Magic: The Gathering C/D

Feeling quite pleased with myself -- In my last draft, I first-picked Dying to Serve (black enchantment, whenever you discard a card create a tapped 2/2 zombie token, limit 1x per turn), which I've been wanting to play with to see if it can be good in a deck full of ways to make blood tokens. I didn't want to force it, but when I got passed a second Bloodtithe Harvester in pack 2, I realized Black/Red Vampires was open and buckled in.

Somewhere along the way, I also managed to snag the busted mythic uncommon Dormant Grove (green enchantment, put a +1/+1 counter on a creature every combat, transforms into a creature and gives your whole team vigilance if the thing you put the counter on has toughness 6 or greater), plus enough mana-fixing to splash for it. I ended up with an absolute beast of a deck that went 7-1 (one loss could have been a win had I not badly misplayed, saccing my Bloodtithe Harvester to try and kill something with 3 toughness... when I only had one blood token on the board)

Full list:
1x Blood Fountain B

2x Doomed Dissenter 1B
1x Mindleech Ghoul 1B
1x Ragged Recluse 1B
2x Bloodtithe Harvester BR
1x Wedding Invitation 2

1x Dying to Serve 2B
1x Blood Hypnotist 2R
1x Bloody Betrayal 2R
1x Honeymoon Hearse 2R
1x Vampires' Vengeance 2R
2x Blood Servitor 3
1x Foreboding Statue 3

1x Bloodcrazed Socialite 3B
2x Bleed Dry 2BB
1x Dormant Grove 3G

2x Falkenrath Celebrants 4R

1x Grisly Ritual 5B

6x Swamp
6x Mountain
2x Forest
2x Evolving Wilds
1x Voldaren Estate

okay hmm I guess that's not how hidden text tag works

Yeah, nice when the synergy comes together

I'm about eight drafts in and not feeling this set much but hard to put my finger on why. Maybe the gameplay is not novel enough? I'm not totally sick of it yet but I suspect I'll be calling it early on this format. Tho there is going to be a draft Arena Open next month, which is enticing me to practice

yeah I think a lot of people feel the same way. I've heard a lot of grouching about this set. feel like it might play better once you get used to it. one thing I will say is the -13/-13 instant exiling the creature seems super relevant - there are just so many death triggers/ways to bring things back. it deals with a bunch of those rares that otherwise would just win you the game.

my current pool has 3 Ancient Lumberknot and 3 Sheltering Boughs. so that's pretty fun, at least

i dont think its a total dud of a set but i dont really feel like playing it since there's not enough good new stuff. the vampire/blood deck is new but pretty much every other color pair is stuck doing a less fun/impactful version of what they were doing in the last set. except for exploit which is a retread of a mechanic i didn't like much the first time around

well the Lumberknot deck is something new at least

had a fun game recently, I managed to stabilize and get into a winning position, then my opponent plays Avabruck Caretaker and I go from "I think it's okay as long as this isn't some totally busted rare" to "wow, that's pretty bad for me" to "holy shit it comes into play flipped and does WHAT!??"

Yeah that's pretty much my exact feeling, cider

Caretaker is such a stupid ass card

luckily its a mythic and my one time running into it they played it into my counterspell

Note to WoTC make it uncounterable next time

Btw am I the only one who needs to read the Cleave cards four times to understand what they do? I find the design weirdly unintuitive when at the end of the day it’s the same split/modal design they do every year

It totally is unintuitive. It's a popular mechanic among amateur designers because it's clever but I think it reads worse than their usual way of wording it, and I'm disappointed that they made it into real cards. I just end up memorizing what the cards do. Liked this parody of the mechanic: https://i.imgur.com/IBXDQth_d.webp?maxwidth=640&shape=thumb&fidelity=medium

Cleave just seems silly,they should have just made them kicker cards

This set has a lot of bombs. Too many maybe?

I tried a BU exploit deck and thought it was pretty good but it didn't work out for me

lol Vinnie that gives me such a headache but bravo

I am having a lot of fun with this set so far! For anyone who's burned out on drafting, I would recommend giving Sealed a try. Opening 6 rares makes it much more likely that you'll have a bomb rare to play with, but so will your opponents. There's a lot of strategy that goes into building your deck, and you can end up with some very funky builds that use cards you wouldn't normally play (or wouldn't normally play *together*) in a draft deck.

As an example: I am 4-1 with my current white/black sealed deck. I opened Halana and Alena, which is a legit game-breaking bomb rare; but all of my good removal was in white and most of my other good creatures were in black, so I ultimately decided not to play the best card in my pool. Instead, I went all-in on vampires and lifegain synergies, which then dictated the shape of my creature curve: I'm less worried about having two-drops to trade with theirs and prevent early damage, since I can easily gain 4+ life every turn once I get my Restless Bloodseeker + Gluttonous Guest + Heron of Hope engine online. And I ended up playing a Nebelgast Beguiler, which is generally too expensive to be good in draft, but fills multiple roles in my deck as a big ground blocker as well as a piece of pseudo-removal in case my opponent manages to draw out all my hard removal spells before playing their bomb.

