Magic: The Gathering C/D

i'm probably going to shoot an email to the magic online folks suggesting that they complexify it for future sets, i think it slightly cheapens the draft experience once you know about it and i'd rather have a better draft experience than a small edge

100% agree with that in principle i.e. i am still going to use your list in the meantime. even if they are committed to the idea of replicating print runs, there has to be more than one.

yeah this is way simpler than the paper print runs, which if they work how i think they do can never be narrowed down to fewer than 8 possible cards for a missing uncommon

the only evidence i have supporting my paper print run theory though is that i opened an upside down renegade wheelsmith once

For this format, is multi-colored good stuff generally the way to go? What would put you in just 2 colors?

My one draft so far was straight RB. I had a consistent unearth deck, but it still felt like I was doing it wrong.

i think a strict 2 colour deck needs the pair to be really open. if you get the nut in RB, UW or GW those all look like they could be solid. i'm not convinced by GR and while i think UB could stand alone, since that deck is going to be more controlling i'm not sure why you wouldn't have 1 or more other colours with it. i actualy think RB is the one color pair that lends itself the most to 2 colour as it is the most dependent on synergy, i.e. a lot of the cards just suck if it doesn't come together.

i suspect the way to approach this draft format is to take whatever powerful cards 1-3 and then take lands and follow the lands you get to figure out the open colours.

it seems like there's a spectrum from 2-color aggro or linear deck to 2.5 color midrange to 3-5 color control. i think even the enemy-color pairs despite not being as supported are fine if your deck is focused because the card quality is so high across the board

i would approach this format like cube, as with all the modern masters sets - you're going to get 30 playables regardless of what you do so spend the first several picks figuring out what you want your deck's plan to be and then just draft with that endpoint in mind

i use this approach for every format but it becomes more correct the better the card quality

ive been drafting 3 color control decks simply because theyre easy to fall into - you draft a bomb, some removal, some fixing and then you cant really pivot into one of the leaner synergy-based decks w.o giving up too many picks. but i think the two color decks w/lots of synergy are the strongest decks you can draft, theyre what i keep losing finals too (although in leagues i know theres no guarantee theyre also 2-0)

but yeah ive just been trying to stay open and make sure i have a powerful enough topend to compete w/ w/e rares my opponents will have. counterspells have been really good for me, better than removal generally

wizards claimed draft league matching would be same record only. have they definitely deviated from that?

it generally is but i play at weird hours and have had non-matching records before. the MM3 league was busy enough last night i doubt that happened though

it looks for same record for a few minutes and then loosens more and more as it fails to find matches

i doubt you'll get mismatches in the intermediate draft leagues

ok makes sense

yeah it basically only happens when the draft league is slow which ime is like 4-6AM EST, later into a format. also a couple of times when ive played out an 0-2 draft ive gotten pair up presumably due to the lack of ppl playing out their 0-2. it happens more frequently in standard constructed leagues

it's really difficult to go any worse than 4-5 in the Friendly Sealed leagues because of that...if you start out 1-3 or something you WILL get to face a gauntlet of 48-card decks that splash two colors

Lamp have you had any luck with GW yet? its best common should be call of the conclave but i'm worried that card is not actually playable because of the vast amounts of mist ravens and dinrova horrors i'm running into

i've drafted core GW twice for combined 5-1. call and slime molding can easily outsize what a lot of decks are doing, especially if you throw in one of the anthems, and i suspect the advantage you can get is worth the danger of facing that one deck that will just murder your tokens. my one loss was to that deck of course, vanish into memory is a brutal beating, but even so it was close with the way the deck can curve out and flood the board. multiple token makers are good - a couple eyes in the skies recommended, fists of ironwood preferably on a moa, and lingering souls most of all of course.

the 4-drop slot is really juiced in this set, as if signets weren't already good enough

it's so hard to end up with enough 2s and 3s and also so hard to not end up with too many 4s

i take it back there's lots of 2s, 3 is the awkward slot

this is the only aggro deck i've been able to do well with so far: http://imgur.com/a/iYVsV

i have not managed to draft a straight g/w deck yet but ive barely done any drafts. i think the splicers are pretty strong and rootborn defenses is a nutty limited card but yeah idk if thats enough to compensate for the amount of bounce effects at common plus flickerwisp at uncommon. ive done two paper drafts and eight mtgo ones on my own and then probably like a half dozen more w/friends where i wasnt the one drafting. so far it seems like straight u/w is the best two color deck (at least its the one that i lose to most, its never open for me) and the g/r aggro deck is the worst performing although a friend was saying he was crushing with burning-tree decks so idk. i kind of hate the 'fixing + bombs' formats so i dont imagine ill get much more fun out of this tbh

