Here's Dürer's woodcut. I was trusting sources about him using the Pestilence iconography, but now that I look at it, that one with the bow looks like Conquest again to me. It would seem hard to buy "rider with a bow" as the representation of pestilence.
I do sit on the control side, when I talked about creature abilities it was things like Faceless Butcher or even Chittering Rats I had in mind.. as much as I dislike combo, those tribes with 4-5 lords are a very close second in my list of "not fun"
I know both are more powerful. The thing is: I'm sure I'll be white but I'm not sure what the other color will be. This way I'm taking a card I'll play for sure. And Doomed Traveler never wheels.
First off, awesome coverage of the event. Looks like it would of been a lot of fun. I agree with Kum and AJ that combo and control are needed. For me the fun of the format is seeing the crazy things that are needed to make these decks work with restrictions. If combo ever completely takes over the format, sure that will get boring, but it doesn't look like it is close to that. The same could be said for aggro when half the decks are goblin aggro/burn. Variety is what makes the format fun.
If I may make a stand for the third corner of the triad, I'm quite fond of the control side. Every creature a potential gamewinner by itself, and enough devastating sweepers to kill an army.
You got three rounds further than I did! In the tournament of the best of the best, you beat all but the clock, and were damned close at beating that, too.
Ah, well I guess my take was the more modern literary (Piers Anthony for example) references and not the Book of Revelations. Not being able to read Greek means not being able to tell what that book really says so I'll take your word for it on the translation.
I'm not familiar with the woodcut, link?
The 5th Horseman is Time. A very blue attribute imho.
Agreed. Also Marcus wouldn't have been there at the end if he wasn't clearly one of the best players in the format. A stressful finals fraught with mistakes is not unexpected and I am sorry if my commentary seemed harsh. It is far easier to see stuff from the sidelines than when you are facing down an opponent.
I figure it was probably something akin to tunnel vision and that happens to everyone once in a while.
I could see potentially running a single naturalize MD once the meta establishes itself, but before that it doesn't seem worth it to me, same with Ray. If you are going to run one, definitely Naturalize, since hitting artifacts is definitely relevant.
Cards like Graffdiggers Cage and Parallel Lives aren't going to beat you, and getting lucky and drawing a 1 or 2 of vs Burning Vengeance's 4 of (and the amount of draw and filter in that deck) really doesn't make sense. Better to have a streamlined game 1 and an absolute hoser of a sideboard to dominate games two and three. Replace those with 2 Tragic Slip, and thank me later :)
I honestly think if you just replace B. Act with removal in your colors, you will be fine. You only have to worry about flyers the deck will take over the late game itself. Instead of the Pilgrim you might want to try the green Sakura Tribe Elder wannabe, the 2/2 elk. It doesn't penalize you for T1 CIPT lands, you don't have any good turn 2 plays, and it helps mana fix and make sure you get to 4 lands, not to mention it can chump or trade. Having 2 toughness is huge in this format as well.
If you do follow my advice, make sure to have at least 1-2 non-targetted removal, such as Tribute to Hunger miandeck. Nobody wants to be drawing dead vs Geist/Stalker. I'm not a fan of divine reckoning but I'm sure you'll work it out.
"The last horseman is Pestilence not Conquest (which means the same thing as War)"
Ha-ha! I was expecting for someone to say that! :)
No, Conquest is the correct First Horseman as even the Wikipedia article thoroughly explains. You can clearly see that from the Victor Vasnetsov paint I featured (and disfigured): the first one has a white horse, a king's crown, and a bow, and it's a warrior just like the second one (with the sword), and in some interpretation it's actually a righteous figure, not evil. In the evil interpretation, the First Horseman represents the distress of being under the yoke of enemy occupation (not necessarily through bloodshed), something fairly common at the time the Revelation was written, while the Second Horseman represents the mass slaughter/blood spilling (red horse) coming from War (or specifically, civil war).
Pestilence is not mentioned in the Revelation, it has been entirely made up in popular culture, especially in the uber-famous Albrecht Dürer's woodcut. Probably because the difference between Conquest and War was too subtle and not flashy enough (and when the Revelation lost its allegorical and political values to become something more of a Hollywood blockbuster's imagery).
Anyway, I like that the Horsemen have mounts bearing 4 out of the 5 colors of Magic, and kinda thematically fitting. Too bad there's not a Blue Horseman. That would probably be Bureaucracy.