I don't have a problem with the Cleave cards, but lol @ that parody.

Avabruck Caretaker is ridiculous, it was very satisfying when someone played it against me in standard the other day, but far too late in the game for it to matter (also it still dies to 1/1s with deathtouch).

encountered another incredibly stupid card: Toxrill. if you don't counter it and can't remove it right away, what the hell are you supposed to do?

Dreadfeast Demon is another stupid one, where you pretty much have to counter it or have Bleed Dry up to survive

I hadn't played with Toxrill until today, and had to laugh at two stupid things I'd hadn't caught until playing with it. 1) that it triggers EVERY end step, not just on the controller's turn and 2) that the slugs can be sacked for cards. both are egregiously unnecessary additions to a card that's already a bomb. in the couple games I faced Toxrill before, I was too demoralized to even notice those details

its so fucking dumb. I guess its at least kinda nice that it doesn't put on actual -1/-1 counters, so if you manage to kill it on your turn you might wind up okay. that said you probably won't be holding hard removal by the time it lands. and if you can't kill it, its kind of hard to envision a realistic board scenario where you can still win after they play it. at least the Demon is just one creature that they can only trade 1-for-1 with, so if you've got a big board advantage you can still maybe get through.

first game I encountered Toxrill I had a huge advantage so I was like, "dont care about this" and then watched as my entire board got decimated after a single turn. second time I had 5 creatures out and they had none, I was up 28-2 in life, and still scooped immediately after my next draw was not my single Bleed Dry.

Yeah that was one of my games today. Behind on board, behind on cards, think I was at like 4 life? First end step got me two slugs and after they didn't draw a removal spell, they had no shot and scooped. It's like the stupidly busted cards I designed when I first started playing the game in 8th grade

I feel like there are about 8 ludicrous bombs in this set but can only think of toxrill and dreadfeast off the top of my head. both have done for me.

I have only drafted this 4 times thus far because I have done so badly in all my drafts that I don't win hardly any gems

look at the flip side of Avabruck Caretaker it's arguably worse than either of those - "all your permanents have hexproof" get the fuck outta here

Caretaker might be the worst because of how hard it is to answer. Even the Day side is extremely good. My list of kill-them-immediately-or-lose bombs:

Avabruck Caretaker
Hullbreaker Horror
Toxrill
Dreadfeast Demon
Olivia

But the tier below that is the problem imo, where you get repeated card advantage or will end the game in 2-3 turns:

Sorin
Cemetary Desecrator
Henrika
Manaform Hellkite
Volatile Arsonist
Savior of Ollenbock
Welcoming Vampire
Glorious Sunrise
Bloodvial Purveyor
Wedding Announcement
Howlpack Piper
Eruth
Halana and Elena
Torens
Anje

It feels like there's a very wide gulf between these cards and the other rares/uncommons/commons imo. I'm not sure how it compares to other sets but it has felt like a higher percentage of my games have been decided by who draws their bomb

God, I keep having Toxrill stories: today, I was up on board, opponent dead on board but both of us low on life. then my opponent played Toxrill. I lost three creatures, they went up three slugs, and I said to myself, if I don't draw my Bleed Dry exactly, I'm going to concede. I did draw my Bleed Dry so I killed it, but at this point, it was almost even on board. they alpha'd and had the pump spell to make me dead to the stupid slugs!

thats fun, draw your one out and still lose cuz the card is that good

anyway one thing about that list is that Olivia isn't necessarily a game winner on its own, you need stuff in your graveyard which may not be there for a number of reasons.

Wedding Announcement can be a pretty nutso card - feel like I never lose when I play it

That's a good point about Olivia and maybe it belongs in the second list, but I think it's very common to have at least one creature in the graveyard by the time you get Olivia down. Last week, my opponent played Olivia, pulled a Diregraf Scavenger out, drained me, and I traded with the Scavenger. Then I realized that the creatures Olivia brings back only get exiled when Olivia dies, not if you kill them. So next turn they did it again haha

