No proxies is rough, but understandable given the point of the format. This would be a fairly cool format to run, get people into the collectible area of the game. (Incidentally the first and only artist I ever collected cards for was Chippy =), and that was back in the IPA days when all his pictures were creatures with some sort of hump back, I think I just collected him because I thought it was funny that he was so stuck on the theme, clearly he's done some really good stretching since then heh.
I am a little confused whether you are reciting known m:tg 'history' according to various published sources or are creating ties-in where needed. If so, very imaginative, and if not, very succinct.
Brilliant Idea! BYOA (Build Your Own Artist) decks ftw! What a great thing! Glad I could accidentally inspire it. :) I may have to experiment with this and see what wonders I can come up with. Finally a reason to actually play casual classic! :D
Elemental Bidding is indeed an old idea. Fun though. Warriors seems like it gets the business done more than Elementals would but EB is certainly more casually interesting. I recommend you branch out a bit and start trying some of your ideas on less known/tried tribals. See if you can surprise us next time. :D
Right, so the game when you have a workshop in your opener will sti be awesome, but the games when you don't have it will suck because u won't be able to go
Land mox mox trinisphere
Part of the reason why workshop is so good in paper is because it can still function consistently without workshops because of the other redic amounts of fast mana it plays. So the plan b for the online workshop decks will be worse
Workshop, Trinisphere, go! will still be amazing
Workshop, Artifact 1 Artifact 2, Mox opal
Workshop, Helm of Awakening, Sensei D.Top, Mox Opal (combo out, brainfreeze with one mana backup for daze.)
Workshop, Crucible Go! (after sideboarding vs landstill etc)
Workshop, Sol ring, Mox Opal, Chalice for 1, Trinisphere (uber ouch!)
You have a lot of problems with your draft style. Drafting is not a simple thing to do however. Reading about which colors are the best and worst does not help you drafting very much, it can actually make you a worse drafter. Any color can win a draft. Forcing a strategy either works very well or works very badly. I personally prefer to keep an open mind.
I would have taken the Cyclops gladiator because it is the most powerful card in the pack. Red is seen as a bad color, THEREFORE, it is usually open. Every color has good cards. You can not be closed minded when drafting. You can't go into the draft forcing something and expecting to win every time.
White and blue are considered the two best colors, so they will be over drafted quite often. Also, you can not draft by BREAD all the time. Sometimes you just need to draft creatures.
something 2 do in the Oxmoor center. I can not remember any other place in Louisville that has you play in the food court. however, the store is in a different part of the mall now, and has it's own play space.
I wonder if the Gold queues that went up over Thanksgiving had anything to do with it? Instead of the usual 2-man where you pay 2 tix with a chance to win 4 (one pack), they just quintupple? the payout so you pay 10 and the winner takes 20 (5 packs). With a healthy pile of tix and a confident player, you could earn a lot of packs.
Hi guys, thanks to all of you for helping me with your comments. The fact is that I can't argue in contrary of what you all say, because I agree with you.
The only point I would like to clarify: Isn't green supossed to be the worst color? I think I've read articles and watched videos of good players, and they say that it's the weakest color in M11. That was also a reason why I didn't jump in green sooner, as I was trying to avoid it (and at the end, I had to play it :D).
Greetings. Fliebana.
PD: Paul: I'm glad you liked the videos linked in that way. The only thing I miss from your comment is the word "bad" between "real" and "player". :D
Great stuff all round. My only paper magic tournament was a Louisville unsanctioned event at some mall there. Trey van Cleave won it (shortly after his suspension). I won a scourge starter pack for third place with some horrible white weenie deck.
I agree, the worst thing you did in this draft was feeling so bad every time you drew another land. If you let yourself feel bad about things that happen in Magic, you won't play as well. (And you won't enjoy it as much!)
I don't see anything wrong with passing up the Cyclops Gladiator in pack 1. While it's a strong card, red is the worst color in the set. Most pros would go for Scroll Thief there, as blue is the best color and if you get ways to get him through (aether adept, excommunicate, blinding mage, doom blade, whispersilk cloak) he can get you enough extra cards to win the game easily.