Glad you liked the mad rules. And yeah, Tilling Treefolk is a great guy, I remember using it for an Astral Slide tribal deck. Anything that's able to bring back lands that way is nothing to sneeze at.
As for the Great Debate About Tribal (which somehow boils down to Aggro vs. Combo), we could go on forever. I'm a combo player myself, I like combo decks and I think they're the best expression of deckbuilding, so I'm totally biased here. But I have to say that I would and do lament the abundance of decks where, yeah, the win condition may be the tribal creatures, but everything they do is swing hard and fast, and all the abilities they bring to the table is "let's pump each other some more to hit even harder". That, in my opinion, becomes really old really quick. Your mileage may vary, of course.
Don't be too hard on yourself, I think you both embarassed yourselves enough in the final round. If anything, Ayanam1 even more, since he built a deck without a win condition. :)
I finally got around to listening to this and it was a pretty good one this week. I found myself mostly agreeing with Zach on the restricted list debate, but I am quite conservative when it comes to that list. Then again, although Andy was arguing some pretty crazy stuff (Strip Mine!? Tinker?!), I nevertheless liked that he qualified it with the statement that at the moment nothing needs to change, a sentiment I agree fully with.
So, as for me and PREs, I will not become a freeform tournament organizer, sorry. I think testing is fine and making videos could be interesting if we were to petition a change in the restricted list, but running a whole tournament in a non-existent format is not for me.
Traditional Shop-based decks have disappeared because of its inability to cope with Delver decks and because it gets totally wrecked by themagicman_22's Affinity build that everyone has jumped on board with.
fantastic stuff, not sure where to start lol I guess I'll start with the fact that I love the tournament idea and the way you covered it, it was great and the brackets were a great add as well
I did like the idea of forcing players to use a different deck every round, I did think the ideas were clear and great, but I also loved the fact that they had to kind of build on the fly.. I think there are a lot of great ideas that could be worked into the challenges of each round for the future, lot of potential
following those lines I think that druids deck is killer! it may have lost, but I think the synergies are great, I love decks using Tilling Treefolk and Cartographer
now all the great stuff I do have to add a personal note, I am a little disappointed to see how much combo there was, I'd rather not start the debate over deck strength etc, but I remember when I was a regular and there was a lot built on tribe strength and synergy and you rarely saw people working in those tournament deck combos such as halls, splinter, aluren, etc... no offense against LE, but seeing a deck where almost all non-creautres are walkers just seems like such cheese.. I maybe alone in this, but I'll always cheer for the deck where the creatures bring the abilities to the table and not the tournament combo someone managed to squish into a tribal shell
Good to see my embarassments covered for all to see. In the last round of the Championship I was just trying to draw my Vigilantes which never showed up. Glad I looked foolish for wasting so much time trying for that. I've never been the fastest player around, but my performance in the last round is just plain sad.
The decklists posted are rough at best, and slopped together at worst. I know splashing red for B. Act is janky, but it is actually working. I thought about Divine Reckoning instead, and I may just go that route.
I think having the MD Naturalize and Ray isn't as bad as you say, only because they're making for a solid catchall in the meta. Curse of Death's Hold, Intangible Virtue, Burning Vengeance, Graffdigger's Cage and even Parallel Lives are all real cards and are all heavily played. As for Unburial Rites... yeah I'm not gonna argue with you on that one, it'll either become a 4th Demon or another creature. The pilgrims are probably out too, too bad they couldn't be Birds...
Unbreathing Horde proved to be... not good in the current zombie deck, so, I didn't include him in this one either.
FF7 really isn't my favorite of the bunch, but it's an undeniable classic. FF6, FF9, FF12 and FF4 are my favorites... in that order. Well, no, Chrono Trigger is by far my favorite Final Fantasy...
Splashing red in your Planeswalker deck is just not where you want to be, ever. Splashing for the flashback on cards is fine (Ray of Revelation, Ancient Grudge, etc) but you are destroying your mana base for 3 Blasphemous Acts that probably aren't as good as you think. I am not a fan of Shimmering Grotto either, except in decks that can really abuse it.
Your deck also has an incredibly low chance to land a turn 1 Avacyn Pilgrim, and the odds on turn 2 aren't drastically better. It isn't even busted in this deck since you have no 3 drops.
