deck. What do you guys think?
The deck is mostly based around getting the hydra big and either winning with it + Corsejack or if the opponent makes it useless in some way (such as with pacify) I can win with fungal sprouting or with Jarad's ability.
narcosis219
Member
Oh god I just dropped $78 to get 3 Blood Crypts and 3 Overgrown Tombs.
WHY DIDNT I PICK UP WOODLANDS WHEN THEY WERE 4 BUCKS? FUUUUU. Gonna have to drop another 14*3 dollars to complete my jund mana base
WHY DIDNT I PICK UP WOODLANDS WHEN THEY WERE 4 BUCKS? FUUUUU. Gonna have to drop another 14*3 dollars to complete my jund mana base
GP San Jose has started now: http://www.twitch.tv/magicprotour
Get 3 of the precons, it has Woodland, Thragtusk and Wolfrir silverheart
Zaraki_Kenpachi
Member
I've been working on kind of a guttersnipe deck, let me know what you think:
4 Artful Dodge
3 Think Twice
3 Geist of Saint Traft
4 Guttersnipe
1 Divine Reckoning
1 Talrand, Sky Summoner
1 Niv-Mizzet, Dracogenius
4 Nivmagus Elemental
6 Island
6 Mountain
4 Clifftop Retreat
4 Glacial Fortress
3 Steam Vents
2 Geistflame
4 Izzet Charm
1 Azorius Charm
2 Rootborn Defenses
1 Hallowed Fountain
2 Cackling Counterpart
3 Faithless Looting
2 Annihilating Fire
4 Artful Dodge
3 Think Twice
3 Geist of Saint Traft
4 Guttersnipe
1 Divine Reckoning
1 Talrand, Sky Summoner
1 Niv-Mizzet, Dracogenius
4 Nivmagus Elemental
6 Island
6 Mountain
4 Clifftop Retreat
4 Glacial Fortress
3 Steam Vents
2 Geistflame
4 Izzet Charm
1 Azorius Charm
2 Rootborn Defenses
1 Hallowed Fountain
2 Cackling Counterpart
3 Faithless Looting
2 Annihilating Fire
divisionbyzorro
Member
I lost match one to the mirror because he had Rakdos and none of my removal kills Rakdos (I sided in Launch Party just to have an out in game 2, but it didn't show up).
I lost match two to a Golgari grind-em-out deck in which I mulliganed at least once each game. I also completely underestimated the Golgari guildmage; I left it on the table because the first ability wasn't relevant (since my guys weren't blocking anyway), but failed to appreciate just how powerful the second ability really is.
I lost a close match three to UW skies, again with mulligans and the fact that my mana base wasn't correct (I would have won the match in game two had that meaningless Forest been the Swamp that I cut for it, and M3G3 he played a T4 Jace with defense on the board).
The lessons I learned:
1) Don't splash for anything other than a bomb. The reward is not worth the risk.
2) Even in an aggressive deck, it's better to have solid mana (I had two Rakdos Guildgates and only ran one because I was worried about temp loss).
3) I absolutely agree that I would have been better off to have added all the removal to my deck. I definitely locked myself into a narrow view of what my deck should look like and missed some angles that would have improved my deck.
4) I also realized that combat with the Rakdos deck is very difficult once each side has more than 2-3 creatures on it. Once again, more removal would have been better.
In short: I probably didn't mulligan correctly, absolutely could have built a better deck, and made a couple of small play mistakes. The mistakes I made were marginal, and in most games I had outs, but I won't blame luck when there are obvious mistakes I made that didn't put me in the best position to win.
Man, I HATE that you need one of those 5 dollar guildmarks to enter a pre-release online. I just 3-1'd my first one, and was able to sell 16 dollars worth of cards (Overgrown, and a Foil Troll), but none of the bots are carrying the marks (probably because they loose all value in 24 hours). Just let me enter for 25 tics!
divisionbyzorro
Member
Marks are untradable for some reason.
Owlowiscious
Member
my rdw got top 8, then lost first round for 7/8th place. lost to UWr geist. had all the same red burn spells I did, so he burned all my little guys and swung three times with geist for the win.
The SC2 celebrity Day9 is playing on stream
He's clearly new to playing it competitively and still has the over the top personality that grates after a while.
Where was he playing? :O
Huh, $5 for guild pre-release isn't a bad price.
Is the Deck Builders kit always $5 as well?
Kinda want to get a pre-release guild pack with the deck builders update for 2013 and the DotP deck/pack as well since they're all $5 on MtG Online. Are they on sale due to the pre-release or what?
Is the Deck Builders kit always $5 as well?
Kinda want to get a pre-release guild pack with the deck builders update for 2013 and the DotP deck/pack as well since they're all $5 on MtG Online. Are they on sale due to the pre-release or what?
Owlowiscious
Member
Is this online or cardboard? Deck Builder's MSRP is $20, and guild pack (with 5 packs + guild pack + promo) is $25.
Keru_Shiri
Member
Went 4-3 at States today, with a list extremely similar to the one I posted earlier. Despite going up to 24 lands, it seemed like I was always having to go to 6 or 5 card hands due to a lack of mana. If I were to try this deck again, I think I would find a way to lower the overall curve, and possibly move back to mono-red.
