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Magic: the Gathering - Shadows over Innistrad |OT| Blue's Clues

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Angry Grimace

Two cannibals are eating a clown. One turns to the other and says "does something taste funny to you?"
I'm just opening product and then feeling sad about my damn luck

and money
 
I want basically all the tutors but natural order. Gamble, Enlightened Tutor, Vampiric Tutor and Mystical Tutor for EDH purposes. Other than that Dack Fayden though I'd prefer a Conspiracy version for the better set symbol.

I bought the FTV 20 so I got the Jace covered. Mana Crypt and Force are a bit much but might have to bite at least on the force. A sylvan library, vindicate, maze of ith and a wasteland to close things off.
 
I think that it's almost normal that a good draft format will be lower-quality in sealed. Almost every good draft format is full of multi-factor synergies that you can draft to build one of several different, unique and interesting decks, which will lead to high variance in pools.

KTK is the best overall limited environment when considering both draft and sealed confirmed.

Come join my Vintage Cube GB
Vintage Cube is life.
 

y2dvd

Member
Opponent left of me drafts Avacyn. Opponent right of me drafts foil Nahiri. I get a Duskwatch Recruiter. -_-

Also was gonna wanting to trade someone for a foil Blighted Agent. But then I learn it goes for $36 lol. No thanks!
 

Angry Grimace

Two cannibals are eating a clown. One turns to the other and says "does something taste funny to you?"
I'm just annoyed with the "every color pair has a special draft strategy" thing they keep doing. Not every set is actually as good as MM1.
 

Ashodin

Member
Tonight's video:

iICadmz.png


No self, just a quickie video overview of the upgraded card.
 

bigkrev

Member
Just lost a match with Infect in Legacy Gauntlet because I had lethal with Become Immense and Invigorate in hand vs tapped out opponent with no cards. I have to Wasteland my Tropical Island to have enough cards for Delve, but forget that I need to have a Forest in play for Invigorate to work, so I end up killing myself :(

Magic is hard
 
Just lost a match with Infect in Legacy Gauntlet because I had lethal with Become Immense and Invigorate in hand vs tapped out opponent with no cards. I have to Wasteland my Tropical Island to have enough cards for Delve, but forget that I need to have a Forest in play for Invigorate to work, so I end up killing myself :(

Magic is hard
#firstplaneproblems
 
EMA is much closer than MM2 was, tho.

Yeah, EMA worked out fine for everyone who managed to preorder at normal prices (at least assuming they wait it out to sell the pulls that'll be going back up at optimal price.)

I really think they should be selling these things at $7 MSRP. At that price EMA would've been a blowout and people would feel much less bad about the whiff cards.

I'm just annoyed with the "every color pair has a special draft strategy" thing they keep doing. Not every set is actually as good as MM1.

I think this is one of those things where R&D overlearned the lesson and are going to eventually settle back into the right zone. The thing is that seeding explicit strategies for draft into a set is actually a great idea and a huge improvement over how they did things before -- ROE pointed the way to this and ISD did an exceptional job proving it could work. (And MM was probably the single-best followup on the idea.) The problem is that when you put yourself in the pattern of doing this you distort a lot of the set to make it work -- you wind up cooking up unnecessarily complex "strategies" to bake into the colors and then you get the same types of problems we used to have in constructed-oriented themes, where things are simultaneously overdesigned and underbalanced.

I think instead what you really want to do is pick a few color combos -- singles, pairs, maybe a triple -- that have natural synergy with your set mechanics and actively seed them with these types of archetypes, splitting between the different combo types just so it's not as obvious and rote how the archetypes divide up. Then you look at the remaining color pairs and make sure each one either supports a traditional archetype (UW skies, UR spells, WR tokens, etc.) or covers one of the monocolor archetypes and the other color can support it. Or you can fully support exactly five pairs and leave the other ones with mini strategies like kirblar mentioned.

I haven't gotten a chance to draft SOI myself, but it sounds like maybe it's a step in the right direction?
 

