Magic: The Gathering C/D

Sleep definitely is that good - if you're behind, it buys you 2 turns, if you're ahead, it can be an auto-win. I understand taking Invocation over it because that card is really always useful, while Sleep isn't the kind of card you want in your opening hand. But every time I've cast it, it's been a bomb.

duty-bound to me seems like the best one drop around, but maybe I'm overrating it due to how many wins it's gotten me.

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Nicol Bolas, Planeswalker 2.60 is this even playable p1p1?
Primal Clay 5.96 can fit in p much every deck?
Fervor 4.83 overrated even as a 5th pick?

I think Chronomaton is a better one drop - Duty Bound is probably one of the best but one-drops generally aren't very good in Limited. I'm sure it's good in B/anything but in general my exalted decks always skew heavy white.

On the other three there, I've tried and failed to make Bolas ever work, so yeah. For Clay, 6th seems alright...it fits into any deck yes but you're either overpaying for Centaur Corsair or you are for Wind Drake, and the Wall option isn't exactly earth-shattering either. I pick 'em up and I'm okay playing them but in general it's not very good. Fervor I've never seen played period so I can't really say, my guess is it's only good if you don't have 3 drops

the one that really confuses me is this - Scorpion is a top black common, outside of Murder obviously

Rise from the Grave 4.80
Giant Scorpion 4.95

the rares really skew this in a weird way. So many basically unplayable rares like Faith's Reward, Hamletback, Phylatchery Lich, etc. are being pegged as 4th-5th picks

hamletback seems playable imo. lich I would play if I was running 66%+ black w/ 4+ artifacts.

i dunno how many drafts will have even one deck that fits that description. outside of some uncommons it's tough to wind up with 4 playable artifacts

Hamletback has always been disappointing. Gets shut down by a lot, costs too much in a color that really tries to be fast, and it's in a set with a lot of common token producers. I've played it and I've seen it balloon up to like a 20/20 or so but it never wins me any games the way a Stormtide would. I usually side it out.

hamletback is terrible its probably the second worst red rare tbh. its basically 7 mana to do nothing

bolas is a p sweet p1p1 since you can definitely build around it and its certainly a huge bomb - ive drafted bolas 4 times and the only time i didnt do well was when i was passed him p2p2 and had been drafting a much more aggressive red/black deck built around arms dealer and even then i managed to go 2-2 in matches and like 5-4 in games.

ive made fervor work in a nearly mono-red g/r aggro deck but it was still a terrible option tbh and i probably shouldnt have played it.

i dont think sleep is very good and i really liked u/x tempo decks in M13. i guess i just agree w/the common wisdom that achieves too little when you're behind and doesn't do enough when you're ahead esp because my blue decks tend not to have that much trouble getting through as is.

yeah I guess for 7 mana you want more than 'be a really big creature'

you got time to practice draft? prob the only opportunity I'll have to steal gf's comp this week.

I got jace, talrand and his invocation, quirion, sands and 3 mind sculpts in a fake draft

I want to play that deck :(

the problem I always have w/ Bolas is it's 3 colors. I like splashing a color and playing Gem of Becoming but that's hard to pull off.

I dunno why you guys are having such bad experiences w/ Sleep. If you're going flying kill it stalls a couple turns so you can win the race, if you've got ground creatures they're all basically unblockable for two turns.

xp that reminds me of a draft I did where a guy went Turn 2 Mind Sculpt, Turn 3 Mind Sculpt, Turn 4 double Mind Sculpt. I was blown away.

my desire to play a mill deck is so strong that I am gonna inevitably draft a shitty blue deck w/ two mind sculpts irl

mind sculpt decks are so bad, i have lost with a 'nut draw' of t2 mind sculpt, t3 mind sculpt, t4 archaeomancer and it wasn't particularly close. you need like 5+ for it to work