fwiw im most proud of going 3-0 with this insanely shitty u/r spells deck with two maindeck pyroclasms and no way of winning

from what i've seen so far it feels like there are 3 powerful shells - many-color control, UWx blink, and RBx sacrifice and the other stuff going on in the set is mostly just not on the same power level as those. GW has the problem that 4 of the populate commons are cards that don't really do anything on their own (rootborn, fog, W populate, naturalize) so you're just too thin on actual cards

currently 14-1 in the phantom league. my winning decks have been jund sac, esper control/blink, no-red ramp/control, GW go wide. standard of play seems to be slightly below a regular intermediate league. i guess a lot of the better players are going in for the booster lottery.

i am 12-12 in the phantom league so far, i have not gotten the hang of this set really.

i just 3-0ed with this despite not drawing most of the good cards ever http://imgur.com/a/ze7eA

it felt pretty clearly above the power level of my other decks

amonkhet mechanics seem...not exciting? cycling is always welcome tho.

i like how clean they are tbh. cycling and flashback variants are always welcome. if this is all of them then i'm a little surprised there's no -1/-1 counter mechanic but maybe it's still to come

it'd have to be wither or something new though since embalm rules out persist

that 1/4 for 1B has me kind of suspecting wither since dedicated blockers have to be a bit tougher than usual in a wither set

though i just realized that cycling is already a returning mechanic so nevermind

yeah wither makes more sense than persist. i very much hope they continue to have limited gps later in the season, really enjoyed what a caught of orlando

I like both new mechanics - both of 'em are things I've been wanting them to do for a while. Exert seems like it could be really skill-intensive.

I'm ready for a set with clean, easy mechanics. Exert especially looks good. It has the signs of a mechanic that is fun and skill-testing, but not flashy. I think the Egyptian setting will be flashy enough anyhow

I also like the idea of having a counter for Exerted, because I think it will be easy to forget

crashed to earth somewhat with 2 drafts where i went into GR tokens decks splashing white after first pick anthems and went 1-2 both times. maybe unlucky but hated being so dependent on opening hand and when i did get a good start half the time i couldn't quite finish them off and sat waiting 5-6 turns hoping to draw gruul war chant while getting killed. i think being naya was the problem, the white just didn't contribute enough. if i tried again i would go hard for jund, would've traded thoctar for a falkenrath noble in a heartbeat.

however, managed to get back to winning ways afterwards with a UW peach, 6-0 in 90 mins: http://i.imgur.com/3mn4BHP.png

I also like the idea of having a counter for Exerted, because I think it will be easy to forget

just turn the card upside down

You mean turn it left instead of right? I don't think it's easily showable like Detain was

nah, like upside down, then you rotate it 90 degrees during your untap step. that's how we'd probably do it.

speaking of, one gripe I have about the new flashback/split cards is that the design only really works if you keep your library and graveyard to the right of the play area, which some left-handed players don't do.

after seeing the other mechanics i'm even more convinced that those are just gonna be one cycle of rares or so - without them there's already 3 keyword mechanics including a different flashback variant in embalm

yea definitely - since both halves are likely to be related and you have to put the Aftermath text on all of them it really crimps their design space

i'm also suspecting that they'll be the masterpiece inclusions from this set

Can I just

i'm also suspecting that they'll be the masterpiece inclusions from this set

I would actually switch over to utterly loving them if this happened, these cards in that frame would be actual perfection.

lol now that ive seen the masterpiece frame i can't even envision that anymore - also it seems that they're not all spells like i thought so the gods are in play as the boring choice

art is astounding on some of these cards but i literally can't believe anyone signed off on these title/type lines. maybe on paper they will be more legible.

the wrath of god looks real good since the art palette matches the frame well and the rules text is short enough to look good centered, most of the rest im not fond of

took me about a minute to determine if there were any actual letters on the Daze one

somebody needs to be fired

nah, like upside down, then you rotate it 90 degrees during your untap step. that's how we'd probably do it.

Ah, I gotcha. Like detain, but in two steps. Think it's still more clear to use the token, if it's available

Man they had such a great opportunity with these card frames but the execution is so bad. too many different elements and fonts. it's like a 90's rap album cover