The two specific times I can think of, my opponent responded to me casting the Kobold - the Kobold was not yet in play.
Due to the wording on the Essence, it's not a trigger. Any creature will come into as a copy of the Essence. There's no ability that goes on the stack to make that happen. So if my opponent responds to me casting another creature by removing my only Essence from the battlefield, the creature I just cast should come into play as itself - which isn't what happened. So I think it is a glitch.
Not an error as much as a quirk of the triggered abilities rules. If you copy something and the effect goes on the stack it no longer needs the original to be in play. However, if they killed the essense before the kobold resolved there would have been no trigger thus the kobold would still be itself.
This data comes from six 64-man drafts. All of the data comes from Round 1. I did this because if I took the information from later rounds, then the bad decks would be played much less, because they would have been weeded out.
There is an inherent problem with taking data only from round 1. Specifically, you don't see which decks are winning in rounds 2 and 3. It is entirely possible that RW is very good against UG, and that RW will therefore give you a better chance of going 3-0, but also a higher chance of losing round one. Or that could be completely false. I have no idea, and you'd have to do a much different study to find out that data.
After reading you played Insects I had to look through collection at possible ways to build them. I'd be curious to see your list and which way you went this time with them.
Great idea for a article. Hope you keep this coming for sets in the future. If you want to see more people gushing about how good your article is, I posted a link to it over on the MTGSalvation Limited forums and there is a lively discussion going on the results you found.
My Essence of the Wild/Kobold build was pretty much an "all or nothing" deck. It either did its thing quickly or it didn't happen and I lost quickly. So I got to watch plenty of other matches. Grapplingfarang's spider deck was a lot of fun to watch. I liked your insect build and I was very happy that I didn't have to play against you - Maelstrom Pulse would have wrecked me.
I was a little disappointed with my 2-2 record, but there appeared to be a glitch with my deck that I didn't know about (all my playtesting is done solitaire, so I don't get to see a lot of interactions). When I cast a Kobold with only 1 Essence in play and my opponent responded by killing or bouncing the Essence, the Kobold still came into play as a copy of the Essence. Offhand I don't really know if that is correct. I checked some rulings on Essence of the Wild and this type of situation wasn't addressed anywhere that I looked. I won 2 or 3 games because of it. If this is a glitch and isn't supposed to work that way, I would have felt bad about winning any prize based on this happening.
For the Biodiversity Prize - is it a "first person to do it" prize or is it a running thing that anyone can get at any time? I may not be able to play this weekend and I know I won't be playing next weekend which would put me behind in that race (if it is a race).
I'm also against changing changeling (try to say that quickly) rules. I don't see any good reason for doing it (don't think current rules create confusion in any significant way, and don't think it's problematic if players can build a deck with an endangered tribe that is not eligible for endangered prize (I don't even understand the latter reasoning in the context of arguing that 0 (and not 4) changelings should be allowed in tribal decks)). And I see two strong reasons why it would be bad to change the rule: it would essentially eliminate popular cards like Chameleon Colossus, Mirror Entity and Tauren Mauler from the competition, and it would make a lot of crappy tribes less playable.
Great article, I love reading about breakdowns of creatures by color, and the toughness vs removal question. Keep up the good work. I had a couple questions, did you watch multiple rounds in the same draft, and how many different drafts were you able to watch?
Lots of good deck ideas. The new rotation really brought some powerful pieces to a lot of decks.
I am surprised that Counterspell isn't legal, though. It's been sitting at 0.15 every time I checked it lately, and that's also it's current price, which would make it legal since it was printed as an uncommon in ME2 (BTW, at first I thought you made a mistake by including Merrow Reejerey in your merfolk list - didn't know it was unbanned.)
Just to point out an error in my article. Terminate is no longer legal in Heirloom so it shouldn't be in my Vampires build. However, you could substitute it with Doom Blade or another kill spell.
On the ban it side:
* this looks like caw blade - blue/blue white control deck dominating
* the deck annoys people
* Wizards has already said Snapcaster is a mistake, and tried to print a hoser (cavern of souls)
* With Jund, alternatives existed. UW is doing really well, and unclear how many viable alternatives exist.
(however, the fact that UW is everywhere this week could just mean the alternatives will pop up next week.)
On the no ban side:
* everyone hates bannings
* could be another hower in M13
* it is a Invitational winner's card, after all.
I'm not read to put anty money on either side of this. Could happen, or not. Time will tell.
I'm against changing the rules to require tribes with 5 members or more to count no changelings. Many tribes need to include 4 changelings to have any shot at top4, it not only adds power to some middling tribes but sometimes it just allows a deck to avoid splashing a third color or to add a low cmc dude to a high cmc tribe and smooth out the curve.