Ray of Revelations, Naturalize maindeck? Unburial Rites with 7 creatures, 3 of which are actually worth getting back? Harrowing Journey is probably unplayable except in limited (although that's just a guess) and if you can cast it reliably, lingering souls should be a 4-of. Thalia also kills your deck, you have 26 spells to 7 creatures.
Those are just my impressions. Your Rug deck has curve problems, and the zombie deck seems fine, I'm sure the best version of that will come out quickly since it always does.
(Side Note - don't take this as article criticism, because I liked the article. I figured you would want insight on ways to make the decks better, and I consider myself experienced in block deckbuilding and tuning.)
good article i agree with most of everything. just wondering why there is no unbreathing horde in the zombie deck. no biggie just wondering. good to see u put down the minepick for a decent game too. ff7 was one of the top 5 rpg in all time imo. also dont think there has been a good ff since. well i did like 9 alot so nvm. GOOD NITE AMERICA!
I expect vanilla creatures, when printed, to make me want to play them somehow, somewhere. In expert-level expansions, I believe they are a poor design choice unless they are efficient AND in-theme. I believe 'french vanilla', creatures with one ability which is relevant or interacts with the mechanics spotlighted in the expansion set, should be the default. For example, if Russet wolves were printed as a vanilla 3/1 for RR (bad curve-pushing), or 4/1 for 1RR/2R, they'd be great.
You can save the Hill Giants for newbies and core, they add nothing to the game, either in strategy or in collectibility. I do not see vanilla as a 'cornerstone of current play', I see it as lost opportunity to strengthen expert sets.
This type of controversy is what tells me the card design is on the right place in the envelope. How much more exciting would DKA have been if it had a few more cards which inspired this type of discussion aside from Graf's Cage?
Remember Isochron Scepter+Mana Drain (vintage) or Isochron Scepter+Orim's Chant (legacy)? How on Earth is stopping your opponent from casting spells, or gaining mana from your opponent's every action, fair in their respective formats? In fact, both those archetypes are *barely* played. They don't win. By the way, that's the answer... they don't win the game.
Sure, cast your first turn Curse of Law. Aether Vial doesn't care. Man-lands don't care. "Can't Be Countered" enjoys it. If you spend every turn playing a counterspell, how are you winning the game? Simple: you aren't. And if the archetype does start winning, suddenly every one is playing 4 Ray of Revelation (also in DKA, but pointless without good Curses) or other 2 for 1 efficient answers and fringe SB cards Leyline of Lifeforce, and the metagame is fine.
To answer your 'two benchmarks' riddle, the WW version, Curse of Law, is inferior to Rule of Law because it only hits one player in a multiplayer game.
It is a nice opening, but if you want to play Simian Spirit Guide, generally it's in the Living End deck, where you Spirit Guide out a Cascade Spell on turn two, wrath their board, and get high power cycling creatures (including Street Wraiths) into play.
The Pyromancer's Ascension/Past In Flames deck can also win on turn two. Some versions play Spirit Guide, but most use traditional red rituals like Seething Song, Manamorphose, etc..
Additionally for that opening, you need a combination adding up to four of Mox+Spirit Guidex2+landx2 AND Hellrider, Pest, and Memnite. That's 7 cards.
With choosing any 7 cards in modern, winning on turn three is easy... so while Hellrider might be competitive with Undying, I do assert it wouldn't have been broken, even in the Signal Pest deck. Additionally the way Hellrider is *now* despite the coolness of that combo (which still goes off without the 'undying'), I doubt Hellrider will make the cut. I don't see adding Undying changing that. The Galvanic Blasts and Shrapnel Blasts would make even undying Hellrider slow/not the most efficient damage for the casting cost. He'd be competing with Cranial Plating and Ravager.
For the record, I never said to take GG over Doomed Traveler, I was simply disagreeing with an overall view on the Traveler.
Also, would you play Suntail Hawk in this format? Because I wouldn't. I'll play Traveler more often then I'll cut him, but without the synergy that you mention (which at the P2P1 point he didn't have), Traveler is basically a worse Suntail Hawk ...
In this draft, I would have taken Geistflame over Traveler - I wasn't as sold on the late blue 'signals' as the author, though. I think both Geistflame and Scholar are better, even as speculative picks, than the Traveler there, and there's a good chance the Traveler wheels.
Now, if he'd already had the Cleaver plus some other human synergy, then I'd be completely on board.
