Magic: The Gathering C/D

it's crazy how long it's been since the last full block draft format

I have yet to draft full-block RTR, but I love the idea of them using the large/large/small pattern more often, where large sets get drafted individually and only once the third set is added, you get the full block draft. It seems like it adds a lot of replayability to draft. Even with large/small/large like we had with Innistrad block, DKA/ISD/ISD didn't hold my interest that long, because it didn't change the draft format all that much from triple ISD.

I guess it depends on how much the set being added shakes things up.

yeah i agree that large/small formats are lame, at least when they're following the triple large format, which they always are to date. i don't think large/large/small really works for most blocks though, and it's a lot of extra design work on their part to make 2 separate large set formats that also play together; i suspect the main reason it was possible here is because they're building off a previous block mechanically rather than working from scratch, and also using a tried and true overall mechanical theme (multicolor) so there's a lot less of the big picture design work to do.

i assume they'll continue to experiment in the future though - for example i could easily imagine them doing a 'medium' sized set for the middle set of a block that's a bit bigger than a typical small set and is drafted as B/B/A instead of B/A/A

i won't be surprised if theros block has a traditional large/small/small structure though, coming off of 2 nontraditional years in a row (and 3 in the last 4) and purportedly being an 'experimental year' mechanically and thus pulling its innovation weight via that

Yeah I think you're right about Theros, and that we'll see BBA soon enough.

Where did you hear that Theros is supposed to be experimental mechanically? I'm all for having a crazy block after two fun-to-play but not particularly innovative blocks (barring Miracles, maybe).

i don't have a source but i distinctly remember forsythe making a passing comment at one point in some interview last fall that the next block was 'something we've never really done before'. it was really vague though so who knows, all i know is that i'm irrationally excited for theros since it's the first block since zendikar where we don't really have any idea how it's going to play going in (people figured out innistrad = graveyard set just from the initial liliana promo art, but no one's drawn any logical conclusions from huge guy holding a spear awkwardly)

If I had to guess, a battlecruiser set like Rise of the Eldrazi fits Theros' theme of men and gods. Or ugh another set focused around legends (though IMO that well was dry even before Kamigawa). Hoping for something totally out there. The last time a set mechanic really blew my mind was Time Spiral with suspend and split second, though stuff like level up and proliferate have come close.

"a Golgari deck for example is going to be very bad against a deck that wants to mill them"

reading the article vinnie linked and this seems completely opposite to what i would've thought. what am i missing?

a full battlecruiser magic block would be insane, definitely hoping they give that a try at some point though i don't know how healthy it is to go quite as slow as ROE for an entire block. there's still lots of "format-speed space" between ROE and an average-speed set like RTR or M13 that they haven't been using lately, though it's where most pre-lorwyn formats live.

i didn't get to draft ROE much, but it seemed like it had a bunch of pretty well delineated and linear archetypes and i think if they managed to instead create a battlecruiser set with innistrad's level of modularity and depth it would probably be the holy grail of limited formats. i'm not sure how possible that is to do though, you probably need aggressive options in a format to create enough depth for a year's worth of limited play.

reading the article vinnie linked and this seems completely opposite to what i would've thought. what am i missing?

if you help them mill you, you'll get decked before scavenge wins you the game

oh yes, i see. although i wonder if the benefit of them milling you on your behalf doesn't outweigh that risk

it works both ways depending on the game state. if your deck is built to use the graveyard though, you can't just sit there and not cast your grisly salvage against a mill deck unless you're comfortably ahead on board. you need to play to win, not play to avoid losing, and sometimes that requires doing counter-intuitive things.

i remember last fall i played a few nephalia drownyard control mirrors in standard, and if you were in danger of being milled to death the correct play was generally to cast the largest sphinx's revelations possible, even if it took you down to only a handful of cards left in your deck, since you needed to maximize the chances of drawing your 1 pithing needle or ghost quarter or elixir of immortality before it got milled away

yeah I mean dedicated mill is still basically a fringe strategy and scavenge is stronger than ever

also most of the self-mill cards are only borderline playable

otoh mind grind is slightly better now I think? lotta games gonna reach turn 12

grisly salvage is quite playable, and i can definitely imagine milling myself with balustrade spy in full block, in the hopes of scavenging onto it to have a big flier

yeah I've seen that before. gonna be a lotta mossdogs going around I guess.

golgari (with blue) plus slower format makes whispering madness seem less terrible. probably still quite terrible tho, it just seems like a fun card.

mossdog's really good, one of the best hill giants in a while

a dude at my store has a really fun whispering madness constructed deck that's based on bouncing their creatures w/ aetherize / cyclonic rift / unsummon + madnessing a bunch + playing psychic spiral

oh yes i could be down with that

I drafted ROE more than any other format, probably about 30 times, and it is my holy grail of formats. It's actually not that linear at all - aside from a couple decks like the Aura Gnarlid deck, there was a lot of flexibility in how to build. I saw every two-color combination except for RW win a draft, and I was surprised by what people were putting together even at the end. Similar to how the Spider Spawning deck became popular quite a while after Innistrad came out, it took a while to see the rogue-ish Lust for War decks or Kiln Fiend decks gain popularity to punish the typical slow decks. Not to mention every now and then, you could do well with non-archetype decks like BW, just ignoring synergy and taking good cards.

