I've used it a couple of times and I must say it's quite insane. I'm very happy for being possible to play a banned card wich I miss since the old times of urza's block and standard necro decks.
Talking about the article, great work Pete; indeed it's true the card value worth drafting US. I've sold a lot of rares, including tolarian academy, gaea's craddle, stroke of genius and more around 120 tix.
saga drafts are fun, now they are nixtix so even better, although i havent drafted any money in a few weeeks, too bad for me.
one trick i also wanted to point out is the white rare guy who gains life for a sac'ed enchantment and the recuring enchantments, totally kills the other dude in a drawn out battle.
oh, you also forgot the most important advice of saga drafts, if you cant go black, draft zephids embrace for teh win!
Very useful article. Have to be rade before drafting as all the tricks are very well explained.
Crab + study is to me by far the best trick here, it simply wins matches by itself as a damage provider and a powerful removal. It simply needs to get enough cards to play it quickly in the game and to keep it alive enough time to clear the board & the opponent. Tempo blue cards are helping a lot to manage to do that (exhaustion, curfew, rescind, syphon soul ...)
Great article
edit : btw, did anybody use yawgmoth will in draft ?? Never saw it in limited, but the idea is attractive :)
-- 1/3rd of your deck must be of a single tribe. (so 20 in a 60 card deck.) These must be creatures. (Tribal instants etc do not count towards the minimum.)
Banned cards are as listed on the client + the following: Aether Vial(?? someone mentioned this but I am not clear if it is actually on the list), Goblin Lackey, Bazaar of Baghdad, Earthcraft, Lion's Eye Diamond, Survival of the Fittest.
Hi there, got a spare weekend and a deck idea so thought I might give the apocalypse a spin.
Any chance someone could post a quick deck building rules guide. Can't remember what number of tribal cards you have to have. And are we allowing Eldrazi this weekend? (just in case I managed to get something in the prerelease that works :) )
Thanks for the tips... I need them. I'm the world's worst drafter (100% defeated in MVW). The last time I did Urza's, I went green/white, hoping to have lots of cards to myself with everyone drafting black. I had big creatures and lots of enchantment hate to survive the black Pestilence decks. What did I face? Green/red with smaller, faster guys than mine and more removal. Game over. I had more packs, so I tried again.. same strategy. Aaaaaaannnnndddd.... my opponent once again played green/red. Lots of fast creatures, no enchantments. Removal. Game over.
How do you feel about Urza's Armor? It goes great with Pestilence. I've actually won with those two on the board.
Interesting take on the archetype. A question and a comment:
Question: What changes do you find necessary with the addition of Rise of the Eldrazi?
I also wanted to note that Dragon's Claw may be obsolete now with the advent of T2 All-in Red. The explosive nature of the deck, combined with the shift away from spell-based towards permanent-based damage sources make Dragon's Claw just not good enough to bail you out any longer. Cards like Agony Warp and Into the roil do a much better job at keeping you alive in this matchup.
As a Grixis player myself, I look forward to your reply.
I ran a version of your UG Entrance deck in TPDC and went 3-1 in swiss and lost to Storm in Top 8. It is a very fun deck to run. I used 2 Civic Wayfinders and 2 Borderland Rangers in place of the 4 Sea Gate Oracles. The Curfews did not seem to help out all too much when I drew them, there were a few times I wished they were Counterspells instead. All in all I like the deck a lot.
Yes, I think it is pretty much 100% correct that a player who can not spend a dime on magic will not be able to play legacy or classic competitively in any real sense. No, I do not see anything wrong with this.
I'm going to try out adding four All is Dust to my Valakut deck and concentrate on the beat down from Raging Ravine if Valakut its self has been tampered with.
Why not replace Woodland Changeling with the more useful Bosk Banneret? It got the same cost, same converted body (with a more defensive 1/3 ratio), can pump the Oak the same way and in addition can also reduce the cost of the other treefolks and Nameless Inversion as well.
Good deck, BTW, always love Aurochs Herd. It can also form the core of a Treefolk pauper tribal deck.
Quote" I equate bad form decks, to the feeling that all joy has been sucked from your life and you will never be happy again" /Quote
I felt that way the day i got married...J/K
I like the name, Frozen Fire. It was a fun deck to play. It was actually a Block deck I played in Paper. My first time playing it I totally forgot about the triggers from the Rage Forger. Epic Fail.
Plants! I am actually working on a plant deck Myself. I was inspired by when I was watching kalandine's matches. I noticed a lot of his plants didn't attack, and I want to build a deck that will attack. I actually spent a lot of time yeasterday hashing out a deck that will cost me about 6.5 tickets.
