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Magic: The Gathering |OT3| Enchantment Under the Siege

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I

ironmang

Member
Grakl said:
y'all ready for m15 sealed?
Click to expand...

Not sure if I'm going to make it out to any this weekend. LGS is having a small legacy tournament tomorrow night which is at the same time as the only prerelease I can go to this weekend. Some salt at my horrific prerelease pools is definitely making me lean towards saving ~$20 and playing a format I enjoy much more.
 
Y

Yeef

Member
Access Denied.

Wonder if anyone's copied the text. I also wonder if it mentions any Tarkir spoilers, since the date is after the SDCC panel.
 
S

SigmasonicX

Member
It's still open in a tab for me, so here's the text. There's nothing too interesting in it, in terms of spoilers.
It's Predator Week on DailyMTG.com. I wanted to take a bit of time to talk about predators in the metagame; how and why they are important to your Magic-playing experience; and how they keep Magic, especially Standard, interesting.

Chasm Skulker | Art by Jack Wang

Culling the Weak

Metagames are all about the strong decks emerging from the field of decks that don't quite measure up. Not everything is on an even footing—and that's good. If bad decks didn't exist, then how could you tell what was actually good? We run a lot of Magic tournaments today, including dozens a day on Magic Online, so what is good and bad becomes obvious much faster today than in years past. But, fortunately, Magic is robust enough that our metagames tend to have a lot to teach people.

We add new sets to Magic, and impose a rotation in Standard, to make sure that our formats don't become stale, and so cards and decks that were previously too weak have the opportunity to become dominant. Circle of life and all that. Part of that circle is that, over time, the weakest decks in the metagame begin to disappear from the format.

For our purposes, we look at rogue decks as all the decks that are not one of the top six to eight decks at the top of the heap. Generally, the category of rogue tends to have an average win percentage in the 30–40% range in most formats, and many of the top decks are the top decks because they have 50% or lower win percentages against the established decks, but demolish the rogue decks. As the weak rogue decks begin to attrition out, it shifts many of those decks' win percentages, often allowing for a stronger rogue deck to become one of the top decks, and knocking a rogue predator into the rogue space.

Every Death Star Needs an Exhaust Port

One of our goals for the Future Future League is to create a diverse metagame, and part of that means making sure that our major decks are weak to certain things. If one deck gets to the point where its only bad matchup is a deck designed to beat it, we have a problem. If you look at Affinity year and Caw-Blade year, the best deck in each of those Standards was known. People built decks to defeat those decks, but even with a ton of hate, they struggled to get much above 50% against the deck they were trying to hunt. That meant that the correct choice was just to play Caw-Blade and Affinity.

We want our metagames to be in a spot where each deck has a strategy it is weak against, as well as some specific cards it is weak against. If one deck becomes too dominant, many of those cards will start showing up in sideboards, or even main decks. This could mean decks dead-set on beating the snot out of the top deck, but hopefully it just means that certain strategies can emerge when all of the other decks at the top have warped themselves to beat each other. For instance, a few months ago, red-based burn or aggro decks won every major Standard Magic tournament in one week, because the metagame had shifted to a point where those decks were the predators. But, as the top decks quickly scaled back their cards against each other, the mono-red decks fell out of favor. There was definitely a point where it was correct to play the mono-red deck, to shore up your matchup against it, and to ignore it and hope that people stopped bringing it to events. And each of those happened more than once.

That is the kind of malleability that we tend to like in both the top decks in the metagame and the rogue decks. Being able to take a pretty well-established card pool and have things change week to week means that keen players who study the metagame have the opportunity to make the right call, and players who don't follow it will have different experiences week after week.

