Magic: The Gathering C/D

ars arcanum RTR draft article is up: http://puremtgo.com/articles/ars-arcanum-rtr-draft-overview

some very interesting results in there, especially the guild winrates. i've been saying izzet is really good for a couple weeks now and everyone looks at me weird, but there it is.

Very interesting. one thing he didn't mention w/r/t Izzet is Traitorous Instinct, which turns an opponent's "save one blocker for Stealer/Cobblebrute" into "I just took a ton of damage". that's a card I was surprised tables so much. the +2/+0 is really big.

Izzet isn't necessarily bad; it's like Black Loner was in AVR - I think people realized straight on that Izzet had a tricky strategy and got outclassed fast, and as a result it got underdrafted, and now it has a high winrate.

One thing I noticed with Golgari is that it pairs with Selesnya and Rakdos. So 1st-picking a Golgari Guildmage with the plan of going G/W/B or B/R/G is fine. Golgari does have some excellent uncommons. Plus Grisly Savage, which is really great with Scavenge, since it's basically an Impulse with upside. I am also really liking Treasured Find.

I suspect he's correct about Voidweilder. What he says is definitely true - Man o' War type creatures are always better than they look in Limited. What follows is Dramatic Rescue can also be very good. Especially since you can nerf a populate trigger while it's still on the stack.

on tuesday I drafted a mostly golgari deck but there was soo much izzet tabling that my sideboard ended up almost being an izzet deck. also I pulled a foil niv-mizzet.

I have only drafted rtr twice at this point but playing against a strong populate deck seems...very difficult. maybe it's just my limited experience but that's the only deck that always seems to destroy me.

speaking of tempo izzet, my favourite izzet deck so far:

http://pbs.twimg.com/media/A5sr66cCAAAvzLj.png

wow, that's crazy. did you lose a game with that??

here's one I did - went 3-0 in Swiss and got a very nice rare in the process :)

http://www.raredraft.com/watch?d=3kn6i#all

almost lost my first game (to a guy that didn't submit his deck!) because i drew 14 of my 16 lands and he removed all my creatures, but after that it was relatively smooth sailing. looking at your draft i think you way undervalue knightly valor, and you seemed to go hard towards izzet and later selesnya when there was no real reason to deviate from azorius? what did your deck end up being? wu splash g?

p1p11, sure. I'm not really big on the card even though it's been doing well for me. I wanted to try the Cobblebrute/Detain/Persuit deck but it didnt quite work out. My view on Valor is that I usually don't want to play more than one and they come around often.

not sure what you mean toward "go hard towards izzet" - the 3 cards with red I took in pack 1 weren't early at the expense of good Azorius cards. I like to go 3 colors in this format since it can be tough to get 23 playables in just one combination. I like having a "main" 2-color combo which is 18-20 of your playables and then the remaining as a splash. I only wound up with 2 green cards in my deck - Centaur Healer and Loxodon Smiter. Maybe not really worth the splash for two above-average three drops? On the other hand I didn't really have too many options outside of that.

what really wound up happening is I would drop a Stealer of Secrets, then keep using Dramatic Rescue/detainers/Voidweilder/Trostani's Judgement to remove the threats. Stealer w/ Knightly Valor is very good by the way (I'm sure you know)

is dramatic rescue really that good? I mean in that context you're getting the card back w/ stealer. and I guess it kills tokens. maybe I'm just thinking about the card w/o the context of the set...

often you get a mana advantage doing that. as the ars arcanium article says, bounce is pretty good with all the tokens and scavenge running around. plus Knightly Valor, Common Bond, and Persuit of Flight do get played. a lot of blue-based decks are really tempo decks; you can delay threats for a while and punch through damage, and Rescue is a big part of that. what would you have taken over it?

grasp

i really hate removal like that

finally read that article w/ the stats

voidwelder might be underrated but best common is ridiculous

you could make good arguments for Frostburn Weird, Stab Wound, Centaur Healer, and Auger Spree too. Voidweilder IS very good but sometimes it's just expensive, sorcery speed bounce. When you're on the offensive or racing against flyers that 1/4 body doesn't help much. I like Rescue because you can hit a token in response to a Rootborn Defenses or whatever.

it really should be 3U

that would be pretty crazy

a 1/3 for 3u would be fine, i think; the difference between 3 and 4 toughness is pretty huge

not sure what you mean toward "go hard towards izzet" - the 3 cards with red I took in pack 1 weren't early at the expense of good Azorius cards.

i feel like skyline predator and knightly valor are very good azorius cards, and there's nothing wrong with seller of songbirds, either. you say you often play 3 colours due to a lack of playables, but every time you picked an off-colour card there was a decent (though not always amazing) on-colour option. maybe it's worth splashing green because smiter and healer are very good (i would have also been tempted to pick up common bond p2p8), but i feel like splashing only for power is better than splashing to get enough playables

speaking of fine tuned decks. note the 3 auger spree and 2 rakdos guildgate that i did not include.

http://i46.tinypic.com/1z3rp87.jpg

(i lost in the finals to an izzet deck.)

