Not a bad draft, though given some of the cards going late the pod may have been a bit weak. There are two main criticisms I have. First, why do you hate peregrine griffin so much? It's a fine card, yet you passed it by a couple times over weaker picks. Pack 1, pick 5 you took a devouring swarm over it, which makes little sense, since it is very rare to be able to alpha strike with this for the win and a 2/1 flier isn't that great compared to a 2/4 flier with first strike. Pack 2, pick 4 you took a greatsword over it. This is slightly more defensible, as the greatsword can help in the long game, but still I would probably take the griffin since the sword is a bit hard on tempo and the griffin is an excellent common flier and helps cut off white.
The other criticism was your strange love of guardian's pledge. In my opinion, this is really only very useful in a monowhite deck, or one close to that. You took pledge over alabaster mage (alabaster mage is excellent, and much stronger) and also took it over warpath ghoul and siege mastodon, both of which I would prefer to guardian's pledge in your deck, which was more black than white. Given that you passed a call to the grave, you particularly want to watch passing too many zombies like the ghoul. Passing the pledge is not likely to push your neighbor into white.
Finally, as you noted, the real choices in pack 1, p2 were the gravedigger or shock.
Glad your enjoying online drafting and got a couple packs.
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Well, I played in 1 sealed and the last 3 drafts so far and I must say it's pretty boring. I personally don't believe it's a good format to learn magic; the card pool is too small, the cards themselves are pretty straightforward as there are no real mechanic involved so it can be good only if you're really new to Magic and by that I mean you hardly ever played at all.
You also aren't going to learn drafting because it's pretty much the only format where you can end with multiples of EVERY card (except rares/mythics) in your deck. A singleton of any of them means that either there are many drafters of that color in your pod or you opened VERY BAD packs but the latter option is a lot rarer than the former.
As for archetypes, in my experience, UW Skies is tied to Bx for 1st place, red is nowhere near these two even if since they fixed Rockslide Elemental things can get nasty. White has clearly the best removals (Pacifism and Condemn) as they are both cheap and can target any creature, followed by black, just keep in mind that you can't target black creatures with your main removal and the rest is expensive. You can also add Moonglove Minnower as pseudo-removal.
I don't agree with the placement of Hidden Horror in the filler group, a T3 4/4 is quite a beating in this format given that is not answered by removal or a T5 Sky-Ruin Drake (but by then you already attacked at least once with it), plus it combo very well with Zombify. T3 Horror is even better when it's paired with a T4 Mahamoti Djinn, Lorthos or whatever bomb you may have discarded for.
Red relies on big expensive bombs but you likely don't want to run it main color as Shock is a poor substitute for W and B removal as it can't kill a great deal of things.
Loxodon Warhammer is a royal pain in the arse, when it comes down (and it's not too late) you have 3 options:
1. Remove the enchanted creature before it attacks.
2. Chump until you get removal.
3. Die.
...
4. Get VERY lucky ripping Sleep having lethal on board before he untaps.
Anyway, the bottom line is, IMHO this format is boring and I don't like it.
Anyways , great article LE, nice look at heartless summoning. I know I got destroyed by a UB Heartless deck on innistrad's release day he was running leaks, and then wurmcoils, ragers, sphinxs and bloodgift demons. so harsh.
Koth and Venser were hammered by being in competition with Swords and Jace and Goblin Guide and BEING REPRINTED IN A DD (When it was announced, both dropped quite a bit).
The problem with using ebay is that paper prices are never even close to MTGO prices. It is too easy for cards to move hands and there are endless drafts firing. Since the drafter to competitive constructed player is........let's say 500:1 for fun, there will always be ppl willing to sell for cheap if it means they get their next fix...i mean draft.
I am not saying Liliana isn't a great card. I'm not saying she won't be something like 40 few days. What we were saying is that after 2-3 weeks of the nonstop pack opening carnage that is the release events, Lili will come back to earth with the rest of the digital cards (for those of us that consider 15-20 to be back to earth).
Paper tends to get more hype than MTGO. By the time that a new set hits digital shelves, the hype mostly dies down.
Liliana is good, but in my testing that is all she was. Barring interactions with Sun Titan, she fits in niche decks still.
Digital cards =/= Paper cards.
Koth was $50 to start IRL. Then within 2 weeks he was 30. Except the fact that he saw a recent resurgence will mean he might hit $25 again, until red gets hated out of the meta again...