The thing is the two best mill cards are Sands and Jace and they don't really need any support. Mill decks in Limited are always flukes - nobody takes the key common, whatever it is, you just need a lot of them to be opened for it to work, so you're really going against odds. Curse of the Bloody Tome would only work if you got like, six of them; you get a 1 in 8 chance of pulling one in each pack, so even if you get every single one at the table, you likely won't have enough.

you got time to practice draft? prob the only opportunity I'll have to steal gf's comp this week.

sorry in the middle of laundry and then im going out

I dunno why you guys are having such bad experiences w/ Sleep.

ive only had one game where it was actively bad and even then i bought me at least an extra draw step, its more that i rarely want one and so consequently tend not to draft it. i like p much every blue uncommon except courtly over it and there are at least two blue commons - unsummon and tern - that i take over it

yeah I have to go to parties w/ grad students tonight, it's tragic I would much rather keep pretend drafting and drink at home

the only uncommon I'd take over it is Talrand's Invocation, I dunno maybe I've just won so many unwinnable games with that card that I'm overvaluing it? but taking it over Unsummon seems just wrong.

you'd take it over fog bank?

absolutely

sleep is for beatdown decks that aren't heavy on fliers, which usually means UG or maybe UR if you have a lot of flunkies etc. it's decent in other situations but not amazing

i guess its also a way for your welkin terns to race centaur coursers in a fliers deck

it just seems too context dependent to be a sure thing early pick

like you're never gonna be bummed about drawing fog bank or talrand's in your first 7

Yeah and I do admit. Talrand's better b/c you always want that, Fog Bank sometimes just isn't relevant for a while but you can at least fit it as your 2-drop. Sleep I like because it turns a lot of losing situations into surprise wins when you're totally outclassed on the board and gives you two extra turns to race in a flyer deck (I also like Downpour more than most). That said I never had to choose between those three uncommons but I do think all three are better than any of blue's commons.

like I had one game where I had a Welkin Tern, two Attended Knights w/ Soldier tokens, and maybe one other guy out while my opponent was playing Deadly Recluses and big green dudes, Sleep can totally win you a game like that, that you couldn't win otherwise

yeah but I think you're putting too much weight on those miracle games and not enough weight on the many other times when it was just another card in your hand

perhaps - but it always seems to be a card I wish I had/hoped my opponent didn't

anyway, what do you guys think about Mwonvuli Beast Tracker? I've been quite underwhelmed with it

i only take it if i have silklash spider, vampire nighthawk, or xathrid gorgon. in my experience the common spiders and slimes aren't reason enough to play it over a better creature

I loved Sleep in M10 and M11, but something about this format made it worse. Control decks seem more viable in this set and it's terrible for them, basically just Fog. And in an aggressive deck, I've sometimes found myself trading off creatures and losing them to removal, in which case Sleep is a horrible topdeck. Still a fairly high pick for blue, but not for every deck.

frogbs - Sleep buys you one turn if you use it defensively or if you have flyers and are racing ground durdles, not two turns. It's good if you have a couple of 3/3s that wouldn't ordinarily get through and you can suddenly represent 10+ damage out of nowhere, but in almost every other situation it's a four-mana fog. The upside is good enough that I agree I would take it over most (all?) blue commons, but I'm not sure it's better than Fog Bank or Switcheroo. If I took it early in pack one I'd only be about 70% to even end up maindecking it, since so many blue decks end up pretty controllish.

I guess what Vinnie said

yeah sorry I mindboggled myself, yes I suppose it's a glorified Fog in some cases but even in that case it gives you one free whack at your opponent, and if two wins you the game then it gives you that. I guess if everyone thinks I'm overrating it I'll just assume that maybe it's not as good as I'm saying, just know it's the card I wish I had a LOT, and also the one blue uncommon I'm usually afraid of my opponent having (outside of a turn 4-5 Talrand's Summoning which always sucks)