A Thopter deck...hmmm I want to take that challenge. Now my brain is turning gears.
My vote for the next special format is a single tribe. I would suggest either Slivers or Elementals. Leaning towards Elementals. Both races have a wide varity of creatures that can do different things and in all colors. I say elementals more because they hold the more "fun" feeling where when you play against a sliver deck, you get that feeling Shard mentioned. Plus playing slivers myself makes me feel dirty, like I just cheated.
Tabernacle went up $1.50 just a day after this article was published. Danger... can you write some articles saying that Disenchants are the next hot thing? I have like 100 of those.
You are of course right that auras in general have a big problem: They need other cards to do something. If you have no creatures on table and you're in the top deck mode against WU Control, drawing an aura (any aura) is as good as drawing a land. But Armadillo Cloak had the same problem yet it saw play. Rancor had the same problem yet it saw play.
And you're forgetting two things:
1- The whole meta won't be WU Control. Against vampires, which is still a very important deck, Hyena Umbra is a real bargain. And that +1/+1 and first strike matters a lot against them. To kill your creature they need to spend two removal spells. Against other creature based decks this aura still matters a lot. Against decks with burn it still is very good.
2- Against WU Control it's a dead card surely; I'm not saying it isn't. But that's what the sideboard is for! Surely Jace can simply bounce back any fully leveled up creature with 4 Umras attached on it in game 1. But in game 2 those Umbras will become Luminarch Ascensions which is not something Jace can handle.
Anyway, just test it. I'm sure you'll change your mind.
Fair enough, I will test it.
I've used it a couple of times and I must say it's quite insane. I'm very happy for being possible to play a banned card wich I miss since the old times of urza's block and standard necro decks.
Talking about the article, great work Pete; indeed it's true the card value worth drafting US. I've sold a lot of rares, including tolarian academy, gaea's craddle, stroke of genius and more around 120 tix.
Looking forward your MVW analysis.
saga drafts are fun, now they are nixtix so even better, although i havent drafted any money in a few weeeks, too bad for me.
one trick i also wanted to point out is the white rare guy who gains life for a sac'ed enchantment and the recuring enchantments, totally kills the other dude in a drawn out battle.
oh, you also forgot the most important advice of saga drafts, if you cant go black, draft zephids embrace for teh win!
If you can't spend any money at all on magic, you presumably can't play any format at all competitively...
Also, I think calling anyone playing snakes copying your deck is pushing it a bit. That deck's been around in one form or another since kamigawa?
Urza's Armor is six mana. Great *if* you can get it down with Pestilence, and fine when racing weenie fliers, but six mana is a lot.
Very useful article. Have to be rade before drafting as all the tricks are very well explained.
Crab + study is to me by far the best trick here, it simply wins matches by itself as a damage provider and a powerful removal. It simply needs to get enough cards to play it quickly in the game and to keep it alive enough time to clear the board & the opponent. Tempo blue cards are helping a lot to manage to do that (exhaustion, curfew, rescind, syphon soul ...)
Great article
edit : btw, did anybody use yawgmoth will in draft ?? Never saw it in limited, but the idea is attractive :)
The SPDC Worlds link takes me to the Host Control Panel...I assume that's not the intent.
In theory to shake it up a bit and to make people be more creative than simply bringing Goblins/Elves etc.
-- 1/3rd of your deck must be of a single tribe. (so 20 in a 60 card deck.) These must be creatures. (Tribal instants etc do not count towards the minimum.)
Banned cards are as listed on the client + the following: Aether Vial(?? someone mentioned this but I am not clear if it is actually on the list), Goblin Lackey, Bazaar of Baghdad, Earthcraft, Lion's Eye Diamond, Survival of the Fittest.
Hi there, got a spare weekend and a deck idea so thought I might give the apocalypse a spin.
Any chance someone could post a quick deck building rules guide. Can't remember what number of tribal cards you have to have. And are we allowing Eldrazi this weekend? (just in case I managed to get something in the prerelease that works :) )
Cheers...
Just a question
What is the point to the these theme weeks again?
Really good article, I think I might step into the format just to see how it goes. I really got a good laugh out of it also.
Thanks for the tips... I need them. I'm the world's worst drafter (100% defeated in MVW). The last time I did Urza's, I went green/white, hoping to have lots of cards to myself with everyone drafting black. I had big creatures and lots of enchantment hate to survive the black Pestilence decks. What did I face? Green/red with smaller, faster guys than mine and more removal. Game over. I had more packs, so I tried again.. same strategy. Aaaaaaannnnndddd.... my opponent once again played green/red. Lots of fast creatures, no enchantments. Removal. Game over.