Color Pie and Mana Bases

It's easy to understand why color pie matters for design—it gives the different colors different looks and feels, but it is equally important for balancing both Limited and Constructed. Because the different colors do different things, we can use these colors' flaws to generate interesting metagame changes. Blue, for instance, tends to be pretty weak to fast-creature strategies because it neither gets good cheap blockers, nor much in the way of creature removal. Green also doesn't have much in the way of creature removal, but it tends to dominate the creature strategies because its creatures are just much larger. Putting a green-blue deck together can let you get advantages from both colors, but you will also share whatever their weaknesses are.

Flesh to Dust | Art by Julie Dillon

This combining colors is important because it lets you change your Magic deck in a way that makes it less consistent in order to find more power and to shore up some flaws for your deck. Color screw can feel pretty bad when you are losing to it, but it plays an important role for Magic. One-color decks are more consistent than two-color decks, but two-color decks get to do more things. Two-color decks are more consistent than three-color decks, but three-color decks have more things to do—and so on, and so forth. The more colors of mana you have in your deck, the more likely you are to either not draw one or to have too many lands that don't tap for mana when you want them to.

This is the same reason why we don't print super-powerful mana fixing in Standard. You will generally get one cycle more or less the power level of the shock lands, and you will get another cycle that is a little weaker—with the possibility of a third cycle of lands that just ETB tapped. We want players to be able to cast their spells, but not without a cost. Wasteland keeps Legacy from being all about five-color decks, but we don't print land destruction that powerful in Standard. Besides that, we want playing multiple colors to have some cost associated with it. It helps to keep decks feeling separate from each other, and it helps to make sure that the metagame has interesting places to move to when one deck becomes more dominant.

What does this have to do with predators? Well, the metagame tends to cycle through what the correct number of colors is for decks. This year, for instance, Mono-Black Devotion tended to cycle through the monocolor version; splashing white for Blood Baron, which was better against the mirror; or splashing green, which gave the deck Abrupt Decay and some other enchantment removal in the sideboard. Similarly, the Sphinx's Revelation control deck moved between Esper and straight white-blue, with a little red-white-blue showing up occasionally. Each version had its ups and downs, but the more colors you were, the less consistent you were, and the more likely you were to lose to bad draws or to lands that came with a cost that weakened your deck against the aggro decks.

Finding a Balance

The thing we don't want Magic to be about is decks and anti-decks. We don't find that to be a very satisfying play experience, and it is one that I think we tend to avoid pretty well with all of the techniques I listed above. We want the majority of Magic to be about players choosing strategies they like and figuring out how to configure those strategies for the environment they are looking to compete in. Friday Night Magic, for instance, is just a different environment than a Pro Tour or even a Grand Prix. Players are generally much more able to play their preferred strategies at Friday Night Magic and succeed than they are at a more cutthroat tournament with larger attendance and more on the line. I mentioned earlier that rogue decks tended to lose to the top decks in large numbers, but that doesn't mean that someone can't find the right deck for the right week or figure out how to fight the metagame.

The great thing about metagames is that, as they get closer to being solved, the more opportunity there is for decks to figure out how to beat the established decks. Rogue decks often won't do enough to radically shift things, but they can win on a week-to-week level, and keep things interesting enough until the next set comes out and shakes things up on a larger level.

That's all I have for this week. Next week, I'll be back talking about Annihilation—the changing face of Wraths and removal.

Until next week,
Sam (@samstod)
Click to expand...
 
O

OnPoint

Member
This is the same reason why we don't print super-powerful mana fixing in Standard. You will generally get one cycle more or less the power level of the shock lands, and you will get another cycle that is a little weaker—with the possibility of a third cycle of lands that just ETB tapped. We want players to be able to cast their spells, but not without a cost. Wasteland keeps Legacy from being all about five-color decks, but we don't print land destruction that powerful in Standard. Besides that, we want playing multiple colors to have some cost associated with it. It helps to keep decks feeling separate from each other, and it helps to make sure that the metagame has interesting places to move to when one deck becomes more dominant.
Click to expand...

Shocks + Scry + Pain

rotates to

Scry + Pain + Fetch

That's what I read from that.
 