I'm also not sure how this would treat the sub-5 tribes. Right now I could build a rabbit deck (4 members) using the 3 reasonable ones in green and black and filling in with 8 changelings... It would be legal, but not eligible for the endangered prize. If the rule changes as you suggest I would have to splash blue in such a deck to run the unplayable vizzerdrix, and still have to fill out the base with changelings.
This just feels punishing to our freedom to brew these super-obscure tribes. I don't think the current rule needs to be altered at all. Right now you can use 8 changelings, you get to play the deck if you want to, the penalty is that you can't receive the special prize if you do this. This is already the perfect balance, as it allows freedom to play what we want while giving the more "pure"-constructed decks an extra bonus in prizes.
First, great article, very comprehensive and spot on analysis of AVR drafting.
While I agree that weak removal or less removal makes card evaluation more difficult, the real problem with this format is the disparity in card strength.
I've gotten used to bomb rares (I'm not a fan) but bomb uncommons annoy me, and the disparity between Druid's Familiar and every other card is insane. Likewise, blue decks are basically as good as the number of Mist Ravens they have, and white with Seraphs.
Seraph might not be Pacifism but I seriously doubt people are picking any other white common over it. Green is the only color with interesting decisions beyond trusting in the forcemage, and the color is so overdrafted usually your decisions are made for you.
Nice article.Usually a better idea is to cast large but fragile creatures for the first couple of turns, let them deal some damage and get destroyed, and then cast your vultures.
I must say, I absolutely loved your in-depth statistical analysis of power levels in this set! This article was truly great, and I feel better equipped going into AVR limited with this knowledge.
Trusted Forcemage is the best green common, it is basically a 4/4 for 2G with +1/+1 of that distributed to another creature and given haste. The card is VERY strong and you would do well to reconsider its power. It is a better Nettle Swine for 1 less mana.
An interesting read with some decks that seem fun. Plus you highlight some cards that I've never seen before. I think I need a copy of Primal Order for my 5 color Commander deck that plays almost no non-basic lands!
The two specific times I can think of, my opponent responded to me casting the Kobold - the Kobold was not yet in play.
Due to the wording on the Essence, it's not a trigger. Any creature will come into as a copy of the Essence. There's no ability that goes on the stack to make that happen. So if my opponent responds to me casting another creature by removing my only Essence from the battlefield, the creature I just cast should come into play as itself - which isn't what happened. So I think it is a glitch.
Not an error as much as a quirk of the triggered abilities rules. If you copy something and the effect goes on the stack it no longer needs the original to be in play. However, if they killed the essense before the kobold resolved there would have been no trigger thus the kobold would still be itself.
This data comes from six 64-man drafts. All of the data comes from Round 1. I did this because if I took the information from later rounds, then the bad decks would be played much less, because they would have been weeded out.
There is an inherent problem with taking data only from round 1. Specifically, you don't see which decks are winning in rounds 2 and 3. It is entirely possible that RW is very good against UG, and that RW will therefore give you a better chance of going 3-0, but also a higher chance of losing round one. Or that could be completely false. I have no idea, and you'd have to do a much different study to find out that data.
After reading you played Insects I had to look through collection at possible ways to build them. I'd be curious to see your list and which way you went this time with them.
Great idea for a article. Hope you keep this coming for sets in the future. If you want to see more people gushing about how good your article is, I posted a link to it over on the MTGSalvation Limited forums and there is a lively discussion going on the results you found.
http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/showthread.php?t=420595
My Essence of the Wild/Kobold build was pretty much an "all or nothing" deck. It either did its thing quickly or it didn't happen and I lost quickly. So I got to watch plenty of other matches. Grapplingfarang's spider deck was a lot of fun to watch. I liked your insect build and I was very happy that I didn't have to play against you - Maelstrom Pulse would have wrecked me.
I was a little disappointed with my 2-2 record, but there appeared to be a glitch with my deck that I didn't know about (all my playtesting is done solitaire, so I don't get to see a lot of interactions). When I cast a Kobold with only 1 Essence in play and my opponent responded by killing or bouncing the Essence, the Kobold still came into play as a copy of the Essence. Offhand I don't really know if that is correct. I checked some rulings on Essence of the Wild and this type of situation wasn't addressed anywhere that I looked. I won 2 or 3 games because of it. If this is a glitch and isn't supposed to work that way, I would have felt bad about winning any prize based on this happening.
For the Biodiversity Prize - is it a "first person to do it" prize or is it a running thing that anyone can get at any time? I may not be able to play this weekend and I know I won't be playing next weekend which would put me behind in that race (if it is a race).