I think the key that made this format and Innistrad so great was that few cards locked you into a deck. Stitched Drake doesn't make you into a self-mill deck, it just nudges you in that direction, and can be played even if you're just a regular creature-based deck. Similarly, Broodwarden can helpfully pump up those few Eldrazi Spawn in your ramp deck OR it can make you take every Spawn producer you see and ignore stuff to ramp into. Whereas in Gatecrash, the Skyknight Legionaire you first-pick is either gonna make you Boros, or you won't play it.

Actually I think I saw every two-color combination win a draft in Innistrad, so maybe that's a good metric for a healthy format!

haha i don't think skyknight legionnaire is a good example - it's more that the cards with the keyword mechanics in gatecrash all push you towards building to maximize them despite not technically being linear mechanics. RTR only had one mechanic like this, populate, and the rest were incidental value mechanics so the deckbuilding there was a lot more fluid and less rigid. and it's notable that populate decks ended up being the best decks in that format too; linear strategies tend to dominate limited so you have to be careful with how you deploy them.

a similar thing happened with scars block; people thought NPH was poorly designed because it fucked up the color distribution of infect creatures and diluted the amount of metalcraft available, but i think it actually made that block more fun to draft because the linear strategies were no longer overpowering

i definitely won at least one draft with each color pair in innistrad myself. they weren't perfectly balanced or anything though. GR and BW were weak until dark ascension gave them some missing tools (wild hunger and better sac outlets, respectively) and WR was pretty weak the whole way through.

Heh I chose Skyknight because on the surface it's not a linear card in the way Wizards defines them, but in practice ends up playing just like one, and it illustrates my point that rigid archetypes bother me more than formats where you maximize a mechanic. Every good GTC Boros deck looks and plays exactly the same, and the pick order is well-defined. Cards like Skyknight are insane in the deck, pretty much unplayable in any other deck. Boros may as well be a linear deck for how many cards in the set fit that pattern, even many red and white cards. Thankfully, I think this all changes with the introduction of Dragon's Maze.

I'm not against linear archetypes in theory, but when one is so clearly better than the others like Populate was, it's a problem.

forced uwr again tonight and was rewarded by opening aurelia

i went in looking to avoid forcing UWR tonight, then got p1p1 lavinia, p1p2 turn/burn, p1p3 turn/burn, so i ended up in it naturally anyway. rest of my deck was decent but not amazing and i ended up losing a round to some bad draw variance but was still a fun one. curving out into lavinia is predictably insane especially if your 4 is cobblebrute.

brothers in uwr

honestly i'd rather be in UBR than UWR since then i get to play with ogre jailbreaker, plus the black cards in the new set are a lot better than the white cards

really? deputy, helix, steeple roc...

Lived the dream tonight at my first DGM draft. I was mostly picking up Gruul cards, but with verdant haven, axebane guardian, and gatecreeper vine, I ended up going five colors. Allowed me to play niv mizzet, collective blessing, sphere of safety, and merciless eviction. Throw in Ruric thar and clan defiance and things were looking pretty interesting. I was worried at first that mana would be a problem, but it actually went quite smoothly. I won 2 matches and then got blown out by a dude playing a handful of steeple rocs plus blood baron.

Now I'm building a completely batshit 50 card, 5 color deck using my draft cards and prize packs to play in DGM league next week.

i want to find whoever came up with pack rat and throw him/her down the goddamn stairs.

welcome to all of last fall

i think it's been declared the 2nd best limited card of all time at this point

it actually can be a very tricky card to play correctly

yeah people seem to want to rush it out on turn 2 instead of waiting until they have 5 mana, which i kind of understand, it is heads i win, tails i might win. anyway, it is just not fun at all, except for the time a guy immediately conceded the match when when i spell ruptured his turn 2 pack rat. that was pretty entertaining.

maybe he was running the 39 swamp 1 pack rat deck? people actually do this for some reason, i wouldn't do it without 2 pack rats

and even then you can play 5 other spells without diluting your ability to play pack rat on turn 2

have yet to drop a match in gtc prerelease sealed btw, now a solid 8-0 both times with base green decks. i feel like i just want to play creatures in this sealed format?

gtc or dgm?

yeah people seem to want to rush it out on turn 2 instead of waiting until they have 5 mana, which i kind of understand, it is heads i win, tails i might win. anyway, it is just not fun at all, except for the time a guy immediately conceded the match when when i spell ruptured his turn 2 pack rat. that was pretty entertaining.

ya I usually just rush it but most of the time I feel like the rest of my deck is good enough that I'm fine trading it for their best removal rather than structuring my whole game around pack rats. probably the wrong play some of the time but whatever. also I'm lazy.

feel like it's only truly 'unfair' when someone pulls it off t2. as a late game bomb it's not nearly as good as aetherling.

maybe full block will be a little different but holding back a Pack Rat until turn 5 never struck me as the right play. obviously its a little risky but you give 'em a one turn window, and if you're on the play then there's a very limited number of cards that will deal with it. and I've never lost with/won against an unchecked turn 2 Pack Rat. turn 5 Pack Rats are plenty beatable especially if you're in Azorious or Rakdos.

dgm. wanna try a couple of other guilds tbh

haha I think like 75% of the time I've dropped a t2 rats it was killed immediately xp

maybe people in New York just play more removal. gotta look out for yourself on these mean streets.

that's pretty unlucky. I've only seen it once and that was with Electrickery. I can see not doing it vs. Rakdos on the draw because they have the most ways to kill a t2 Pack Rat, plus they're fast enough that laying a turn 3 Trestle Troll may be what's really important rather than dicking around with the Rat.