I was wondering why you didn't have the Charm in there, then I realized that half your critters are x/1's. I dunno; I might have gone with Red here, if only because it helps clear out opposing flyers. Is Sewer Shambler really worth playing so many of? (I'm torn on it)

i feel like skyline predator and knightly valor are very good azorius cards, and there's nothing wrong with seller of songbirds, either.

tbh I don't like Skyline too much - I actually like Insperia's Skyknight with the detain ability better. though 3/3 vs. 3/4 may be a big deal. Knightly Valor - I think you're right, I do undervalue it. I would probably like to have two in there. Seller of Songbirds is usually underwhelming for me. Neither body tends to matter. i only really like it because it allows you to get some use out of the populate on Trostani's Judgement.

4 toughness is the magic number in this set. I've had great experiences with Skyline Predator, sometimes it shuts down several attackers. Though Skyknight is good too. Voidwielder is fine where it is at 5 mana, it's still quite good. I got so sick of playing against Mist Raven in AVR.

oh yeah, it's always good to catch someone off guard with it, but the difference between that and Wolfir Avenger is that you're not likely to be attacked by 3/x's on turn 6 or 7, and if you are then some part of your gameplan went wrong. the only 3 power flyers are in W/U. there are lots of 4+ toughness guys you can get that come out earlier - I like Armory Guard, for example.

agreed that Voidwielder is great where it stands - I would argue it's probably top 5 common, but if I'm going U/B/R for example no way am I taking it over Auger Spree or Stab Wound

here's my TOP SECRET deck for gameday tomorrow

4 Delver of Secrets
4 Snapcaster Mage
4 Guttersnipe
3 Thundermaw Hellkite

4 Pillar of Flame
4 Thought Scour
3 Unsummon
2 Essence Scatter
2 Izzet Charm
4 Searing Spear
2 Brimstone Volley
1 Syncopate

4 Steam Vents
4 Sulfur Falls
8 Island
5 Mountain
2 Hellion Crucible

numbers could change a bit still. sideboard has more counters, the 4th hellkite, and 2 more hellion crucible so you can board into a better long-game deck.

i think the 4x Bonfire got cut off cider

Ars Arcanum ranked Izzet with white splash pretty highly. What is the key white card to splash if you are in Izzet aggro?

I have an idea for a Seance deck but I can't figure out the specifics yet. I love the idea of Seancing tokens and then populating to cheat a big ol' Worldspine into play. I think I will need black for Grisly Savage and maybe Jarad's Orders. Also that new mythic angel seems very good with Seance if I'm reading it correctly.

a) bonfire is a lot less crucial when everyone's playing farseek decks instead of birds of paradise decks, and b) i don't have any and i think there's a chance they crash hard if there's no birds of paradise replacement in Gruul so i don't want to buy them.

i wanted to port over my UWRb seance deck from last standard but then i realized that thragtusk interacts too well with seance to not run, so now i'm looking at a 5 color deck and fuck that i'd rather just play epic experiment if i want a goofy combo kill

Ars Arcanum ranked Izzet with white splash pretty highly. What is the key white card to splash if you are in Izzet aggro?

― Moodles, Friday, October 26, 2012 2:49 PM (24 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i may be overrating skyknight but it's been very good both for and against me so far

oh wait i just noticed you said aggro, so maybe not sphinx's revelation or trostani's judgment

revelation's probably still good enough though in any deck

also keep in mind that if you're splashing you're either not an aggro deck or not a good aggro deck. aggro wants to be 2 colors in order to cast all their creatures on curve every game

seance deck is really fun. i am a couple temple gardens off this build right now. it's still been OK. the key is to mill effectively. i think BG mill is too slow, personally, but would love to run black for the ability to sacrifice my tokens for profit. i'm mainly in blue for armored skaab and mirror-mad, which seem tailor-made for the seance deck. the key is seancing them from the grave to get your mill engine going, then drop a turn 6 craterhoof.

angel of serenity is actually not too amazing in the seance deck. it's ok, but i almost prefer sphinx of uthuun. populate in general is good but almost overkill. you can win effectively without populating stuff. although, in my experience so far, people are so scared of the V-G guildmage that they waste good removal on it. i'll take it.