How do you feel about Urza's Armor? It goes great with Pestilence. I've actually won with those two on the board.
Interesting take on the archetype. A question and a comment:
Question: What changes do you find necessary with the addition of Rise of the Eldrazi?
I also wanted to note that Dragon's Claw may be obsolete now with the advent of T2 All-in Red. The explosive nature of the deck, combined with the shift away from spell-based towards permanent-based damage sources make Dragon's Claw just not good enough to bail you out any longer. Cards like Agony Warp and Into the roil do a much better job at keeping you alive in this matchup.
As a Grixis player myself, I look forward to your reply.
I ran a version of your UG Entrance deck in TPDC and went 3-1 in swiss and lost to Storm in Top 8. It is a very fun deck to run. I used 2 Civic Wayfinders and 2 Borderland Rangers in place of the 4 Sea Gate Oracles. The Curfews did not seem to help out all too much when I drew them, there were a few times I wished they were Counterspells instead. All in all I like the deck a lot.
I personally feel that 222 & 333 were very skill intensive formats, and really liked them a lot. I don't have any idea what 123 will be like.
jvs
Yes, I think it is pretty much 100% correct that a player who can not spend a dime on magic will not be able to play legacy or classic competitively in any real sense. No, I do not see anything wrong with this.
jvs
I'm going to try out adding four All is Dust to my Valakut deck and concentrate on the beat down from Raging Ravine if Valakut its self has been tampered with.
Naw, I wont be trying to work in deathouch dudes just to "turn on" Longbow. I like it by itself from playing various forms of Trinket Blink.
no, no, say that its tectonic edge, i drafted 22 of them during release week.
Why not replace Woodland Changeling with the more useful Bosk Banneret? It got the same cost, same converted body (with a more defensive 1/3 ratio), can pump the Oak the same way and in addition can also reduce the cost of the other treefolks and Nameless Inversion as well.
Good deck, BTW, always love Aurochs Herd. It can also form the core of a Treefolk pauper tribal deck.
Quote" I equate bad form decks, to the feeling that all joy has been sucked from your life and you will never be happy again" /Quote
I felt that way the day i got married...J/K
I like the name, Frozen Fire. It was a fun deck to play. It was actually a Block deck I played in Paper. My first time playing it I totally forgot about the triggers from the Rage Forger. Epic Fail.
Plants! I am actually working on a plant deck Myself. I was inspired by when I was watching kalandine's matches. I noticed a lot of his plants didn't attack, and I want to build a deck that will attack. I actually spent a lot of time yeasterday hashing out a deck that will cost me about 6.5 tickets.
A Thopter deck...hmmm I want to take that challenge. Now my brain is turning gears.
My vote for the next special format is a single tribe. I would suggest either Slivers or Elementals. Leaning towards Elementals. Both races have a wide varity of creatures that can do different things and in all colors. I say elementals more because they hold the more "fun" feeling where when you play against a sliver deck, you get that feeling Shard mentioned. Plus playing slivers myself makes me feel dirty, like I just cheated.
So My Vote : SINGLE RACE: ELEMENTALS or SLIVERS
Tabernacle went up $1.50 just a day after this article was published. Danger... can you write some articles saying that Disenchants are the next hot thing? I have like 100 of those.
You are of course right that auras in general have a big problem: They need other cards to do something. If you have no creatures on table and you're in the top deck mode against WU Control, drawing an aura (any aura) is as good as drawing a land. But Armadillo Cloak had the same problem yet it saw play. Rancor had the same problem yet it saw play.
And you're forgetting two things:
1- The whole meta won't be WU Control. Against vampires, which is still a very important deck, Hyena Umbra is a real bargain. And that +1/+1 and first strike matters a lot against them. To kill your creature they need to spend two removal spells. Against other creature based decks this aura still matters a lot. Against decks with burn it still is very good.
2- Against WU Control it's a dead card surely; I'm not saying it isn't. But that's what the sideboard is for! Surely Jace can simply bounce back any fully leveled up creature with 4 Umras attached on it in game 1. But in game 2 those Umbras will become Luminarch Ascensions which is not something Jace can handle.
Anyway, just test it. I'm sure you'll change your mind.
LE
Thanks everyone. I know there is always a balance.
I’ll try to put together something that is fun to play and go from there.