I'm also against changing changeling (try to say that quickly) rules. I don't see any good reason for doing it (don't think current rules create confusion in any significant way, and don't think it's problematic if players can build a deck with an endangered tribe that is not eligible for endangered prize (I don't even understand the latter reasoning in the context of arguing that 0 (and not 4) changelings should be allowed in tribal decks)). And I see two strong reasons why it would be bad to change the rule: it would essentially eliminate popular cards like Chameleon Colossus, Mirror Entity and Tauren Mauler from the competition, and it would make a lot of crappy tribes less playable.
Great article, I love reading about breakdowns of creatures by color, and the toughness vs removal question. Keep up the good work. I had a couple questions, did you watch multiple rounds in the same draft, and how many different drafts were you able to watch?
Lots of good deck ideas. The new rotation really brought some powerful pieces to a lot of decks.
I am surprised that Counterspell isn't legal, though. It's been sitting at 0.15 every time I checked it lately, and that's also it's current price, which would make it legal since it was printed as an uncommon in ME2 (BTW, at first I thought you made a mistake by including Merrow Reejerey in your merfolk list - didn't know it was unbanned.)
At least it (he?) Had the courtesy to include some Magic content in his spam.
Fun article. I've enjoyed finding uses for Savor the Moment as well.
Just to point out an error in my article. Terminate is no longer legal in Heirloom so it shouldn't be in my Vampires build. However, you could substitute it with Doom Blade or another kill spell.
no bets either way.
On the ban it side:
* this looks like caw blade - blue/blue white control deck dominating
* the deck annoys people
* Wizards has already said Snapcaster is a mistake, and tried to print a hoser (cavern of souls)
* With Jund, alternatives existed. UW is doing really well, and unclear how many viable alternatives exist.
(however, the fact that UW is everywhere this week could just mean the alternatives will pop up next week.)
On the no ban side:
* everyone hates bannings
* could be another hower in M13
* it is a Invitational winner's card, after all.
I'm not read to put anty money on either side of this. Could happen, or not. Time will tell.
Another great article with a lot of deck lists and deck ideas! Lets see how many of these show up to this weekends events :)
Doubt it gets banned. Bloodbraid Elf was a bigger mistake in my mind and that never got banned during the summer of Jund.
I'm against changing the rules to require tribes with 5 members or more to count no changelings. Many tribes need to include 4 changelings to have any shot at top4, it not only adds power to some middling tribes but sometimes it just allows a deck to avoid splashing a third color or to add a low cmc dude to a high cmc tribe and smooth out the curve.
I'm also not sure how this would treat the sub-5 tribes. Right now I could build a rabbit deck (4 members) using the 3 reasonable ones in green and black and filling in with 8 changelings... It would be legal, but not eligible for the endangered prize. If the rule changes as you suggest I would have to splash blue in such a deck to run the unplayable vizzerdrix, and still have to fill out the base with changelings.
This just feels punishing to our freedom to brew these super-obscure tribes. I don't think the current rule needs to be altered at all. Right now you can use 8 changelings, you get to play the deck if you want to, the penalty is that you can't receive the special prize if you do this. This is already the perfect balance, as it allows freedom to play what we want while giving the more "pure"-constructed decks an extra bonus in prizes.
B&R announcement would be June 20th, right?
This was an awesome contest.
I wish there were also cons planned for this year, I'd definitely take part in one.
Free ringtone maker
First, great article, very comprehensive and spot on analysis of AVR drafting.
While I agree that weak removal or less removal makes card evaluation more difficult, the real problem with this format is the disparity in card strength.
I've gotten used to bomb rares (I'm not a fan) but bomb uncommons annoy me, and the disparity between Druid's Familiar and every other card is insane. Likewise, blue decks are basically as good as the number of Mist Ravens they have, and white with Seraphs.
Seraph might not be Pacifism but I seriously doubt people are picking any other white common over it. Green is the only color with interesting decisions beyond trusting in the forcemage, and the color is so overdrafted usually your decisions are made for you.
Wow, my first spambot! This is a milestone for any burgeoning writer.
Great research and great information. Congratulations by your job ;)
Nice article.Usually a better idea is to cast large but fragile creatures for the first couple of turns, let them deal some damage and get destroyed, and then cast your vultures.
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I must say, I absolutely loved your in-depth statistical analysis of power levels in this set! This article was truly great, and I feel better equipped going into AVR limited with this knowledge.
Thank you, keep up the great work. :-)
Trusted Forcemage is the best green common, it is basically a 4/4 for 2G with +1/+1 of that distributed to another creature and given haste. The card is VERY strong and you would do well to reconsider its power. It is a better Nettle Swine for 1 less mana.
Excellent article, the best limited article I've read in quite some time. I hope you create more content like this.
An interesting read with some decks that seem fun. Plus you highlight some cards that I've never seen before. I think I need a copy of Primal Order for my 5 color Commander deck that plays almost no non-basic lands!