We are in an era of turning creatures sideways, indeed.
I think Frosty performs better in a meta of Titans (in a world of Titans, the one that taps them down is king. Bad idiom!)
Otherwise, I think Consecrated Sphinx gets the nod when grinding card advantage is more important...
I think U/x decks should all run 1-2 clones too. It is just too easy to trump other control decks with this. Phantasmal Image is probably the best in a vacuum.
I think you guys might be under valuing her. Ebay auctions are closing for right around $60.00 and foils are at $100.00+. She really shot up today. I know that modo prices are different than paper but unless the price crashes in the next week and a half she is going to be the most expensive card in Innistrad.
Hell, Stormkirk Noble has shot up to over 10 bucks as everyone wants to build a red deck.
Frost Titan is tough but he lacks permanent effect so people dislike him. Also clone says my "clone beats your titan". As does Metamorph and Illusion. That isn't to say I don't like him. Love his ability and it is a beatstick with a soft counter built in.
The Rays put up a good fight and they will be scary next year with Matt Moore and Desmond Jennings starting the season. If I was the AL, I would be scared.
Oh and I think Frost Titan is the most overlooked Titan. I Tempered Steel can't deal with him because it is usually low on mana, Red Burn doesn't have the burn to deal with him, and control decks hate tapping mana.
And nobody will admit it, but Wurmcoil Engine is the 6th Titan. Easily reprinted in M13. It's just the bastard brother on the other Titans mothers, brothers, dads poodle side of the family.
I think that it will depend on how the meta ends up shaking out. My gut tells me that to start, you should have some combination of grave titan and sphinx, bc they seem like that are the superior choices. Depending on how other decks adapt to the control deck, I can see considering Frosty (who I love), Wurmcoil, and to a lesser extent, Army of the Damned as options to explore for ending the game. I think all of these will get some time in the sun in the future standard.
What, no love for your Rays now that they are in the offseason? :P j/k brother.
Based on the rules I read, you cannot cast Myr Superion using Heartless Summoning. It has to be cast by creatures or through Birthing Pod (In Standard at least)
I would put heartless summoning closer to the top because it leads to endless combo's especially a really fun one in standard.
You can use 2 of them in an infect deck or new Valakut deck.
If I was still allowed to write here, I would go over it, but you can make a deck where you get Rage Thrower to more than 2 toughness, 2 heartless summonings, and then Corpse Cur. It means that you will play corpse cur for free, it's ability would go on the stack, you can then bring it back to your hand, and recast it for free, which is a good way of getting around mana leak, and if they use doom blade or dismember, it would still be on the stack and you would just return it to your hand.
As you are constantly recasting it, you opponent takes 2 damage each time you play it and return it to your hand.
It also works in the new U/B infect deck where you use the same combo except you use Hand of the Preators instead. Use a card like Mask of Avacyn to make it a 4/4 with hexproof, and then cast your Corpse Cur unlimited times to do 10 poison counters.
**And yes, I have talked to someone at WofC to see if this would work, and they agreed.
You can use Blue with it to counter, or you can black to use poison. But if you play red, you can use the very valuable Infernal Plunge with cards like Memnite.
Either way, I think the Corpse Cur 2 Hearless summonings.Dek is the New Valakut and pretty badass. Oh and there is black draw with altar's reap that also helps if you don't want to play U/B and go B/R.
And you did you mention using the card that wins you the game if you can't draw,but what about using Mirror-Mad Phantasm? That's the only STD way of that working. But I would put that lower on the list and include Lantern Spirit. It's a 2/1 flyer for 3 and can be brought back to your hand for just 1. Imagine that with Equipment versus a Black Control Deck or burn deck. I just like the card. 2/1 flyer, can be a blocker for almost everything, and with the right equipment, can do some serious damage.
And sorry for the long post, but weren't you the person who said that Sundial of the Infinite would be the most broken card ever? I remember someone wrote a massive article just on that card and I have never seen it used. I was to use it just to see if it works.
I've been drafting a lot. I have been winning a ton of 4-3-2-2 SOM drafts.
Just yesterday I won and opened a Batterskull and Inkmoth Nexus and I have been rare drafting a ton of SOM dual lands. And the Swiss SOM drafts guarantee you a 3-0 if you know what you are doing because there are a ton of (PS3 speak) "noobs" on there.
M12 is worthless right now.