some guy just spoiled almost the entire RTR set

first impressions:
-lots of big clunky creatures and spells at common/uncommon, plus good defensive creatures in every color. will probably be the slowest format since Rise of the Eldrazi. this is awesome.
-only a few hard removal spells at common (and i'm even counting the 5 damage red spell which doesn't kill some of the green creatures). i can see the ground getting gummed up pretty regularly. evasion and tricks for breaking board stalls will be pretty important.
-playing rakdos is going to require some serious tightrope walking - the raw power is there on the unleash guys but you're playing an aggro strategy in a good control set and it'll be real hard to beat something like that 3/4 hexproof green guy.
-multicolor-ness isn't played up quite as much as in the original ravnica block. i think 2-color decks will be doable here, whereas old ravnica pretty much required you to be 3 to get enough good spells.

vitu-ghazi guildmage seems like an absurd bomb for an uncommon

Wow @ the one mana unleash that's R/B hybrid. Surely a red 2/2 can't block for one is going to get played. Between that and Ash Zealot (and Thundermaw, I guess) it looks like red may be relevant again?

BTW I know this has been spoiled for a while but I feel like Cyclonic Rift has the potential to be nuts, Delver/Snapcaster is still going to be a thing so a good tempo card with the option of a late-game blowout seems good to me.

In general I think there are probably more good rares than we've ever gotten (seriously, Apocalypse is the last set I can remember with such a high % of playable rares), but saturation of this set is going to tank a lot of them to lower prices than everyone is expecting. Shocklands already down to $12 and dropping.

yep i expect all the good rares to be down to $5 after a month barring a product shortage. there's just too many for them to all hold price

Tavern Swindler 1B
Creature - Human Rogue
T, Pay 3 life: Flip a coin. If you win the flip, you gain 6 life.
2/2

I can't explain why but I'm so glad this card exists.

Also I'm getting the same impression as you cider, this format is going to be slow and I'm guessing will be about developing small advantages over time, with the exception of Rakdos which seems like it gets some great aggro cards. I'm really curious to see how Izzet plays out here.

I like how this is an active thread now

yeah but its mainly just me and frogbs nerding out constantly and scaring away the people who don't draft 3 times a week

I have committed to drafting once a week but nerding out 7 nights.

does anybody actually cube draft? I kinda wanna

I like the idea that there can be some ultimate perfect drafting set that someone builds

I would like to be able to play magic casually in real life with people who aren't neckbeardy gamestore teens without investing much money. I think this means I should make a friend and then buy some crads. The friend part is the hard one.

i've only done cube on magic online, and i didn't really like it. i think it varies a lot depending on whats in the cube though, and would definitely be more fun irl.

love reading this thread and only barely understanding what's going on.

I love Cube draft and even have my own Cube assembled, though I'm missing a lot of cards I'd want to add. Took waaaaay more time to make than I originally thought it would, and I've only been able to draft with it like five times over four years. The problem is my friends and I draft so rarely, we usually just want to draft the latest set when we hang out.

"Power cube" drafts rule, I'm sure there are other great cube ideas out there, but just taking the best 300 cards then adding in 200 cards to compliment them (like a good assortment of creatures like Jackal Pup, Pumpknights, etc. to make creature-based strategies work) is great. I know you only need 360 to draft but I like when the same cards don't show up every time.

I've heard of really fun all-common cubes, awful-rare cubs, or "nostalgia cubes" which focus on Mirage/Tempest/Urza's blocks...possibilities are endless

multicolor-ness isn't played up quite as much as in the original ravnica block. i think 2-color decks will be doable here, whereas old ravnica pretty much required you to be 3 to get enough good spells.

i wasn't around for the original ravnica, but rav-rav-rav drafting favoured two-colour strategies, didn't it? weren't dimir mill and selesnya tokens like the two best archetypes? i'm sure when we're drafting full block people will gravitate more towards three colour decks, if only to get some overlap between rtr and gatecrash.

yeah you're probably right, i wasn't thinking about that since i've only drafted old ravnica as a full block

i have to say i was p excited for ravnica but finding out im going to get to put filibuster counters on things just puts the whole set over the top imo