Azure Drakes are awesome, you want to take them over most other stuff. Your deck could have had a decent amount of flyers if you stuck to blue/white (maybe with a splash). Or if you'd moved into green sooner, you could have had a strong green/blue or green/white.
the daily Events will have 16 minimum and the regular old DE payouts... 11 for 4-0 and 6 for 3-1. They just haven't updated the tournament description link yet.
nice to see some other writer! Your article is good, don't worry!
Here's my opinion on your picks, although keep in mind i'm also not that good a drafter. Just for discussion:
P1P2: You get passed a pack without the Rare. Which means, no signal reading available.
So, which card would you pick?
Lilianas Specter: Really a good card, but White and Black usually mix pretty badly in this set. Most of the good cards need a heavy color commitment, for example White Knight and Black Knight. You cant easily play both.
On the other hand, the Packleader is an awesome card advantage engine. So if your reason was card advantage, I'd go for the more splashable one! Another reason would be this: Green is open more often than Black - and you don't get passed the awesome black cards like Doom Blade as often as the awesome green cards.
Also, Green has cards like Cultivate which again help your Ascension.
Then, there's Azure Drake. I consider him one of the most awesome common creatures in the set. He is hard to kill, he blocks most stuff you want to block, and he can occasionally attack. I think him and Giant Spider are two of the "sweet spots" concerning power and toughness, in this set. Think of all the 2/2s, 3/2s and stuff. And they can both block flyers. Giant Spider or Azure Drake alone can stop entire Aggro decks!
Additionally, again, you would have the start of a UW deck, which seems to be the best archetype in M11.
P1P4: This is a bad pack. You realize your colors are being cut, and the pack provides little alternatives. I personally loathe those situations. But for me, this pack gives you exactly one good "way out": The Terramorphic Expanse! Taking it, you
a) can stay in your colors if they remain open (it could just have been a bad pack for BW).
b) can take what ever other color appears to be open later and having to worry less about color fixing.
The Scroll Thief seems to me to be a good card in special circumstances. He isnt always good, like i.e. Doom Blade. In other words, changing colors for him doesn't seem worth it to me. Taking color fixing now, however, allows you to more freely chose powerful cards later.
P1P5: Okay, so you picked the Thief and Blue still doesnt come. However, you did see some awesome green cards, like Packleader and Cultivate. While you did pass them, it should usually mean that later in Pack 3 you will probably see some more, and maybe even later in pack one. So, while the pack seems bad, I think the Wurm seems your only option. Serpent is good in heavy blue, but do you seriously expect that to happen? Blue is the best color, and other people know that, too. You didnt see much of it, so your opponents are probably fighting over it. Ditto White.
Even if you dont want to Green at this late point (which is understandable!), why not take Solemn Offering?
a) Your opponents get cut from White so maybe you get some in pack 2.
b) like with the Color fixing, once you have the Enchantment/Artifact removal, you can more freely pick stuff later!
P1P8: Just one note about Excommunicate and BREAD: Excommunicate is NOT removal! It is a tempo card, and so falls much rather into "utility&tricks" than into Removal. So you'd rather pick it up like after E, and not while in R.
That said, I think the pick was the right one in the situation you were in at that point.
I just wanted to say that these articles, especially the price movement reports: are so incredibly helpful. I am a casual MTGO player/Investor, and the price movements help tremendously. Also, these articles are just fun to read. I don't really have any criticism at this point, I just wanted to say good job. Thanks. I'm glad I'm a customer.
I agree with Stealthbadger 100%. In addition, your rationale for choosing Ascension over Gladiator was to avoid an early heavy commitment to a color... yet in your second pick, you're already saying, theres nothing good in color, essentially commiting early to a color. Pack 1 pick 1 doesnt commit you to anything, and cyclops gladiator is always good.
Also, water servant is a beatstick as well. Hard to pass IMO. especially after you avoided the gladiator.
First of all, I want to thank you again for taking your time to read the article. So far no hate posts, so I guess I've done something right.
