Magic: The Gathering C/D

basically i always try to draft decks around the JOU cards because i'm tired of the theros ones

i do think 'format fatigue' is a real issue now with more people playing magic online and the amount of video/streaming content etc out there now meaning that people are experiencing more drafts per set now even when they're not actually playing more themselves. I think magic R&D understand this though which is why most recent blocks have had double large sets.

haha yeah I'm sick of vma and I haven't played it once

one thing that has kept things a little fresher for me is that the archetypes that i have enjoyed/had success with have evolved through the block so i feel like i am more often playing with theros cards i saw less of earlier. for example BU went from a colour combo i couldn't win with in THS to my most successful pairing in full block.

my favourite deck to date was a BG early into JOU that had all of the gold cards, inc 2x nyx weaver and 2x mender, and eidolon of blossoms, bestow creatures and a couple font of return. it was just card advantage for days and days. every time i have tried to do something similar since it has been disastrous.

Yeah JBT draft is awesome, I think they did a great job making everything come together there. I dont feel that Born really hurt things too much but BTT was just too similar to TTT to really make much of a difference, they shook up the archetypes in ways that were maybe too subtle to notice (for example, Green devotion getting a little better, Minotaurs getting a little worse), it didn't feel much like a new set had been added.

theros itself is so powerful that most of the changes in this block have really been 'you get less theros'

ie the grey-merchant deck went from 3 to 2 to 1

that's true. grey merchant was probably most affected single card, certainly only having one pack of ordeals made a big difference. and it felt like having a decent number of bestow dudes if you wanted them was no longer a foregone conclusion.

i do think 'format fatigue' is a real issue now with more people playing magic online and the amount of video/streaming content etc out there now meaning that people are experiencing more drafts per set now even when they're not actually playing more themselves. I think magic R&D understand this though which is why most recent blocks have had double large sets.

there's a lot of truth to this, there's a very clear difference in my drafting strategies before I played MTGO and after - you can now do like 10 drafts a week if you want, whereas before I would probably do 10 drafts over the life of a set. I think you need about 15 or 20 before I feel like you really get a good handle on how a limited format really plays out and just playing live you really struggle to play that much.

i like(d) jbt but i wish it had been a little more challenging to draft and explore. none of the journey cards really bent the format in an interesting direction even if they opened some previously too weak strategies up for consideration. i was trying to think of a single uncommon that really let you do something different in jou and the closest i could come up with is strength of the fallen, which is really only an expansion of theros's b/g deck. i do wish that knowledge + power had been costed a little more aggressively, that would've been a genuinely different style of draft deck

Yeah I thought not having a viable linear scry deck in limited was a real missed opportunity, especially because UR seemed the most likely color combo for it and UR didn't have much of an identity this block

UR scry is there, i've drafted it, but the payoff is not quite good enough for how tricky it is to get all the parts

you need more things like the Flamespeaker Adept. the problem is that outside of Spite of Mogis most of the deck's best cards are plenty good in other decks. also that constantly scrying does you no good when your card quality is less than your opponents. there's not a very clear path to victory there.

adept could've been at common without hurting anything and that might've been enough to give UR a deck that instead basically barely existed

It's obvious they wanted the deck to happen, because they wouldn't make cards like Knowledge and Power otherwise. Just seems like the developers didn't care enough about the deck to cost the cards appropriately or put in enough support. I guess "viable" is vague. I'm sure the deck has been made as cider says, but it seems like you have to get very lucky with your opens

Or more likely, the developers ran out of time to cost it right

reminds me a bit of Izzet in RTR, it was rather frustrating how clearly it was the weakest guild - I think they try not to make spell-based strategies very good in Limited which nerfs U/R.