Here's Dürer's woodcut. I was trusting sources about him using the Pestilence iconography, but now that I look at it, that one with the bow looks like Conquest again to me. It would seem hard to buy "rider with a bow" as the representation of pestilence.
Great call about Time.
I do sit on the control side, when I talked about creature abilities it was things like Faceless Butcher or even Chittering Rats I had in mind.. as much as I dislike combo, those tribes with 4-5 lords are a very close second in my list of "not fun"
I know both are more powerful. The thing is: I'm sure I'll be white but I'm not sure what the other color will be. This way I'm taking a card I'll play for sure. And Doomed Traveler never wheels.
First off, awesome coverage of the event. Looks like it would of been a lot of fun. I agree with Kum and AJ that combo and control are needed. For me the fun of the format is seeing the crazy things that are needed to make these decks work with restrictions. If combo ever completely takes over the format, sure that will get boring, but it doesn't look like it is close to that. The same could be said for aggro when half the decks are goblin aggro/burn. Variety is what makes the format fun.
If I may make a stand for the third corner of the triad, I'm quite fond of the control side. Every creature a potential gamewinner by itself, and enough devastating sweepers to kill an army.
You got three rounds further than I did! In the tournament of the best of the best, you beat all but the clock, and were damned close at beating that, too.
Ah, well I guess my take was the more modern literary (Piers Anthony for example) references and not the Book of Revelations. Not being able to read Greek means not being able to tell what that book really says so I'll take your word for it on the translation.
I'm not familiar with the woodcut, link?
The 5th Horseman is Time. A very blue attribute imho.
Agreed. Also Marcus wouldn't have been there at the end if he wasn't clearly one of the best players in the format. A stressful finals fraught with mistakes is not unexpected and I am sorry if my commentary seemed harsh. It is far easier to see stuff from the sidelines than when you are facing down an opponent.
I figure it was probably something akin to tunnel vision and that happens to everyone once in a while.
I could see potentially running a single naturalize MD once the meta establishes itself, but before that it doesn't seem worth it to me, same with Ray. If you are going to run one, definitely Naturalize, since hitting artifacts is definitely relevant.
Cards like Graffdiggers Cage and Parallel Lives aren't going to beat you, and getting lucky and drawing a 1 or 2 of vs Burning Vengeance's 4 of (and the amount of draw and filter in that deck) really doesn't make sense. Better to have a streamlined game 1 and an absolute hoser of a sideboard to dominate games two and three. Replace those with 2 Tragic Slip, and thank me later :)
I honestly think if you just replace B. Act with removal in your colors, you will be fine. You only have to worry about flyers the deck will take over the late game itself. Instead of the Pilgrim you might want to try the green Sakura Tribe Elder wannabe, the 2/2 elk. It doesn't penalize you for T1 CIPT lands, you don't have any good turn 2 plays, and it helps mana fix and make sure you get to 4 lands, not to mention it can chump or trade. Having 2 toughness is huge in this format as well.
If you do follow my advice, make sure to have at least 1-2 non-targetted removal, such as Tribute to Hunger miandeck. Nobody wants to be drawing dead vs Geist/Stalker. I'm not a fan of divine reckoning but I'm sure you'll work it out.
"The last horseman is Pestilence not Conquest (which means the same thing as War)"
Ha-ha! I was expecting for someone to say that! :)
No, Conquest is the correct First Horseman as even the Wikipedia article thoroughly explains. You can clearly see that from the Victor Vasnetsov paint I featured (and disfigured): the first one has a white horse, a king's crown, and a bow, and it's a warrior just like the second one (with the sword), and in some interpretation it's actually a righteous figure, not evil. In the evil interpretation, the First Horseman represents the distress of being under the yoke of enemy occupation (not necessarily through bloodshed), something fairly common at the time the Revelation was written, while the Second Horseman represents the mass slaughter/blood spilling (red horse) coming from War (or specifically, civil war).
Pestilence is not mentioned in the Revelation, it has been entirely made up in popular culture, especially in the uber-famous Albrecht Dürer's woodcut. Probably because the difference between Conquest and War was too subtle and not flashy enough (and when the Revelation lost its allegorical and political values to become something more of a Hollywood blockbuster's imagery).
Anyway, I like that the Horsemen have mounts bearing 4 out of the 5 colors of Magic, and kinda thematically fitting. Too bad there's not a Blue Horseman. That would probably be Bureaucracy.
nice dek but i miss ur drafts.
Thanks (to everyone else too) for the good words!