Yeah I've never beaten Wedding Invitation and I've won every game I've played it

funny enough I just had a match where I had Hullbreaker in hand and was certain I was gonna win, until I got trucked by...his own Hullbreaker. then Game 3 I was looking good until Olivia came in and whipped my ass. But there was good news - apparently Olivia has a bug on double-sided cards in MTGO, once I untapped and killed Olivia the creature still remained. typically in MTGO when you lose to a bug like that (can't say for sure I would've won otherwise, but it was probably 50/50) you get your whole entry fee returned, so actually this megabomb benefitted me greatly

on a later match I managed to pitch Hullbreaker, play Runo to put it back on top of my library, flipped it into Krothuss, then later played the Hullbreaker, copied it TWICE with Krothuss (didn't know it did that), then played a Bleed Dry and bounced three creatures. my opponent in the chat was like "wait, what is happening here"

ooh another card you can add there - Dollhouse of Horrors. Turns out repeatable reanimation for a single mana is pretty good!! Is there a constructed deck built around this card yet? If I still played Standard I'd be all over this thing

one thing I do appreciate about this set is how many abilities on permanents are sorcery speed only, having a bunch of weird combat tricks on board is never fun

can't believe there's 6 1/2 weeks left of this format. Draft may be interesting but Sealed seems to have devolved into endless B/R vs B/R matches. obviously the other archetypes are viable but a lot of times it seems a mediocre B/R deck is on par with a great G/W humans/counters one. not only does B/R have nearly all the good removal, it also has a lot of access to Blood tokens to smooth things out. in addition a huge chunk of the really troublesome rares and mythics are in those colors.

I'm still trying to figure out how to make the Training deck work. you have to go like...2 drop, then 3 drop, then attack with both on turn 4, but by then a 2/3 probably isnt getting through. I like the flavor of it but it just like...doesn't play well

yeah draft actually has good color balance this set compared to the last few. RB is the most popular because it's the most obvious and has the most first-pick commons but none of the 10 pairs is performing significantly better or worse than anything else

the 1/2 training guy isnt particularly playable, for the reasons you're describing. try using the flier or the 1/4

yeah it's too bad because that 1/2 guy seems like the glue that would hold a deck like that together. the 1/4 is easier to build up and the reach is very helpful. not super convinced by the flyer...unless you got the 3/1 1W spirit you can't really train on turn 4. I kinda feel like the point of that deck is to use cards like Travelling Minister to beef up your creatures to get the trigger. It doesn't work super well though. You always feel one turn behind. Even the 2GW 4/4 dude is not quite as good as it looks.

like Radiant Grace is maybe supposed to be the sort of card you play here

I've had times where the 1/2 has helped me run away with the game, but it usually involves removal on turn 4. Turn 2 Training guy, turn 3 3/3, turn 4 removal, can be enough on its own. I like the card more in RW than GW for that reason. Often it trades with a 3/2 leaving behind a counter, which is a solid exchange. And sometimes it's dead. So yeah not a high pick but it often makes my aggro decks. A 2-mana 2/3 is much better than most two-drops

That said, I haven't played this format in a couple weeks now. I probably played 20 drafts total and I've had my fill until Kamigawa. Despite the balanced colors, this has been my least favorite draft set in some time

wait a sec is the next one gonna be the vaporwave set

Pretty much

Lol read that as vaporware and thought they never actually finishedthe set or something

The basic lands for this set look amazing. I love when they put out things that don't even really look like Magic cards. Can see those fetching a decent price in 10 years. Otherwise based on the ten or so spoiled cards it looks like a predictable set of returning mechanics - Ninjutsu and Channel are in, Sagas are back again, and there appears to be a 5-color theme. Also one of the spoiled cards has Bushido without actually having Bushido, lol. Guessing they're gonna ditch the Splice/Arcane stuff though I still think there's something interesting there.

nah arcane makes even less sense to do when its in 1 of 8 standard sets instead of 3 of 7. i wouldn't expect it to be a major part of the set if its even in there at all

Yeah I am pretty sure it won’t show up at all but the idea of chaining/combining spells is something they’ll probably revisit at some point

One interesting thing I noticed is that any creature that is enchanted, equipped, or has a counter on it is now called “modified”

they did splice onto instant in one of those modern horizons sets

I haven’t so much as glanced at the spoilers yet, but I did win two entries into the Arena Decathlon finals so there’s a chance I’ll win the full (Arena) set this weekend :D

the lands look awesome indeed

basics, I mean

there's a Supreme Vintage draft on MTGO right now, where you get 18 packs and two picks from each one. its absolutely insane, everyone plays crazy blue artifact decks and twice I've had someone play a Time Walk AND a Mind Twist before I even got to play my first turn. immensely dumb format but it's fun to play high powered Magic sometimes.

That is my kind of format.

it's definitely worth trying a couple times. I always found it interesting how every step from Regular Set -> Modern Masters -> Cube -> Vintage Cube you have to re-evaluate what types of cards are good and this is yet another level beyond even that. Like I think in this format the planeswalker that prevents your opponent from drawing more than one each turn may actually be better than Jace. From my very limited experience I think you really do want discard and hard counterspells. And Time Walk/Time Warp obviously. Half the games seem to come down to someone just saying fuck it and playing a Time Spiral. It rules.

(fwiw I haven't noticed any Storm cards in the pool because I suspect those would be insanely broken. I didn't see Force of Will either but who knows, that might be the top pick)