Heh, many of the best repeated Scry cards are creatures though

I thought Spellheart Chimera was kinda supposed to be the "basis" of the deck, you play a bunch of instants and sorceries that pump it while stalling your opponent's creatures. I think I once was able to kinda-successfully build that deck in 3xTHS.

izzet was so not the weakest guild, golgari was the weakest guild

u and r were both great support colors for an aggro-tempo w deck in theros block, but they lacked good two drops - vaporkin and the suicide minotaur (who's generally terrible in ur because you don't have an aggressive deck to back him up) were really all you had

yeah common 2-drops are incredibly important and are often what define which archetypes are viable in limited formats

https://twitter.com/mtgworth/status/486647438933889024

it is amazing that wizards lets a hapless dude like this make important business decisions

yeah its kind of amazing that worth still has his job, but he's a super oldschool wotc guy so they're probably reluctant to get rid of him and also he oversees DotP as well which is about as huge a success as MTGO is a failure

He oversees DotP? That's baffling to me, the two programs are night and day

important distinction is that DotP development is outsourced to an actual software company, WotC only does the game design for it.

oh I didn't know he oversaw dotp, that does explain why he has a job

or rather why he has half of his job

dotp surely 1000x less complicated than mtgo too

yeah, the core of dotp is strong enough that the yearly changes aren't what makes or breaks its success w/ new players

if anything, on that level (the marginal changes) even dotp is poorly managed

i have this theory that wotc keeps worth around because nothing is quite so rage-inducing as the serial incompetence of a smug nerd and it lets them really bank on the image of their customers as irrational complainers. so instead of just sort of getting irritated and with mtgos general terribleness and being like 'enh ill just download hearthstone' people get worked up over w/e recent shittiness has gone on lather at the mouth about it, worth is like ::crossed arms:: 'have you ever thought you might be the problem' someone dies of apoplexy the issue gets clouded no one at wotc has to take any real blame. storm.

storm.

IRL roffling @ this.

m15 seems pretty good but this prerelease format is getting really played out at this point, i hope they switch it up soon, or at least put more effort into balancing the promos. half the room at mine was black just because the black promo was considered the best. i played green and the green promo didn't even make the cut for my deck.

yeah, black was way over-represented at mine too (including me) and there were about 2 people in green.

yeah the blue promo was straight unplayable too

and the black one was indeed a back breaker, too bad I didn't draw it until my last round

the blue one could cost 3U and the black one 4BB and the black one would *still* be better

I picked blue at my prerelease, unaware that the blue promo was hot garbage. Just assumed they would balance the damn promo cards. Ended up ditching blue and playing rampy Jund - cast In Garruk's Wake 3 times in 4 rounds. Maro recently said they are aware of the complaints with the "pick-a-color" prerelease format and he didn't dismiss them, so it sounds like we might get a change-up soon.

Yeah this prerelease format made way more sense with RTR block, where each guild had a very distinct identity and play style, plus essentially there were 5 two-color combos that were unplayable. The issue now is that there's a 20% shot that your weakest color in the five regular packs is the one you chose (this is what happened to me) and the result is a crappy pool you have to force one way or the other. RTR had this issue too but it's much less pronounced when you're working with two colors.

That said I do love the idea and hope they tweak it for future releases.

They didn't do a seeded color pack for M14 prerelease, right? or am I mis-remembering. I agree that it doesn't make a lot of sense for this release.

It was pretty tough going for me, even in black, because the promo was the only real game closer I had in my deck. I also opened a copy of the green promo guy, but couldn't support green in my deck.

i went blue as well and was pretty irritated by the power-level discrepancy in the promos. also because blue was the worst color the islandwalk stuff ended up being worse than it should be

I got trucked hard by Darksteel Citadel + 5/5 Animate Artifact aura, I had no clue Citadel was in this set

i decked an opponent with avacyn, that card causes really dumb stalemates when they have something that keeps it from attacking for the win

how are we liking m15

Drafted a fun G/R deck last week that included Chord, Hornet Queen, Siege Dragon, and a bunch of other heavy hitters, and ended up pulling a Nissa in my prize packs. One real breakout card in my deck was Kird Chieftain. Being able to give any creature +2/+2 and trample at instant speed was huge. Netcaster Spider was also a big help. The combination of the spider plus Shield of the Avatar allowed me to blank an opponent after they got me quickly down to 5 with turn 1 Ornithopter, turn 2 Ensoul Artifact. Looking forward to more draft tonight.

prerelease starts on mtgo today right?

yeah, & everyone gets 1 free prerelease entry as a 'sorry we screwed up mtgo' consolation prize

new client refuses to download on my (new) computer so I get to be one of those people who actually boycotts the new mtgo

what idiots they are

prerelease entry is a nice gesture but I really don't see why they couldn't leave v3 up until they have a halfway usable client ready to go.