And I found a cool free website that allows you to practice draft Innistrad so I have been doing that a lot since I don't play paper and don't want to go into the pre-release reading every card and trying to figure out what the hell to do.
I also built my Snapcaster Mage deck before INN comes out.
But I have a question.
Which is better for the U/B control deck:
Frost Titan because I like that it's hard to kill and if you do it uses up your opponents manners.
or
Consecrated Sphinx because it lets me draw.
I'm conflicted. I mean I love the late game combo of Titan and Phantasmal Image.
Btw, am I really seeing people playing Illusion decks with Snapcaster and the Big blue flying Zombie?
**Oh and to all the people who made fun of my white weenie deck, look at the current deck lists. White weenie Human decks are one of the big decks out there. Didn't want to say "told you so".... Haha.
I am in the same boat...waiting, not playing etc...
Great show again, gentlemen.
Seb, I checked out your blog. Good stuff.
Look forward to next week's installment.
My assessments of INN "chase cards"
Garruk- Probably debut at 20-25, then stabilize at 12-15
Liliana- Debut at 30, then stabilize at 18-20
Snapcaster Mage- Debut way too high, then stabilize at about 8-10
Geist- Debuts at about 12-15, then down to 5
Kessig Wolf-Run- Probably will go as high as 5-7, then will be a $2-3
Moorland Haunt- Debuts at 3-4, then drops to 1-2...
Not a bad draft, though given some of the cards going late the pod may have been a bit weak. There are two main criticisms I have. First, why do you hate peregrine griffin so much? It's a fine card, yet you passed it by a couple times over weaker picks. Pack 1, pick 5 you took a devouring swarm over it, which makes little sense, since it is very rare to be able to alpha strike with this for the win and a 2/1 flier isn't that great compared to a 2/4 flier with first strike. Pack 2, pick 4 you took a greatsword over it. This is slightly more defensible, as the greatsword can help in the long game, but still I would probably take the griffin since the sword is a bit hard on tempo and the griffin is an excellent common flier and helps cut off white.
The other criticism was your strange love of guardian's pledge. In my opinion, this is really only very useful in a monowhite deck, or one close to that. You took pledge over alabaster mage (alabaster mage is excellent, and much stronger) and also took it over warpath ghoul and siege mastodon, both of which I would prefer to guardian's pledge in your deck, which was more black than white. Given that you passed a call to the grave, you particularly want to watch passing too many zombies like the ghoul. Passing the pledge is not likely to push your neighbor into white.
Finally, as you noted, the real choices in pack 1, p2 were the gravedigger or shock.
Glad your enjoying online drafting and got a couple packs.
It is perfectly logical to want to pop the big question on Valentine's Day. Everywhere you look you see cards, candy, flowers, commercials, t-shirts, mugs: all screaming the word love. Planning to ask your significant other to spend the rest of their life with you is no small undertaking, but creating a romantic and meaningful Valentine's Day proposal can be simple and unique if you keep the following tips in mind.
funeral directors
Yeah... Why win easy games when you can grind out nail biters instead:D
Nice sessions.
That Storm deck looked crazy. Distant Melody seems funny with a bunch of rituals + empty the warrens.
that second game against red looked painful (meaning you really had to grind that one :D )
Well, I played in 1 sealed and the last 3 drafts so far and I must say it's pretty boring. I personally don't believe it's a good format to learn magic; the card pool is too small, the cards themselves are pretty straightforward as there are no real mechanic involved so it can be good only if you're really new to Magic and by that I mean you hardly ever played at all.
You also aren't going to learn drafting because it's pretty much the only format where you can end with multiples of EVERY card (except rares/mythics) in your deck. A singleton of any of them means that either there are many drafters of that color in your pod or you opened VERY BAD packs but the latter option is a lot rarer than the former.
As for archetypes, in my experience, UW Skies is tied to Bx for 1st place, red is nowhere near these two even if since they fixed Rockslide Elemental things can get nasty. White has clearly the best removals (Pacifism and Condemn) as they are both cheap and can target any creature, followed by black, just keep in mind that you can't target black creatures with your main removal and the rest is expensive. You can also add Moonglove Minnower as pseudo-removal.
I don't agree with the placement of Hidden Horror in the filler group, a T3 4/4 is quite a beating in this format given that is not answered by removal or a T5 Sky-Ruin Drake (but by then you already attacked at least once with it), plus it combo very well with Zombify. T3 Horror is even better when it's paired with a T4 Mahamoti Djinn, Lorthos or whatever bomb you may have discarded for.