4 Séance
4 Detention Sphere
2 Growing Ranks
2 Supreme Verdict

4 Avacyn's Pilgrim
3 Vitu-Ghazi Guildmage
2 Dawntreader Elk
1 Armada Wurm
4 Armored Skaab
3 Mirror-Mad Phantasm
1 Acidic Slime
2 Thragtusk
1 Angel of Serenity
1 Sphinx of Uthuun
2 Craterhoof Behemoth

4 Temple Garden
4 Hallowed Fountain
4 Sunpetal Grove
4 Glacial Fortress
4 Hinterland Harbor
1 Plains
2 Forest
1 Island

SB: 3 Sundering Growth
SB: 2 Angel of Glory's Rise
SB: 3 Slayer of the Wicked
SB: 2 Witchbane Orb
SB: 2 Pithing Needle
SB: 2 Feeling of Dread

I think I'm joining mtgo tonight :|

one of us! one of us!

make sure you learn the interface a bit before you start playing real events because some things are not super intuitive. i think they give a free new player practice m13 draft now though which should help with that.

yeah I may not even play beyond the practice drafts but there's a hurricane and I'm bored so

so guys, i'm thinking of starting a bot franchise :3

fennel - you should run mirror-mad combo there. the idea is you play one mirror-mad, get it into play with Seance (on your opponent's turn), then use its ability, which shuffles the token into your deck and mills, effectively milling your whole deck out. play one lab maniac, Seance it into play on your turn, bingo gazingo

this is definitely something I want to work on - Seance is my favorite card in type and I took a Seance deck to a top 4 finish at a big local cash tournament, but losing Merfolk Looter kinda sucks. I agree that Sphinx of Uthuun is great, I'd run two. When Seance is giving you Fact or Fictions or 5 life + 3/3 tokens twice a turn (if you count the activation on your opponent's turn) you're pretty much unbeatable.

anyway. just wanted to offer a few thoughts on some RTR cards for Limited:

Perilous Shadow - nobody ever seems to want to take this. think of it this way. if his ability was 1: +1/+1 until end of turn, I think it would probably look better. but effectively, that's what it is. compared to other shades, the Shadow is better because A) it has the magical 4 toughness and B) half its mana requirement is colorless, so you can sink all your mana into this to swing for 8+ as the same goes on.

Voidweilder - I'm not finding it quite as good as the article above did, but vs. Selesnya this is incredible.

Insperia's Skynight/Skyline Predator - outside of Azorius's best uncommons (Skymark Roc, Lyev Skynight), there are almost no other creautres with flying and more than 2 power. so the 3/3 flying body on Skynight is actually very relevant.

Stealer of Secrets - I have drafted more of these than any other card and will continue to nab these so long as they're cycling throughout the table the way they have been online. Both Izzet and Azorius have plenty of ways to abuse this and I've had matches where I'd drop one of these turn 3 and just play like an old-school Ophidian deck. In addition to one-time effects like detain, Tratorious Instinct, and bounce, he's really great with Persuit of Flight. Also, with Rakdos and unleash, a lot of creatures may not be blocking anyway.

Cobblebrute - Similar to Stealer, but with +3 damage instead of the draw. Good vanilla creatures are always underrated.

Chorus of Might - Forget the mana cost; this is only really played late-game anyway. I love to pack one of these in any green deck because it punches through so much late-game damage when needed. Imagine it as "+5/+5 and trample" and it suddenly looks a lot better; I've rarely casted it for less.

Knightly Valor - I think webber is right about this card. It's so insane on any flying creature and the 2/2 vigilant is not only populate bait but a little safeguard in case your guy gets removed right away.

Trostani's Judgement - you know "removal is removal" but I really wouldn't take this unless you're sure you can use the populate. Otherwise it's simply too expensive.

Eyes in the Skies - early on I predicted this to be one of the best commons in the set. Turns out the 1/1 flyers are usually never relevant, so the only way this card really gets good is if you have a Centaur or big Ooze out already.

Thrill-Kill Assassin - this guy is seriously good. while lots of creatures have the "magic" 4 toughness, many of those don't have the 3 power needed to kill an unleashed one of these.

Zanikev Locust - I feel Scavenge is a bit understated in draft, particularly this guy and Sewer Shambler. If you have Grisly Savages you can get card advantage up the wazoo with these. Plus as mentioned 3/3 for 6 ain't so bad.