N

noquarter

Member
Damn VMA prices, they are all over. MTGO Traders is $65 cheaper on Lotus today than yesterday, with some in stock. WotC messing with people really shock up prices for a bit. FoW is up over $30 still.

Might still be able to get on this Vintage train before it pulls away from the station.
 
K

kirblar

Member
noquarter said:
Damn VMA prices, they are all over. MTGO Traders is $65 cheaper on Lotus today than yesterday, with some in stock. WotC messing with people really shock up prices for a bit. FoW is up over $30 still.

Might still be able to get on this Vintage train before it pulls away from the station.
Click to expand...
Legacy's the important one long-term imo. It might actually get MTGO PTQs one day.
 
S

SigmasonicX

Member
Random thought, I'd really like to see Terra Stomper become big in Standard Constructed for a bit, if only because the "not actually in M15, but in entry decks" cards were chosen specifically because they didn't expect them to be Constructed playable.
 
S

Spades

Member
Really excited about going to my first prerelease tomorrow. As some of you know, I only started playing MTG a few weeks ago and so I'm going to be well out of my depth, but my wife started playing with me and she's coming too! :)
 
S

SigmasonicX

Member
Spades said:
Really excited about going to my first prerelease tomorrow. As some of you know, I only started playing MTG a few weeks ago and so I'm going to be well out of my depth, but my wife started playing with me and she's coming too! :)
Click to expand...

Tips about prereleases:
1. Bring something to do between matches. Seriously. I prefer using my 3DS. You may want to bring some snacks and definitely some water, but don't be a slob.
2. Don't be afraid to ask your opponent to clarify what he or she is doing if you are confused.
3. You don't have to stick to the color you choose at the start, and you definitely don't have to feel obligated to use your prerelease promo in your deck.
4. Remember, open all of your packs AND THEN sort your cards.
5. You're probably going to get your ass kicked by a little kid at some point. It's not unusual, so don't feel disappointed when it happens.
 
S

Spades

Member
SigmasonicX said:
Tips about prereleases:
1. Bring something to do between matches. Seriously. I prefer using my 3DS. You may want to bring some snacks and definitely some water, but don't be a slob.
2. Don't be afraid to ask your opponent to clarify what he or she is doing if you are confused.
3. You don't have to stick to the color you choose at the start, and you definitely don't have to feel obligated to use your prerelease promo in your deck.
4. Remember, open all of your packs AND THEN sort your cards.
5. You're probably going to get your ass kicked by a little kid at some point. It's not unusual, so don't feel disappointed when it happens.
Click to expand...

Ha, thanks man.
 
B

bigkrev

Member
Spades said:
Really excited about going to my first prerelease tomorrow. As some of you know, I only started playing MTG a few weeks ago and so I'm going to be well out of my depth, but my wife started playing with me and she's coming too! :)
Click to expand...

The best tip I can give to a new player- you are playing 17 lands and 23 spells. There are times where you should vary from this, but you haven't been playing long enough to realize those instances yet
 
J

Jaeyden

Member
Spades said:
Really excited about going to my first prerelease tomorrow. As some of you know, I only started playing MTG a few weeks ago and so I'm going to be well out of my depth, but my wife started playing with me and she's coming too! :)
Click to expand...

You'll have fun and that's ultimately the point of these things. Most people know this and you should have a very casual and fun day. Like sigmasonic said, if you are not sure about a card or what someone is doing just ask. At prerelease I always cast my spells then read the whole card out loud and turn them so my opponent can read them. I often find they will do this too which is nice thing because there are usually so many new cards that it takes people a bit to get familiarized with it all. Oh, don't forget you can play as many # of cards as you get in a sealed pool, so if you snag 6 copies of something by all means play them. Your whole pool is your sideboard, you can change your deck as much as you want between matches and rounds.
 