Red relies on big expensive bombs but you likely don't want to run it main color as Shock is a poor substitute for W and B removal as it can't kill a great deal of things.
Loxodon Warhammer is a royal pain in the arse, when it comes down (and it's not too late) you have 3 options:
1. Remove the enchanted creature before it attacks.
2. Chump until you get removal.
3. Die.
...
4. Get VERY lucky ripping Sleep having lethal on board before he untaps.
Anyway, the bottom line is, IMHO this format is boring and I don't like it.
So speaks the mouth of experience :p J/k sorta :) Write more.
I guess those that can't do..troll? lol jk kinda
Anyways , great article LE, nice look at heartless summoning. I know I got destroyed by a UB Heartless deck on innistrad's release day he was running leaks, and then wurmcoils, ragers, sphinxs and bloodgift demons. so harsh.
Superion Works with Heartless Summoning. You aren't spending any mana on it.
**edit. Beaten to the punch.
Myr Superion works with Heartless Summoning. I was the one who wrote that article about Sundial.
Thanks for the long post.
LE
I believe that was hyperbole on Alternate's part. :)
What are you talking about. Everyone calls him the sixth titan.
Koth and Venser were hammered by being in competition with Swords and Jace and Goblin Guide and BEING REPRINTED IN A DD (When it was announced, both dropped quite a bit).
The problem with using ebay is that paper prices are never even close to MTGO prices. It is too easy for cards to move hands and there are endless drafts firing. Since the drafter to competitive constructed player is........let's say 500:1 for fun, there will always be ppl willing to sell for cheap if it means they get their next fix...i mean draft.
I am not saying Liliana isn't a great card. I'm not saying she won't be something like 40 few days. What we were saying is that after 2-3 weeks of the nonstop pack opening carnage that is the release events, Lili will come back to earth with the rest of the digital cards (for those of us that consider 15-20 to be back to earth).
Paper tends to get more hype than MTGO. By the time that a new set hits digital shelves, the hype mostly dies down.
Liliana is good, but in my testing that is all she was. Barring interactions with Sun Titan, she fits in niche decks still.
Digital cards =/= Paper cards.
Koth was $50 to start IRL. Then within 2 weeks he was 30. Except the fact that he saw a recent resurgence will mean he might hit $25 again, until red gets hated out of the meta again...
Same with Venser but -$10.
Here is an Ebay Trend chart for Koth
Here is the same one for Venser
I attribute the Stormkirk and Liliana prices to people netdecking/porting from tournaments and hype that hasn't died down yet.
I mean, the set has been released for a whole 4 days
Remember when they were bad?
We are in an era of turning creatures sideways, indeed.
I think Frosty performs better in a meta of Titans (in a world of Titans, the one that taps them down is king. Bad idiom!)
Otherwise, I think Consecrated Sphinx gets the nod when grinding card advantage is more important...
I think U/x decks should all run 1-2 clones too. It is just too easy to trump other control decks with this. Phantasmal Image is probably the best in a vacuum.
I think you guys might be under valuing her. Ebay auctions are closing for right around $60.00 and foils are at $100.00+. She really shot up today. I know that modo prices are different than paper but unless the price crashes in the next week and a half she is going to be the most expensive card in Innistrad.
Hell, Stormkirk Noble has shot up to over 10 bucks as everyone wants to build a red deck.
Frost Titan is tough but he lacks permanent effect so people dislike him. Also clone says my "clone beats your titan". As does Metamorph and Illusion. That isn't to say I don't like him. Love his ability and it is a beatstick with a soft counter built in.
The Rays put up a good fight and they will be scary next year with Matt Moore and Desmond Jennings starting the season. If I was the AL, I would be scared.
Oh and I think Frost Titan is the most overlooked Titan. I Tempered Steel can't deal with him because it is usually low on mana, Red Burn doesn't have the burn to deal with him, and control decks hate tapping mana.
And nobody will admit it, but Wurmcoil Engine is the 6th Titan. Easily reprinted in M13. It's just the bastard brother on the other Titans mothers, brothers, dads poodle side of the family.
Swap Garruk and Snapcaster prices. Double Liliana. Also Moorland will spike more than Wolf-run imo. Geist will be 8+ for a while.