Glad you liked the mad rules. And yeah, Tilling Treefolk is a great guy, I remember using it for an Astral Slide tribal deck. Anything that's able to bring back lands that way is nothing to sneeze at.
As for the Great Debate About Tribal (which somehow boils down to Aggro vs. Combo), we could go on forever. I'm a combo player myself, I like combo decks and I think they're the best expression of deckbuilding, so I'm totally biased here. But I have to say that I would and do lament the abundance of decks where, yeah, the win condition may be the tribal creatures, but everything they do is swing hard and fast, and all the abilities they bring to the table is "let's pump each other some more to hit even harder". That, in my opinion, becomes really old really quick. Your mileage may vary, of course.
Don't be too hard on yourself, I think you both embarassed yourselves enough in the final round. If anything, Ayanam1 even more, since he built a deck without a win condition. :)
I finally got around to listening to this and it was a pretty good one this week. I found myself mostly agreeing with Zach on the restricted list debate, but I am quite conservative when it comes to that list. Then again, although Andy was arguing some pretty crazy stuff (Strip Mine!? Tinker?!), I nevertheless liked that he qualified it with the statement that at the moment nothing needs to change, a sentiment I agree fully with.
So, as for me and PREs, I will not become a freeform tournament organizer, sorry. I think testing is fine and making videos could be interesting if we were to petition a change in the restricted list, but running a whole tournament in a non-existent format is not for me.
Traditional Shop-based decks have disappeared because of its inability to cope with Delver decks and because it gets totally wrecked by themagicman_22's Affinity build that everyone has jumped on board with.
fantastic stuff, not sure where to start lol I guess I'll start with the fact that I love the tournament idea and the way you covered it, it was great and the brackets were a great add as well
I did like the idea of forcing players to use a different deck every round, I did think the ideas were clear and great, but I also loved the fact that they had to kind of build on the fly.. I think there are a lot of great ideas that could be worked into the challenges of each round for the future, lot of potential
following those lines I think that druids deck is killer! it may have lost, but I think the synergies are great, I love decks using Tilling Treefolk and Cartographer
now all the great stuff I do have to add a personal note, I am a little disappointed to see how much combo there was, I'd rather not start the debate over deck strength etc, but I remember when I was a regular and there was a lot built on tribe strength and synergy and you rarely saw people working in those tournament deck combos such as halls, splinter, aluren, etc... no offense against LE, but seeing a deck where almost all non-creautres are walkers just seems like such cheese.. I maybe alone in this, but I'll always cheer for the deck where the creatures bring the abilities to the table and not the tournament combo someone managed to squish into a tribal shell
Good to see my embarassments covered for all to see. In the last round of the Championship I was just trying to draw my Vigilantes which never showed up. Glad I looked foolish for wasting so much time trying for that. I've never been the fastest player around, but my performance in the last round is just plain sad.
It's been a really rough month....
I'll take any feed back I can get :)
The decklists posted are rough at best, and slopped together at worst. I know splashing red for B. Act is janky, but it is actually working. I thought about Divine Reckoning instead, and I may just go that route.
I think having the MD Naturalize and Ray isn't as bad as you say, only because they're making for a solid catchall in the meta. Curse of Death's Hold, Intangible Virtue, Burning Vengeance, Graffdigger's Cage and even Parallel Lives are all real cards and are all heavily played. As for Unburial Rites... yeah I'm not gonna argue with you on that one, it'll either become a 4th Demon or another creature. The pilgrims are probably out too, too bad they couldn't be Birds...
Thanks for the comment!
Unbreathing Horde proved to be... not good in the current zombie deck, so, I didn't include him in this one either.
FF7 really isn't my favorite of the bunch, but it's an undeniable classic. FF6, FF9, FF12 and FF4 are my favorites... in that order. Well, no, Chrono Trigger is by far my favorite Final Fantasy...
Splashing red in your Planeswalker deck is just not where you want to be, ever. Splashing for the flashback on cards is fine (Ray of Revelation, Ancient Grudge, etc) but you are destroying your mana base for 3 Blasphemous Acts that probably aren't as good as you think. I am not a fan of Shimmering Grotto either, except in decks that can really abuse it.
Your deck also has an incredibly low chance to land a turn 1 Avacyn Pilgrim, and the odds on turn 2 aren't drastically better. It isn't even busted in this deck since you have no 3 drops.