P

Pumpkin King

Member
I played a ton of Magic in the late 90's. A friend of mine recently got back into it, and talked me into signing up for a sealed deck tomorrow. Tips would be appreciated :)
 
M

miniMacGuru

Neo Member
I'd echo what SigmasonicX said earlier, and then add a bit of generic deck building advice

1) Build a 40 card deck.
2) Start with about 17 lands/23 other cards. I'd suggest going for 15-17 creatures, and 6-8 other spells.
3) Try and keep a mana curve (don't stick a ton of 6-7 cmc drops in your deck).
4) Take you time when playing to read both your cards and your opponent's cards if you're not familiar with them.
 
P

Pumpkin King

Member
miniMacGuru said:
I'd echo what SigmasonicX said earlier, and then add a bit of generic deck building advice

1) Build a 40 card deck.
2) Start with about 17 lands/23 other cards. I'd suggest going for 15-17 creatures, and 6-8 other spells.
3) Try and keep a mana curve (don't stick a ton of 6-7 cmc drops in your deck).
4) Take you time when playing to read both your cards and your opponent's cards if you're not familiar with them.
Click to expand...

Cool, thanks. What's cmc?

Edit: cumulative mana cost I'm guessing.
 
P

platypotamus

Member
My two bits of advice:

1. Rarity doesn't necessarily equate to quality. There are rares/mythics that have no place in any deck you can build out of a sealed pool (and some that have no place any any deck at all really). For example, you almost certainly don't want to include Grindclock in your deck:
Image.ashx


2. That 3rd color card(s) better be super awesome for you to even think of adding that color to your deck. You are almost certainly better off cutting the color and putting a weaker but still playable card from your main color in your deck.

Bonus:

I would spent your off time either practice matching with the wife if she also has off time, or revising your deck. If you lost because your opponent had a ton of fliers, how can you rebuild your deck to deal with that threat, for example.
 
P

platypotamus

Member
Sure, but we're talking the sealed prerelease here. I have a rough time imagining a sealed pool that I would want to play a grindclock in my deck.
 
N

noquarter

Member
Hmm, depending on my pull, I could see Grindclock making its way into my deck. It isn't that great, but core sets usually font have a lot of graveyard effects, so can be useful.

One of the best tips, that goes along with what has been said, is make a 40 card deck. If you are at 41, you probably have a card you aren't sure about so remove it.

And remember, it's just a game. Even if you get a snobby opponent who tries to tell you you can't untap your lands because you drew a card so you skipped your untap step, try to have fun. Usually isn't too common at prereleases, but I've sen it before.
 
G

"God's Beard!"

Member
Drafted the most insane sealed deck possible at the midnight pre-release and took it to grand finals on a 10-1 games streak. My deck was so good that I declined the split on the assumption that I would win.

So of course, I double mulliganed to 1-landers both games and lost grand finals uneventfully. Fuck my life.

But yeah, my deck should otherwise be unbeatable:

Creatures(17):
  • 1x Elvish Mystic
  • 1x Torch Fiend
  • 4x Borderland Maurader
  • 1x Yisan, the Wanderer Bard
  • 1x Reclamation Sage
  • 2x Shaman of Spring
  • 1x Kird Chieftan
  • 1x Paragon of Fierce Defiance
  • 1x Charging Rhino
  • 1x Thundering Giant
  • 1x Soul of Shandalar
  • 1x Phytotitan
  • 1x Siege Wurm

Spells(4):
  • 1x Lightning Strike
  • 1x Heat Ray
  • 1x Plummet
  • 1x Crowd's Favor


Other(2):
  • 1x Chandra Pyromaster
  • 1x Stab Wound

Land(17):
  • 1 Lllanowar Wastes
  • 1 Swamp
  • 8 Mountain
  • 7 Forest

Sideboard:
  • 1x Plummet
  • 1x Reclamation Sage
  • 1x Covenant of Blood

Yisan and Soul of Shandalar won games for me by themselves, and they weren't even close.
 