Re: Control Finisher
I think that it will depend on how the meta ends up shaking out. My gut tells me that to start, you should have some combination of grave titan and sphinx, bc they seem like that are the superior choices. Depending on how other decks adapt to the control deck, I can see considering Frosty (who I love), Wurmcoil, and to a lesser extent, Army of the Damned as options to explore for ending the game. I think all of these will get some time in the sun in the future standard.
What, no love for your Rays now that they are in the offseason? :P j/k brother.
I have always had my computer at mute, so I have never heard the music.
So is it weird that it sounds exactly like the original Mario on the Nintendo?
Based on the rules I read, you cannot cast Myr Superion using Heartless Summoning. It has to be cast by creatures or through Birthing Pod (In Standard at least)
I would put heartless summoning closer to the top because it leads to endless combo's especially a really fun one in standard.
You can use 2 of them in an infect deck or new Valakut deck.
If I was still allowed to write here, I would go over it, but you can make a deck where you get Rage Thrower to more than 2 toughness, 2 heartless summonings, and then Corpse Cur. It means that you will play corpse cur for free, it's ability would go on the stack, you can then bring it back to your hand, and recast it for free, which is a good way of getting around mana leak, and if they use doom blade or dismember, it would still be on the stack and you would just return it to your hand.
As you are constantly recasting it, you opponent takes 2 damage each time you play it and return it to your hand.
It also works in the new U/B infect deck where you use the same combo except you use Hand of the Preators instead. Use a card like Mask of Avacyn to make it a 4/4 with hexproof, and then cast your Corpse Cur unlimited times to do 10 poison counters.
**And yes, I have talked to someone at WofC to see if this would work, and they agreed.
You can use Blue with it to counter, or you can black to use poison. But if you play red, you can use the very valuable Infernal Plunge with cards like Memnite.
Either way, I think the Corpse Cur 2 Hearless summonings.Dek is the New Valakut and pretty badass. Oh and there is black draw with altar's reap that also helps if you don't want to play U/B and go B/R.
And you did you mention using the card that wins you the game if you can't draw,but what about using Mirror-Mad Phantasm? That's the only STD way of that working. But I would put that lower on the list and include Lantern Spirit. It's a 2/1 flyer for 3 and can be brought back to your hand for just 1. Imagine that with Equipment versus a Black Control Deck or burn deck. I just like the card. 2/1 flyer, can be a blocker for almost everything, and with the right equipment, can do some serious damage.
And sorry for the long post, but weren't you the person who said that Sundial of the Infinite would be the most broken card ever? I remember someone wrote a massive article just on that card and I have never seen it used. I was to use it just to see if it works.
Id say they serve similar but distinct purposes. Both are good.
I've been drafting a lot. I have been winning a ton of 4-3-2-2 SOM drafts.
Just yesterday I won and opened a Batterskull and Inkmoth Nexus and I have been rare drafting a ton of SOM dual lands. And the Swiss SOM drafts guarantee you a 3-0 if you know what you are doing because there are a ton of (PS3 speak) "noobs" on there.
M12 is worthless right now.
And I found a cool free website that allows you to practice draft Innistrad so I have been doing that a lot since I don't play paper and don't want to go into the pre-release reading every card and trying to figure out what the hell to do.
I also built my Snapcaster Mage deck before INN comes out.
But I have a question.
Which is better for the U/B control deck:
Frost Titan because I like that it's hard to kill and if you do it uses up your opponents manners.
or
Consecrated Sphinx because it lets me draw.
I'm conflicted. I mean I love the late game combo of Titan and Phantasmal Image.
Btw, am I really seeing people playing Illusion decks with Snapcaster and the Big blue flying Zombie?
**Oh and to all the people who made fun of my white weenie deck, look at the current deck lists. White weenie Human decks are one of the big decks out there. Didn't want to say "told you so".... Haha.
I am in the same boat...waiting, not playing etc...
Great show again, gentlemen.
Seb, I checked out your blog. Good stuff.
Look forward to next week's installment.
My assessments of INN "chase cards"
Garruk- Probably debut at 20-25, then stabilize at 12-15
Liliana- Debut at 30, then stabilize at 18-20
Snapcaster Mage- Debut way too high, then stabilize at about 8-10
Geist- Debuts at about 12-15, then down to 5
Kessig Wolf-Run- Probably will go as high as 5-7, then will be a $2-3
Moorland Haunt- Debuts at 3-4, then drops to 1-2...
Not that you asked for it :D
Andrew