Xaoslegend: Thanks for your welcome to the writer's club. We'll see if I'm not kicked out of it because of my next article (or even if I'm allowed to continue in it after this comment) :D
StealthBadger: You are absolutely right. At the end, the final reason why I took the Armored Ascension over the other possible picks was simply to cut white. I wished to play a black/white deck since the beginning of the draft, and that's also the true reason why I picked the Liliana's Specter as p1p2.
Orgion: WOW! Thanks for all your comments. As you have written, I'll have to think that I'm at work when I try to draft (or participate in prereleases) because I finish all of them with the same losing results
You are right too when you say my biggest mistake was the mood I was after the picks. Thinking about it, I was truly upset about them (in fact, I’m still). As I've answered to SteathBadger, my idea was to play a black/white deck, and since I didn't get any card in those 2 colors as my p1p3, I got angrier and angrier as the draft went. You are also right when you say I didn’t have a plan. The cruel reality is that I simply picked what I thought was the best card in my colors. Lesson learned.
About your comments about the picks themselves, I agree 100% with them. Just two minor points:
- P1P5. I have to admit that yes, I was thinking of abandoning it. It was so early in the draft that in that moment I only thought about not choosing a drying color.
- P3P3 - The other reason why I took the Whispersilk Cloak was to protect my scarce threats. The Serra Angel and the Scroll Thief are always firm candidates to be Doom Bladed, Corrupted, etc. And it’s a ticking clock if it’s on the battlefield for some turns.
And again, I’ve to admit you are 100% right in the comments about the deck. The blue splash didn’t work as I hoped (but at least, it wasn't because the lack of islands. The cultivate and the elf prevented that). But of course, as you say, the Inspired charge would have been way better for the deck.
And about the games:
> a) M1G1 - Cloud elemental can only block flyers. Your white knight is free to continue swinging.
True. I missed that little detail. I’m soooo bad.
>b) M1G1 - Your angel ended up on top because you cast Cultivate which shuffled your library.
OMG!!... I have read the article 10 times before publishing it. I’ve watched the videos to be sure they work fine. AND I DIDN’T NOTICE THAT!! I’m totally embarrassed.
>c) M2G2 - … I think I would have used the plummet on his specter rather than cast the griffin that turn,
The reason why I didn’t do that is because I was afraid of he casting a Gravedigger or a Dissemtomb, and losing another card in the recasting of the specter. Also, to keep it for a bigger flier.
e) M2G3 - Man do I understand when you said you regretted discarding the basilisk. …
Lol… You are absolutely right. I was out of my mind when I did that. The only excuse I can try is that I was so upset that all I wanted was that the torture finished the sooner possible.
Hey Flie welcome to the puremtgo family. I am glad your article finally got the fixes you wanted. The links to youtube are a cool addition without intruding on the article itself. Nice touch! I don't draft much so I have nothing to add to specifics of what Orgion and StealthBadger said except, don't beat yourself up over a bad draft on modo. It happens. Thanks for sharing it with us and letting us see a real player in action.
Some intersting data here. I had no idea there was a most packs won display.
RE Tribal Wars Eldrazi: Yeah posts require at least 8 and 12 is probably best for Eldrazi. The alternative is to run the spawns in addition to posts. Vesuva is a big deal I guess. At $3 a pop not a cheap card to get but it could be a lot worse. I built my own Eldrazi version using Mass Polymorph and Warp World. But it is more of a fun deck than anything else.
Hey guys thank you for the comments. It was my pleasure to do these. @Westane yeah the client blinks for me usually but I think sometimes it fails to do so. The option to set it to blink for specific things would be nice. Which is what I think Josh meant. @DrBenwayy that would be good too. Sounds do play an important role. I remember draft used to make a sound when it started or when games started but since I have my sound options turned off (since I listen to internet radio) I don't know if it still does that.
Twinclaws + Obsidian axe is pretty good fun,
Wildfire is always a pretty solid way to set teh rules of engagement in one's favor,
Nice article, always a good series,
X-
Pretty awesome,
No proxies is rough, but understandable given the point of the format. This would be a fairly cool format to run, get people into the collectible area of the game. (Incidentally the first and only artist I ever collected cards for was Chippy =), and that was back in the IPA days when all his pictures were creatures with some sort of hump back, I think I just collected him because I thought it was funny that he was so stuck on the theme, clearly he's done some really good stretching since then heh.