F

Frankie Williamson

Member
A guy at the prerelease tonight had a disgustingly good mono-red. He got Soul of Shandalar, Soul of New Phyrexia and 5 God damn Generator Servants. His hasted giant creatures coming out as soon as turn 3 made a mockery of everyone there, myself included. This was always followed (in the games I lost to him) by a Might Makes Right.
 
G

"God's Beard!"

Member
The worst thing at the prerelease was people trying to convince me that Soul of Theros was better than Shandalar, which is far and away the best limited card in the whole set.
 
J

Jaeyden

Member
Had an ornithopter and ensoul artifact in my pool. Dropped a couple other pieces of equipment in my deck and that card is the real deal. Four games I had a 5/5 flyer attacking on Turn 3. The reactions from people were priceless.
 
O

OnPoint

Member
Jaeyden said:
Had an ornithopter and ensoul artifact in my pool. Dropped a couple other pieces of equipment in my deck and that card is the real deal. Four games I had a 5/5 flyer attacking on Turn 3. The reactions from people were priceless.
Click to expand...

This is what I said was gonna happen!
 
K

keeblerdrow

Member
Green or red seemed to dominate my prerelease last night unless you got a sick amount of removal in white. The winner last night had 4 pillar of light, 2 banisher priest, 2 avacyn, and an ajani. The rest of his deck didn't matter.

My pools were terrible. Got 2 soul of zendikar but no amount of good small drops in any color. I would have to go 3 color just to have a curve. Everything in my pool was 4 cmc and up, it was weird. I had my quickest first round ever. Game 1 and 2 of keeping 4 land hands and then drawing into 6 lands in a row and dying.
 
B

bigkrev

Member
Currently 2-1 with the worst pool I've ever seen. Tons of bombs but no color had any depth. Running 19 lands cause I'm short playables, and have a naturalize main deck
 
Z

Zocano

Member
uuugh. Went 1-2 (then dropped) on the first prerelease (I'm going again tomorrow). I was stubborn and stuck with Green/Black with nearly 0 removal and evasion.

When my deck went off, I trampled, but I usually got pecked to death by flyers.

This was my G/B deck:

Creatures:

(GREEN)
1x Charging Rhino
1x Siege Wurm
1x Titanic Growth
1x Elvish Mystic
1x Phytotitan
1x Shaman Spring
1x Yisan
1x Runeclaw Bear
1x Paragon of Eternal Winds
1x Reclamation Sage

(BLACK)
1x Xathrid Slyblade
1x Paragon of Open Graves
1x Child of Night
1x Black Cat
2x Witch's Familiar

(OTHER)
1x Will-forged Golem

NON-CREATURES:
1x Liliana Vess
1x Flesh to Dust
1x Sign in Blood
1x Covenant of Blood
1x Shield of the Avatar

LAND:

9x Forest
8x Swamp

_______


Clearly I am really hurting and weak on the evasion/removal front. Completely my fault in deckbuilding. I'll blame not having played limited (Sealed) in a long time and just making a junk deck. I wanted to just beat face with creatures but the creatures weren't fast enough and I would just die to flying consistently.

After losing first match to flying in Game 3, I raged at my idiocy and swapped my deck out for game 2. I removed all the green and added the following:

CREATURES:
1x Kapsho Kitefins
1x Frost Lynx
1x Amphin Pathmage
2x Aeronaut Tinkerer
2x Ornithopter

NON-CREATURES:
2x Encrust
2x Negate
1x Into the Void

LAND:
9x Island
 
G

"God's Beard!"

Member
keeblerdrow said:
Green or red seemed to dominate my prerelease last night unless you got a sick amount of removal in white. The winner last night had 4 pillar of light, 2 banisher priest, 2 avacyn, and an ajani. The rest of his deck didn't matter.