Ray of Revelations, Naturalize maindeck? Unburial Rites with 7 creatures, 3 of which are actually worth getting back? Harrowing Journey is probably unplayable except in limited (although that's just a guess) and if you can cast it reliably, lingering souls should be a 4-of. Thalia also kills your deck, you have 26 spells to 7 creatures.
Those are just my impressions. Your Rug deck has curve problems, and the zombie deck seems fine, I'm sure the best version of that will come out quickly since it always does.
(Side Note - don't take this as article criticism, because I liked the article. I figured you would want insight on ways to make the decks better, and I consider myself experienced in block deckbuilding and tuning.)
good article i agree with most of everything. just wondering why there is no unbreathing horde in the zombie deck. no biggie just wondering. good to see u put down the minepick for a decent game too. ff7 was one of the top 5 rpg in all time imo. also dont think there has been a good ff since. well i did like 9 alot so nvm. GOOD NITE AMERICA!
I expect vanilla creatures, when printed, to make me want to play them somehow, somewhere. In expert-level expansions, I believe they are a poor design choice unless they are efficient AND in-theme. I believe 'french vanilla', creatures with one ability which is relevant or interacts with the mechanics spotlighted in the expansion set, should be the default. For example, if Russet wolves were printed as a vanilla 3/1 for RR (bad curve-pushing), or 4/1 for 1RR/2R, they'd be great.
You can save the Hill Giants for newbies and core, they add nothing to the game, either in strategy or in collectibility. I do not see vanilla as a 'cornerstone of current play', I see it as lost opportunity to strengthen expert sets.
This type of controversy is what tells me the card design is on the right place in the envelope. How much more exciting would DKA have been if it had a few more cards which inspired this type of discussion aside from Graf's Cage?
Remember Isochron Scepter+Mana Drain (vintage) or Isochron Scepter+Orim's Chant (legacy)? How on Earth is stopping your opponent from casting spells, or gaining mana from your opponent's every action, fair in their respective formats? In fact, both those archetypes are *barely* played. They don't win. By the way, that's the answer... they don't win the game.
Sure, cast your first turn Curse of Law. Aether Vial doesn't care. Man-lands don't care. "Can't Be Countered" enjoys it. If you spend every turn playing a counterspell, how are you winning the game? Simple: you aren't. And if the archetype does start winning, suddenly every one is playing 4 Ray of Revelation (also in DKA, but pointless without good Curses) or other 2 for 1 efficient answers and fringe SB cards Leyline of Lifeforce, and the metagame is fine.
To answer your 'two benchmarks' riddle, the WW version, Curse of Law, is inferior to Rule of Law because it only hits one player in a multiplayer game.
Thank you for the comment.
It is a nice opening, but if you want to play Simian Spirit Guide, generally it's in the Living End deck, where you Spirit Guide out a Cascade Spell on turn two, wrath their board, and get high power cycling creatures (including Street Wraiths) into play.
The Pyromancer's Ascension/Past In Flames deck can also win on turn two. Some versions play Spirit Guide, but most use traditional red rituals like Seething Song, Manamorphose, etc..
Additionally for that opening, you need a combination adding up to four of Mox+Spirit Guidex2+landx2 AND Hellrider, Pest, and Memnite. That's 7 cards.
With choosing any 7 cards in modern, winning on turn three is easy... so while Hellrider might be competitive with Undying, I do assert it wouldn't have been broken, even in the Signal Pest deck. Additionally the way Hellrider is *now* despite the coolness of that combo (which still goes off without the 'undying'), I doubt Hellrider will make the cut. I don't see adding Undying changing that. The Galvanic Blasts and Shrapnel Blasts would make even undying Hellrider slow/not the most efficient damage for the casting cost. He'd be competing with Cranial Plating and Ravager.
For the record, I never said to take GG over Doomed Traveler, I was simply disagreeing with an overall view on the Traveler.
Also, would you play Suntail Hawk in this format? Because I wouldn't. I'll play Traveler more often then I'll cut him, but without the synergy that you mention (which at the P2P1 point he didn't have), Traveler is basically a worse Suntail Hawk ...
In this draft, I would have taken Geistflame over Traveler - I wasn't as sold on the late blue 'signals' as the author, though. I think both Geistflame and Scholar are better, even as speculative picks, than the Traveler there, and there's a good chance the Traveler wheels.
Now, if he'd already had the Cleaver plus some other human synergy, then I'd be completely on board.