X-
I am a little confused whether you are reciting known m:tg 'history' according to various published sources or are creating ties-in where needed. If so, very imaginative, and if not, very succinct.
Brilliant Idea! BYOA (Build Your Own Artist) decks ftw! What a great thing! Glad I could accidentally inspire it. :) I may have to experiment with this and see what wonders I can come up with. Finally a reason to actually play casual classic! :D
Elemental Bidding is indeed an old idea. Fun though. Warriors seems like it gets the business done more than Elementals would but EB is certainly more casually interesting. I recommend you branch out a bit and start trying some of your ideas on less known/tried tribals. See if you can surprise us next time. :D
Right, so the game when you have a workshop in your opener will sti be awesome, but the games when you don't have it will suck because u won't be able to go
Land mox mox trinisphere
Part of the reason why workshop is so good in paper is because it can still function consistently without workshops because of the other redic amounts of fast mana it plays. So the plan b for the online workshop decks will be worse
Here's where I don't agree
Workshop, Trinisphere, go! will still be amazing
Workshop, Artifact 1 Artifact 2, Mox opal
Workshop, Helm of Awakening, Sensei D.Top, Mox Opal (combo out, brainfreeze with one mana backup for daze.)
Workshop, Crucible Go! (after sideboarding vs landstill etc)
Workshop, Sol ring, Mox Opal, Chalice for 1, Trinisphere (uber ouch!)
You have a lot of problems with your draft style. Drafting is not a simple thing to do however. Reading about which colors are the best and worst does not help you drafting very much, it can actually make you a worse drafter. Any color can win a draft. Forcing a strategy either works very well or works very badly. I personally prefer to keep an open mind.
I would have taken the Cyclops gladiator because it is the most powerful card in the pack. Red is seen as a bad color, THEREFORE, it is usually open. Every color has good cards. You can not be closed minded when drafting. You can't go into the draft forcing something and expecting to win every time.
White and blue are considered the two best colors, so they will be over drafted quite often. Also, you can not draft by BREAD all the time. Sometimes you just need to draft creatures.
something 2 do in the Oxmoor center. I can not remember any other place in Louisville that has you play in the food court. however, the store is in a different part of the mall now, and has it's own play space.
I wonder if the Gold queues that went up over Thanksgiving had anything to do with it? Instead of the usual 2-man where you pay 2 tix with a chance to win 4 (one pack), they just quintupple? the payout so you pay 10 and the winner takes 20 (5 packs). With a healthy pile of tix and a confident player, you could earn a lot of packs.
Hi guys, thanks to all of you for helping me with your comments. The fact is that I can't argue in contrary of what you all say, because I agree with you.
The only point I would like to clarify: Isn't green supossed to be the worst color? I think I've read articles and watched videos of good players, and they say that it's the weakest color in M11. That was also a reason why I didn't jump in green sooner, as I was trying to avoid it (and at the end, I had to play it :D).
Greetings. Fliebana.
PD: Paul: I'm glad you liked the videos linked in that way. The only thing I miss from your comment is the word "bad" between "real" and "player". :D
Great stuff all round. My only paper magic tournament was a Louisville unsanctioned event at some mall there. Trey van Cleave won it (shortly after his suspension). I won a scourge starter pack for third place with some horrible white weenie deck.
I agree, the worst thing you did in this draft was feeling so bad every time you drew another land. If you let yourself feel bad about things that happen in Magic, you won't play as well. (And you won't enjoy it as much!)
I don't see anything wrong with passing up the Cyclops Gladiator in pack 1. While it's a strong card, red is the worst color in the set. Most pros would go for Scroll Thief there, as blue is the best color and if you get ways to get him through (aether adept, excommunicate, blinding mage, doom blade, whispersilk cloak) he can get you enough extra cards to win the game easily.
Azure Drakes are awesome, you want to take them over most other stuff. Your deck could have had a decent amount of flyers if you stuck to blue/white (maybe with a splash). Or if you'd moved into green sooner, you could have had a strong green/blue or green/white.