My pools were terrible. Got 2 soul of zendikar but no amount of good small drops in any color. I would have to go 3 color just to have a curve. Everything in my pool was 4 cmc and up, it was weird. I had my quickest first round ever. Game 1 and 2 of keeping 4 land hands and then drawing into 6 lands in a row and dying.
Click to expand...

Green is the best sealed color, and red just has the best removal at common and some super solid creatures. Getting the Kird Ape in GR is awesome. Plummet is insane in sealed.


But yeah, sealed is a terrible format. Even up to Grand Finals I felt like I was just playing someone else's deck since it's just cracking packs and making bombs.dec.

Basically the only decisions I had to make were whether to mulligan and whether to show off what bombs/black splash in game 1. That's the other secret to my success. Not showing that I have two mythics and a splash in game 1 where possible means my opponents tended to run out their removal too early in the second game where soul of shandalar could dominate.
 
Z

Zocano

Member
I feel like I just botched deck building. I feel like I had a strong pool to pick from but didn't excel at one specific color enough. My white and red were fairly okay, too, but I just hammed it up. It would take a while but I can list my entire pool if you guys could help me figure out what would have been the best decision.

I'm a much better drafter than I am sealed (I suck at Sealed and always ask my friends for help when they're around).
 
B

bigkrev

Member
My 3-1 Seto Kaiba structure deck

1 Elvish Mystic
1 Runeclaw Bear
1 satyr Wayfinder
1 Generator Servant
2 Invasive Species
1 Goblin Roughrider
1 Wall of Fire
1 Netcaster Spider
1 Kird Cheiftan
1 Soul of Shandlar
3 Siege Dragon (aka Blue-eyes White Dragon)

2 Lightning Strike
1 Naturalize
1 Verdant Haven
1 Perilous Vault
1 Meteorite
1 Nissa Expedition

1 Evolving Wilds
10 Mountains
8 Forest

Relevant sideboard: nothing, lol
Siege Dragons cast: 11 over the 9 games I played
 
G

Grakl

Member
I got the worst sealed pool I've ever seen before, so I made a janky silly enter the battlefield deck that sux

Creatures:
3x Midnight Guard
2x Invasive Species
1x Roaring Primadox
1x Shaman of Spring
1x Satyr Wayfinder
1x Living Totem
1x Genesis Hydra
1x Dryad Mystic
1x Reclamation Sage
1x Frost Lynx
1x Coral Barrier
1x Phytotitan
1x Quickling
1x Juggernaut
1x Razorfoot Griffen

Artifacts:
2x Meteorite

Sorceries/Instants:
1x Turn to Frog
1x Into the Void

2x Evolving Wilds
6x Forests
6x Islands
4x Plains

synergy! all my rares other than genesis hydra are black shit like waste not, stain the mind, urborg, etc. booooo
 
F

f0rk

Member
The prerelease format with promos and seeded packs is bad. But I don't think it's fair to just rip on sealed when players like Owen Turntenwald get so many consistent results at big events. I think it's good to have as a PTQ format.
 
G

"God's Beard!"

Member
Zocano said:
I feel like I just botched deck building. I feel like I had a strong pool to pick from but didn't excel at one specific color enough. My white and red were fairly okay, too, but I just hammed it up. It would take a while but I can list my entire pool if you guys could help me figure out what would have been the best decision.

I'm a much better drafter than I am sealed (I suck at Sealed and always ask my friends for help when they're around).
Click to expand...

My deck was dumb, it built itself. I had basically no cards outside RG, and five of the seven rares were on-color.

It was actually so broken as I was building it that I had it sleeved and ready to go with a whole pack unopened LOL

God I hate sealed.
 
Z

Zocano

Member
Yah, as much as I like going to prereleases, I just don't like sealed. Draft >>>>>>> Everything, but the only draft in my area is pretty far away and at a pretty small LGS. The big big popular LGS by me only does Sealed for Limited and it's blegh.
 
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