Online, and yeah I thought the Deck Builders was $20 normally in Online as well because that's what I could swear I bought the 2012 version at. I may jump at 200 common/uncommon cards to add to my collection for $5.
I think this is the first time they've done a cheap-o pre-release on M:tG: Online. It's nice. It seems like any other pre-release (or at least the one's I've seen in the past six months of opening an account) required account tickets plus buying a booster or something like that for $10 while not dropping the price for other things. Is this the first sale M:tG:O has had?
Hell I only play at an FNM level and have never seen someone just grab someones card. There are a hell of a lot of "May I?"s as people need to look at their opponents card (I do it plenty myself just to make sure I'm not forgetting an effect), but not asking? Damn.
divisionbyzorro
Member
On my second prelease sealed. Went UWR; it feels like I have a pretty solid control deck. My mythic pull was an Epic Experiment 
Starting off 1-1. Lost a tight match one against a Bant deck, then won a tight match two against Selesnya durdle, in which he durdled his timer to zero. Match three starting now! Hopefully today goes better than yesterday.
Starting off 1-1. Lost a tight match one against a Bant deck, then won a tight match two against Selesnya durdle, in which he durdled his timer to zero. Match three starting now! Hopefully today goes better than yesterday.
I realized I don't have the patience for another prelease so I just did a draft.
My deck is alright but I realized I overloaded on the 2 drops (Grixis).
I'm content though, I opened up a Loxodon Smiter, Underworld Connections, and a Temple Garden, which I all slammed, despite hobbling my deck. And I got passed a Cyclonic Rift as well in P2P4. I was like, "what???"
Got a bye \o/.
My deck is alright but I realized I overloaded on the 2 drops (Grixis).
I'm content though, I opened up a Loxodon Smiter, Underworld Connections, and a Temple Garden, which I all slammed, despite hobbling my deck. And I got passed a Cyclonic Rift as well in P2P4. I was like, "what???"
Got a bye \o/.
It should be like, impossible to overload on 2 drops with Grixis. I had 9 at the prerelease when I 4-0'd.
divisionbyzorro
Member
2-1 now! Skymark Roc is absolutely insane in this format. There are a lot of relevant creatures he misses, but even without his text he's still a great beater. Such a great creature to have.
Well, you also admitted to having a less than optimal deck because you rare-drafted. That's the risk you take when you do that.
Well, you also admitted to having a less than optimal deck because you rare-drafted. That's the risk you take when you do that.
Yeah, I guess. I can't really justify passing up a Temple Garden though, especially since i want to make a GW deck.
From the one pack I won, I got an Abrupt decay, so tonight was mostly salvaged.
EDIT: Oh hey zorro, I found you on MTGSalvation
From the one pack I won, I got an Abrupt decay, so tonight was mostly salvaged.
EDIT: Oh hey zorro, I found you on MTGSalvation
divisionbyzorro
Member
And ended 2-2. Damnit.
Match 4 was against Junk tokens. Much like my previous match against Selesnya, this guy durdled around for ages each turn. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to remove his tokens fast enough, never drew a huge bomb, and had to watch as he managed to build a critical mass of centaurs to push through and win. He had 9:30 left on his timer; I had 18:00. I figured that I had a pretty good shot of winning to match time. 3-1 was in sight...
Game 2 I looked at an opening hand with two islands for my lands, and nothing in my hand had any U in the casting cost except for an Archon of the Triumvirate. I decided this was an obvious mulligan.
My 6 had no lands. Neither did my 5. My 4 had an Azorius Guildgate, so I went with that and prayed for a miracle - which never came.
Not my weekend. Oh well - regular draft queues open up tomorrow - that's where the real fun is. I managed to pull a Steam Vents; trying to decide if I should sell it right now (MTGO traders is offering 5 tix) in the hopes that it drops far enough to where I can make a profit if I buy it back again...
Yeah, I made an account there recently. I post - occasionally.
Match 4 was against Junk tokens. Much like my previous match against Selesnya, this guy durdled around for ages each turn. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to remove his tokens fast enough, never drew a huge bomb, and had to watch as he managed to build a critical mass of centaurs to push through and win. He had 9:30 left on his timer; I had 18:00. I figured that I had a pretty good shot of winning to match time. 3-1 was in sight...
Game 2 I looked at an opening hand with two islands for my lands, and nothing in my hand had any U in the casting cost except for an Archon of the Triumvirate. I decided this was an obvious mulligan.
My 6 had no lands. Neither did my 5. My 4 had an Azorius Guildgate, so I went with that and prayed for a miracle - which never came.
Not my weekend. Oh well - regular draft queues open up tomorrow - that's where the real fun is. I managed to pull a Steam Vents; trying to decide if I should sell it right now (MTGO traders is offering 5 tix) in the hopes that it drops far enough to where I can make a profit if I buy it back again...
Yeah, I made an account there recently. I post - occasionally.
CrankyKong
Member
Does anyone just collect the cards for the sake of collection?
inanutshell
Member
That's pretty typical for cards on magic online compared to paper. Way more drafts happen on mtgo and it's a lot easier for players to sell their cards to bots that have slim profit margins.
Decided to do a draft tonight and regret it. Deck is jank but at least I took a temple garden.
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