Annihilating Fire - not as good as I initially thought; double colored cards are very hard to cast unless you're based in red, which only leaves R/B/U, which is not one of the better 3-color archetypes

Centaur's Herald - just remember, without populate, this is kinda just a 3/3 vanilla for 4 mana that is very bad vs. bounce

The Charms - these can be kind of a trap, since they seem to fit so well into a guild plan. They're made specifically for them! But only the Izzet one is really *good* - the others are okay (Selesnya, Azorius), situational (Golgari) or unplayable (Rakdos)

The Guildmages - all are first pick worthy, even Nivix. once you get 6-8 mana and can start doubling spells like Inaction Injunction, Tratorious Instinct, Annihilating Fire, Inspiration, etc., it becomes very dangerous. just remember you need to hold down the Control key to hold priority.

Heroes Reunion - the Ars Arcanum article is totally right about Izzet - it really has trouble vs. any lifegain strategy. they'll gladly burn a card and 6 mana to hit you for five, so I'm always glad to side this in against them. trust me on this.

selesnya and golgari charms are both great!

i think you're too down on Centaur's Herald, i think it's the best mono-green common. being able to pay the 4 mana over 2 turns, make the 3/3 on turn 3, and/or potentially get a free chump block are all relevant, and it's the cog that makes the populate engine work.

i don't think this card is weaker because of the bounce spells, it's more like Dramatic Rescue and Voidwielder are better because of this card.

also Selesnya Charm is much stronger than Izzet Charm in limited, it's the best one by a fair margin

it would be a strong card even if it only have two of the abilities

had

also i'm glad you've come around on Knightly Valor, that card legitimately wins games. Pursuit of Flight is really good too and people are just starting to pick up on it now.

Chemister's Trick is a card that has played a lot better for me than the 12th pick i get it at every draft and I'd like to try it out more to see exactly how often it's good.

Well I think Selesnya Charm is 2nd best, but IMO the Izzet one plays much better. The "counter target noncreature spell" ability is exactly the sort of ability that will save your ass from time to time that you'd never play on its own. Plus I'd argue that cheap removal is key for Izzet. Selesnya and Golgari are ones that I'll always play but I'm not super happy to take them early. Selesnya's third ability (exile power 5 or greater) almost never seems to come into play. That's a very small subset of creautres. The 2/2 token is nice if you have early populaters I guess. Golgari is one that *can* be very powerful in certain situations. I've had it bail me out a couple of times. The problem is that it oftentimes just sits in your hand.

One thing I'm noticing about populate is that it seems to come into play less than I thought it would. I kind of thought that G/W's whole gameplan would be focused on abusing Rootborn Defenses and Eyes in the Skies to just blow up incoming attacks. But it seldom seems to wind up working that way. In a populate deck I love the Herald, but without 3+ populate spells I'd pick a Gatecreeper Vine over it. Towering Indrik also has a case. That card can be very hard to get through.

as for Chemister's Trick - this card is insane vs. Azorious. Especially since they rarely have creatures with power above two and a lot of their creatures don't want to attack anyway. Against other decks it's more of a glorified Fog. But man does it wreck U/W. On a similar note I'm finding Downsize surprisingly playable.

the ars arcanum data is p interesting, i was arguing with some other players abt draft archetypes last week that izzet splash black was the best underdrafted archetype because it allowed you to make better use of black's removal and izzets tempo cards

ive struggled a fair bit w/this format tho the only decks i seem to win w/outside of lucking into a nuts populate deck or pack rat are the blue-based tempo decks. i have more inaction injunctions, stealer of secrets and runewings than like any green common. im really p high on blustersquall and mizzium skin because of this - ive found blanking removal to be an outsized benefit and the squall is way more effective for me than sleep was in M13, maybe because the format is slower and more prone to gross broad stalls. also essence backlash is p much terrible maindeck but cancel/dispel are really good well 'really' is a stretch but theyre typically p useful - i'll take syncopate p high if i think im going tempo as well.

for me the non-rares im happiest to see are one of the guildmages, one of the removal suite (price/wound/spree/fire), one of the populate staples (herald, healer, charm, call, ooze) or a staple izzet card (lobber crew, guttersnipe, electromancer, frostburn weird). kinda dont care about the bomb u/w creatures like the roc or the knight.

Eyes in the Skies - early on I predicted this to be one of the best commons in the set. Turns out the 1/1 flyers are usually never relevant, so the only way this card really gets good is if you have a Centaur or big Ooze out already.

idk i think its still up there w/the best g/w cards just cuz its instant

Yeah, I'm actually the opposite on Eyes in the Skies - I originally thought of it as a really bad Midnight Haunting with marginal upside, and now see it as a fairly strong card that doesn't require other tokens to be pretty good.