Yeef

Member
I think instead what you really want to do is pick a few color combos -- singles, pairs, maybe a triple -- that have natural synergy with your set mechanics and actively seed them with these types of archetypes, splitting between the different combo types just so it's not as obvious and rote how the archetypes divide up. Then you look at the remaining color pairs and make sure each one either supports a traditional archetype (UW skies, UR spells, WR tokens, etc.) or covers one of the monocolor archetypes and the other color can support it. Or you can fully support exactly five pairs and leave the other ones with mini strategies like kirblar mentioned.

I haven't gotten a chance to draft SOI myself, but it sounds like maybe it's a step in the right direction?
That's more or less what SOI does, but it also still has the two-color archetypes on top of that. Investigate is in Bant, Madness is in Grixis and Delirium is in Abzan. What makes it work is that Madness and Delirium are both "B" mechanics that can share "A" cards in the form of discard outlets. Investigate also helps to offset any card disadvantage that comes from discarding and sacrificing. It gives you the signposts of the archetype decks with enough flexibility to ignore them, even when you're in those colors.
 
This uncommon multicolour is so weird and as far as I can tell doesn't support any particular archetype and is actively bad in drafting.


The others in the cycle are mostly hits but skulk is the UB mechanic in SOI, the only white card that mentions it is Odric.
 
SOI is really similar to ROE and INN draft. The archetypes are solid and diverse, but you don't get fucked over by not totally following a pre set lane. The unusual mechanics of madness and delirium combined with the potential for both creature-heavy and entirely creatureless decks make the drafts feel fresh consistently.

That said, you tend to know what you're looking for pretty early and some of the cards are so specific that only 1-2 drafters at the table will be looking for them(crawling sensation, pieces of the puzzle, etc) which is a little hand-holdy for my tastes even if it means drafts rarely go off the rails. It's a huge improvement over MM2 which was very similar(although I'd argue BFZ was trying harder to be MM2 and ultimately failed) which had solid and diverse archetypes but would punish you relentlessly for not finding your lane.

KTK is my favorite because it was so free form and the power level was so flat. Everybody had different approaches to the format and they basically all worked. Instead of yelling at you "hey try this thing!" it just kind of nudged you along and let you feel like you were experimenting. The introduction of Prowess was also a pretty big deal.

This uncommon multicolour is so weird and as far as I can tell doesn't support any particular archetype and is actively bad in drafting.



The others in the cycle are mostly hits but skulk is the UB mechanic in SOI, the only white card that mentions it is Odric.

You're supposed to draft this with the zombie/spirit token cards then attack, they can't block then you pump your team. Generally I find that BW isn't super aggressive but I rarely wind up down that path anyway.
 
[QUOTE="God's Beard!";206285741]You're supposed to draft this with the zombie/spirit token cards then attack, they can't block then you pump your team. Generally I find that BW isn't super aggressive but I rarely wind up down that path anyway.[/QUOTE]

Spirit tokens already have flying. Haven't seen anyone go BW once. Especially since Dauntless Cathar and Nearheath Chaplain are gone instantly and slot into GW humans WR aggressive way better anyway. You're just not supposed to draft that card.
 
Some dude on MTGO got tilted over counter spells while playing a deck designed entirely around discard and bad land destruction. He had pretty much every red, black and colorless feel bad card in standard. Countering his Grip of Desolation that he sacked Mirrorpool to copy sent him over the edge and I got to hear about how bullshit U/R Eldrazi Control is. Speaking of which, I'm really enjoying the deck although every time I play it I wish Ugin was still legal.
 

MoxManiac

Member
So I learned my lesson about cracking packs. Bought 5 Eternal Masters boosters on a whim at MSRP. Best I could pull was a Shardless Agent and foil Swords to Plowshares. Nothing else really notable. Foil Sulfuric Vortex, eight and a half tails, relic of progenitus..all good cards but not really exciting me for the price tag.

Definitely have buyer's remorse. Guess it really is best just to buy the singles you need.
 
Nothing like playing against a Prison Deck in Modern and he ends up wrathing the board, only for him to realize that his Enchantments turned creatures through Starfield of Nyx get wrathed as well, while you get back 2 Finks,2 Thalia's Pony, and 1 Arbiter because he had exiled them.