Good luck in your next draft!
Primal Command is quite capable of permanently removing moat.
You list oblivion ring both as a card you are and are not running.
Also, you 'usually' have wall of blossoms or omens when you play Sarkhan? 0.o
In my personal experience, Saffi is just underpowered, and she's worse in your list than in many (B-based) decks.
Interesting decklist and card choices though.
the daily Events will have 16 minimum and the regular old DE payouts... 11 for 4-0 and 6 for 3-1. They just haven't updated the tournament description link yet.
Hi,
nice to see some other writer! Your article is good, don't worry!
Here's my opinion on your picks, although keep in mind i'm also not that good a drafter. Just for discussion:
P1P2: You get passed a pack without the Rare. Which means, no signal reading available.
So, which card would you pick?
Lilianas Specter: Really a good card, but White and Black usually mix pretty badly in this set. Most of the good cards need a heavy color commitment, for example White Knight and Black Knight. You cant easily play both.
On the other hand, the Packleader is an awesome card advantage engine. So if your reason was card advantage, I'd go for the more splashable one! Another reason would be this: Green is open more often than Black - and you don't get passed the awesome black cards like Doom Blade as often as the awesome green cards.
Also, Green has cards like Cultivate which again help your Ascension.
Then, there's Azure Drake. I consider him one of the most awesome common creatures in the set. He is hard to kill, he blocks most stuff you want to block, and he can occasionally attack. I think him and Giant Spider are two of the "sweet spots" concerning power and toughness, in this set. Think of all the 2/2s, 3/2s and stuff. And they can both block flyers. Giant Spider or Azure Drake alone can stop entire Aggro decks!
Additionally, again, you would have the start of a UW deck, which seems to be the best archetype in M11.
P1P4: This is a bad pack. You realize your colors are being cut, and the pack provides little alternatives. I personally loathe those situations. But for me, this pack gives you exactly one good "way out": The Terramorphic Expanse! Taking it, you
a) can stay in your colors if they remain open (it could just have been a bad pack for BW).
b) can take what ever other color appears to be open later and having to worry less about color fixing.
The Scroll Thief seems to me to be a good card in special circumstances. He isnt always good, like i.e. Doom Blade. In other words, changing colors for him doesn't seem worth it to me. Taking color fixing now, however, allows you to more freely chose powerful cards later.
P1P5: Okay, so you picked the Thief and Blue still doesnt come. However, you did see some awesome green cards, like Packleader and Cultivate. While you did pass them, it should usually mean that later in Pack 3 you will probably see some more, and maybe even later in pack one. So, while the pack seems bad, I think the Wurm seems your only option. Serpent is good in heavy blue, but do you seriously expect that to happen? Blue is the best color, and other people know that, too. You didnt see much of it, so your opponents are probably fighting over it. Ditto White.
Even if you dont want to Green at this late point (which is understandable!), why not take Solemn Offering?
a) Your opponents get cut from White so maybe you get some in pack 2.
b) like with the Color fixing, once you have the Enchantment/Artifact removal, you can more freely pick stuff later!
P1P8: Just one note about Excommunicate and BREAD: Excommunicate is NOT removal! It is a tempo card, and so falls much rather into "utility&tricks" than into Removal. So you'd rather pick it up like after E, and not while in R.
That said, I think the pick was the right one in the situation you were in at that point.
great read!
500 boosters a week...
I just wanted to say that these articles, especially the price movement reports: are so incredibly helpful. I am a casual MTGO player/Investor, and the price movements help tremendously. Also, these articles are just fun to read. I don't really have any criticism at this point, I just wanted to say good job. Thanks. I'm glad I'm a customer.
I agree with Stealthbadger 100%. In addition, your rationale for choosing Ascension over Gladiator was to avoid an early heavy commitment to a color... yet in your second pick, you're already saying, theres nothing good in color, essentially commiting early to a color. Pack 1 pick 1 doesnt commit you to anything, and cyclops gladiator is always good.
Also, water servant is a beatstick as well. Hard to pass IMO. especially after you avoided the gladiator.