Also disagree strongly with frogbs on Izzet vs Selesnya Charm. Selesnya Charm just does more of what that deck wants to be doing than what Izzet Charm does in the izzet deck (which, I've found, is mostly a worse Shock - still good though, don't get me wrong!). Pump spells just so often absolutely wreck people in RTR (especially when they grant trample; see frogbs's comments about Chorus of Might), and having a token maker (essential for the Selesnya deck) AND a very efficient removal spell tacked on to that is just insane.

Agree on Perilous Shadow though. I quite like the midrangey Rakdos strategies, and in that deck the Shadow's a lot like Lobber Crew in that it's exactly what I want to be doing on turn 4-6 after playing some unleashed dudes to make it more difficult for them to race me, and then after the board stalls out it provides some great reach.

I'm really glad that I'm still not entirely sure what's going on in this format after 10+ drafts; I was worried that in attempting to follow up both Ravnica and Innistrad, R&D would either play it safe and end up with a bland format, or go in some crazy direction and give us AVR 2.0. I'm still figuring stuff out and having fun, and I can already see how some card evaluations may change in full-block drafting (the mill cards suddenly becoming valuable for the Dimir deck, which I'm guessing will be quite dominant in limited; the 1-drops like Bellows Lizard which some people are already starting to catch on to being exactly what Boros wants to be doing).

hmmph. i thought it was +2/+2 and vigilance. still I'm big on Izzet Cham because first of all, two mana shocks are fine, and secondly, the counter ability comes into play a lot more often than you'd think. as for Selesnya Charm's removal ability, that really hits almost nothing you'll encounter in limited outside of Cobblebrute. Even at uncommon the only real playables w/ 5 power are Risen Sanctuary and the 4/3 unleash trample giant. Either way I guess maybe I am underrating it. Like Izzet Charm it's mostly card for a card, but Izzet tends to give you the benefit right away. The Knight's instant speed is obviously a good thing.

Eyes in the Skies - I dunno, it can take out Daggerdromes, but outside of that the 1/1s just don't matter. Concordant Pegasus is a 2-drop that eats them. Azorius and Izzet should both have better flyers down early. Rakdos is not exactly worried about 1/1 flyers on turn 4. Golgari has Tresle Troll which more or less blanks it. Midnight Haunting is a card I like a lot (in general, any card that gives you multiple fliers is worth playing) but Eyes is just not good by itself. I'm learning the same about playing Singer of Songbirds in Azorius. Both are good in Selesnya because Eyes has populate and Songbirds gives you something to populate, but by themselves it's usually underwhelming.

Perilous Shadow I actually like more in Golgari. Blocks early and turns into a monster late. But yes midrange Rakdos with clearly defined attackers/blockers is nice. I just tend to usually make those into 3 color decks. I'm really liking late-pick Grisly Savages especially with late-pick Treasured Finds.

im really p high on blustersquall and mizzium skin because of this - ive found blanking removal to be an outsized benefit and the squall is way more effective for me than sleep was in M13, maybe because the format is slower and more prone to gross broad stalls. also essence backlash is p much terrible maindeck but cancel/dispel are really good well 'really' is a stretch but theyre typically p useful - i'll take syncopate p high if i think im going tempo as well.

Blustersquall type effects are always great but this isn't as good as Sleep, Sleep gave you one extra turn to kill them

I'm not big on Dispel at all, nearly everything it counters is removal and for that effect I'd much rather have Mizzium Skin, which feels like deck filler already (that said, I've had good results with it)

as far as best commons, I can't stress enough how great Frostburn Weird is vs. everything. honestly I think even Doorkeeper is playable since there are so many 3/x's that come down fast but this one can swing for up to 4 and it trades up easily. also like many Izzet creatures it's great with Persuit of Flight. one more thing - don't sleep on Hover Barrier, it's basically Fog Bank but harder to kill.

Played in the Philly Grand Prix this weekend, which was a blast, though tiring. It was pretty disappointing to start 6-0 and then lose three straight rounds, but my round 9 loss was definitely because of misplays and not bad luck, and I think my opponent probably deserved the win.

I've been liking Eyes in the Skies more and more - I too thought it was a bad Midnight Haunting at first. It's never great unless you're populating something large, but it does a lot of different things. It can give you two chump blockers (this is what I use it for the most in Azorius), it lets you play a threat while holding up countermagic, it can dissuade your opponent from attacking with 1 or 2 toughness dudes. It reminds me of a weak Charm, and I love the versatility. Haha speaking of which, I've been unimpressed by Golgari Charm and don't understand why people take it as high as they do.

Oh and I should mention that Pack Rat is one of the stupidest limited cards they've printed, a big reason why I was able to start 6-0. I won a game this weekend by playing turn 2 Pack Rat and then NO OTHER CARDS.