I felt bad for the guy, but I had to go "Congrats, you just played yourself.
 

Yeef

Member
This uncommon multicolour is so weird and as far as I can tell doesn't support any particular archetype and is actively bad in drafting.
BW is supposed to be a tokens/sacrifice deck. Behind the scenes is supposed to help you get through, but in practice it's just not useful.

Spirit tokens already have flying. Haven't seen anyone go BW once. Especially since Dauntless Cathar and Nearheath Chaplain are gone instantly and slot into GW humans WR aggressive way better anyway. You're just not supposed to draft that card.
BW is actually fine; I've won drafts with it plenty of times. In my experience, though, you rarely end up going the token route, unless you happen to pull a westvale abbey. More often than not, you end up in WB humans, which has less synergy than GW, but much better removal and a generally better late game.
 

ironmang

Member
Went to the midnight draft at my LGS. First pack got GSZ so took it and was leaning towards BG Elves, the only archetype I knew was going to be good going in. Didn't get a shaman but did get an imperious perfect and 7 other decent elves. Got a lot of good BG cards though and ended up mostly steamrolling the 3 rounds we played. Someone pulled a Crypt but I don't think they ever got it out early for some truly busted draws.

Format doesn't seem all that good despite all the rarity tweaks I kept hearing about for balancing reasons.

Did get to see someone open one of those crazy value boxes with Karakas, Crypt, and Jace.

So I learned my lesson about cracking packs. Bought 5 Eternal Masters boosters on a whim at MSRP. Best I could pull was a Shardless Agent and foil Swords to Plowshares. Nothing else really notable. Foil Sulfuric Vortex, eight and a half tails, relic of progenitus..all good cards but not really exciting me for the price tag.

Definitely have buyer's remorse. Guess it really is best just to buy the singles you need.

There's plenty of people at my shop who are going to buy packs anyways so for new premium sets like this I just ask them to cover my draft fee in exchange for all cards I pull and prizes I win.
 

OnPoint

Member
Jace, Vryn's Prodigy seems to be cratering lately, sitting around $45 as of this post. At what point do you guys think he'll rebound and track back up, or is this his low point?
 
He's at half at what I paid for it a couple months ago, no idea if it'll ever go up again but I do think he has a place in modern as a 1 of.

It's just too much value if he lives a turn.
 

Bandini

Member
[QUOTE="God's Beard!";206247035]

Vintage Cube is life.[/QUOTE]

Ended up taking like 40 minutes to get rolling, people kept leaving for EMA drafts. Why???

But my deck turned out great. Opponent locking down my Inferno Titan with Kiora? No problem, I'll put Splinter Twin on it. Good times.
 

red13th

Member
My box had Karakas and Dack Fayden as its mythic rares, foil Natural Order and Wasteland as the other money cards. Cube rares were Sylvan Library, Entomb, Enlightened Tutor and Daze. Not huge but I'm pretty happy with it.
 
Man, I didn't know that cockatrice had scheduled tournaments with results feeding into invitationals with cash prizes etc.

Just won some modern grinder thing with rainbow bogles. Sat there for like 20 turns against Lantern Control so I could double natural state his ensnaring bridges and one-shot him before they could come back with academy ruins.
 

I hadn't considered the idea that bomb rares make players in Limited be more careful about using their removal, It's also interesting to learn that they specifically make bomb rares appear in 1/3 packs.

Also, ooo, a new Skeletons in R&D's Closest next week. For those unfamiliar, it's a series of articles where they look at cards that turned out to be broken and see what the internal comments on them are. Well, usually it's the same, "Testing at one less mana, seems alright," type comment, but they're still fun to see.
 

noquarter

Member
Opened 12 packs so far out of our box with my wife (doing a sealed match, 6 each since that is what she likes)

First pack had a Jace, third pack a foil FoW. Guess I can't complain about this box at all.
 

MoxManiac

Member
Interesting to see how EMA flooding the market is affecting prices. Maze of Ith is down to $11 on tcgplayer. Sylvan Library down to $13. Seems like the expected value of EMA packs could drop in the short term?
 
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