While workshop will still be played and still be awsome, it prolly won't be as dominant without the moxes
heh, that picture is a few years old.
Hi guys.
First of all, I want to thank you again for taking your time to read the article. So far no hate posts, so I guess I've done something right.
Xaoslegend: Thanks for your welcome to the writer's club. We'll see if I'm not kicked out of it because of my next article (or even if I'm allowed to continue in it after this comment) :D
StealthBadger: You are absolutely right. At the end, the final reason why I took the Armored Ascension over the other possible picks was simply to cut white. I wished to play a black/white deck since the beginning of the draft, and that's also the true reason why I picked the Liliana's Specter as p1p2.
Orgion: WOW! Thanks for all your comments. As you have written, I'll have to think that I'm at work when I try to draft (or participate in prereleases) because I finish all of them with the same losing results
You are right too when you say my biggest mistake was the mood I was after the picks. Thinking about it, I was truly upset about them (in fact, I’m still). As I've answered to SteathBadger, my idea was to play a black/white deck, and since I didn't get any card in those 2 colors as my p1p3, I got angrier and angrier as the draft went. You are also right when you say I didn’t have a plan. The cruel reality is that I simply picked what I thought was the best card in my colors. Lesson learned.
About your comments about the picks themselves, I agree 100% with them. Just two minor points:
- P1P5. I have to admit that yes, I was thinking of abandoning it. It was so early in the draft that in that moment I only thought about not choosing a drying color.
- P3P3 - The other reason why I took the Whispersilk Cloak was to protect my scarce threats. The Serra Angel and the Scroll Thief are always firm candidates to be Doom Bladed, Corrupted, etc. And it’s a ticking clock if it’s on the battlefield for some turns.
And again, I’ve to admit you are 100% right in the comments about the deck. The blue splash didn’t work as I hoped (but at least, it wasn't because the lack of islands. The cultivate and the elf prevented that). But of course, as you say, the Inspired charge would have been way better for the deck.
And about the games:
> a) M1G1 - Cloud elemental can only block flyers. Your white knight is free to continue swinging.
True. I missed that little detail. I’m soooo bad.
>b) M1G1 - Your angel ended up on top because you cast Cultivate which shuffled your library.
OMG!!... I have read the article 10 times before publishing it. I’ve watched the videos to be sure they work fine. AND I DIDN’T NOTICE THAT!! I’m totally embarrassed.
>c) M2G2 - … I think I would have used the plummet on his specter rather than cast the griffin that turn,
The reason why I didn’t do that is because I was afraid of he casting a Gravedigger or a Dissemtomb, and losing another card in the recasting of the specter. Also, to keep it for a bigger flier.
e) M2G3 - Man do I understand when you said you regretted discarding the basilisk. …
Lol… You are absolutely right. I was out of my mind when I did that. The only excuse I can try is that I was so upset that all I wanted was that the torture finished the sooner possible.
Thanks again, and see you all online.
Hey Flie welcome to the puremtgo family. I am glad your article finally got the fixes you wanted. The links to youtube are a cool addition without intruding on the article itself. Nice touch! I don't draft much so I have nothing to add to specifics of what Orgion and StealthBadger said except, don't beat yourself up over a bad draft on modo. It happens. Thanks for sharing it with us and letting us see a real player in action.
Some intersting data here. I had no idea there was a most packs won display.
RE Tribal Wars Eldrazi: Yeah posts require at least 8 and 12 is probably best for Eldrazi. The alternative is to run the spawns in addition to posts. Vesuva is a big deal I guess. At $3 a pop not a cheap card to get but it could be a lot worse. I built my own Eldrazi version using Mass Polymorph and Warp World. But it is more of a fun deck than anything else.
Hey guys thank you for the comments. It was my pleasure to do these. @Westane yeah the client blinks for me usually but I think sometimes it fails to do so. The option to set it to blink for specific things would be nice. Which is what I think Josh meant. @DrBenwayy that would be good too. Sounds do play an important role. I remember draft used to make a sound when it started or when games started but since I have my sound options turned off (since I listen to internet radio) I don't know if it still does that.