So you are saying that no one SHOULD play 4322 but people do it for all sorts of reasons. That is again self-contradicting to me. If people have reasons to play 4322 then they SHOULD play 4322 since it appenrently maximizes their utility.
A good reason to play 4322 over swiss is like the others point out the time issue. Which draft will fire first? Also, All the arguments for playing swiss over 4322 assumes that you can play the same number of 4322 drafts as you can with swiss drafts. But that is clearly not true for a given amount of time.
I also read your argument as saying that skill level and draft queue is independent of each other. But an important assumption in the '4322' propability EV argument saying never to play 4322 is that player skills are ordered as 84 > 4322 > swiss.
Yea I have burn now :) Elves was just appealing because the most expensive card is Gaea's cradle and that is only 26 or tix. I am now 3 Glimpse, 3-4 Natural Orders, 2 Craterhoofs, and 4 Cradles away from having elves built. I will get there and will love to test with you.
When I was doing drafts I'd frequently go for whichever was about to fire to make the best use of my available time.
Since I'd spent an about equal amount of time playing both swiss and 4322..
I feel pretty comfortable stating that while the math strongly indicates the higher overall payout events to be superior for 84 and swiss that is for the group thinking collectively as a whole.
4322 is more appropriate for selfish impatient bastards like myself.
To elaborate, the key factor is the overall quality of your draft vs the overall quality of your opponents drafts.
If I had a strong draft of cards, chances were good I'd see the final round.
If my draft was poor I'd be lucky to make it out of the first round.
If we ignore the shared possibility of not winning anything.
My expected payout for each event based on personal ability and self interest would have been something like:
8-4: 0 packs. Eliminated second round nearly every time.
Swiss: 2.5 packs. Usually made "finals", but only won them half the time.
4322: 3 packs. I either made 2 packs for 1 round or I made the finals and again won those about half the time.
8-4 and 4322 have about the same time commitment overall. You can generally tell if your pool is strong enough or not after the first round to know if you need to commit to playing through to the finals and can skip out to play another event if your odds aren't good.
Swiss requires you to play out each and every round even on a bad card pool for the possibility of 3 packs.
In terms of wins, two match wins in a row followed by a loss would net you 4, 3 or 2 packs.
And one win followed by "two losses" (counting the rounds you didn't get to play in at all for 84 and 4322) would net you 0, 1, or 2 packs.
If your most probably outcomes are 4 or 0, 3 or 2, 2 or 1 you logically would pick the one with the higher average.
Relegating the scrub outs and the event champion outcomes as outliers caused by random card pool and shuffler occurrences.
Obviously a good or bad player could dismiss this reasoning entirely as good players should play 8-4 and bad players should play Swiss to increase their overall payouts per event.
But, for selfish middle of the ground players, 4322 serves as an acceptable average with minimal time obligation.
I.e. it is Swiss for the impatient.
Not that I'm commenting on this article directly to advocate or dismiss.
Just my personal experience with drafting.
I relied heavily on the format having an overall high EV as a set.
I just wish I'd held on to all those foil Karn Liberated for when Tron took off as a deck in Modern. xD
Hindsight and all that.
The main board appears to be missing two cards.
It lists 22 creatures (actually 24), 12 "other" (actually 10) and 22 lands.
I'm curious as to what the missing two cards might be, even if it is just a miscount of cards already listed.
No one SHOULD play 4322, but people do. If no one ever played them, hopefully the payout would change to 5322. If they were 5322, they would be totally fine.
Has nothing to do with smart or dumb. Some people just don't care about the value. That has zero to do with intelligence, play skill, or anything else.
You will find good and bad and in between players in 8-4, 4322, or Swiss. People play what they want to play for all sorts of reasons.
You are saying that nothing in the math supports 4322 over 84 or swiss. But that is based on your non-stated assumptions. If my win percentages is 1% in swiss and 84 but it is 100% when playing 4322 then 4322 is the dominat option. It is easy to reach a certain conclusion when you get to pick the assumptions.
Draft EV is determined by the self-selection of players into the queues. Following your logic it would be natural to say that no one should ever play 4322. However, the queues still fire. So then it would be natural to assume that only dumb players enter the 4322 drafts. Since you are a smart player then clearly you have an advantage in the queue with all the dumb players.
All the arguments saying that 4322 is strictly dominated assumes that you will meet better players in the 4322 queue than in the swiss queue. But that is a self-contradiction since good players would know not to join the 4322 using the same argument.
This makes me happy :) I'm looking forward to seeing you in the legacy cues someday. FYI, I saw a 4-0 list that costs 240 tix. and it isn't burn! it's a turbo-depths deck. it seems pretty good actually. the only money card is Dark Depths, the rest is dirt cheap.
Also, with the amount of legacy decks that don't run basics, ghost quarter is a wasteland more often than not these days.
your idea is excellent. I think there are other cards that would be good to include in those restrictions, although I'm drawing a blank atm. scavenging ooze shouldn't be there imo but the others are fine. that knight is definitely nasty
I know where you are coming from, and I opened my original comment with genuine respect for the content creation effort, but the article presents demonstrably bad, actively harmful advice.
If the article "did no harm" then I wouldn't have 1-starred it, but if you are going to tout 4322s and advise passing 4-ticket cards to help people go infinite, and then ignore the math and constructive criticism refuting your claims, a full star is a generous rating.
It sounds like JXClaytor is content that this article has garnered views and comments, but that's pretty short-sighted. He *has* to know this advice is bad, yet published it anyway. Perhaps the need for content was that dire, but the article is a disservice to the readers of the site looking for sound advice, not something to feel "correct" about because of clicks/comments.
I really expect Akroma and Linvala to be in the set. I would hope that Platinum Angel is a shoo-in.
I can't see them doing the set without Baneslayer.
Just remember that Wizards is doing the set so you know there will be plenty of chaff in the set. Wizards can't ever get anything completely right. At best they can get something 75-80% right and most of the time they can't even reach that bar.
Wizards makes the game but it's the community that makes the game great.
To add a bit to your basic analysis, here's a few things I've noticed may be important to keep in mind if you're really grinding a lot of limited
*Metagame - Often the format will skew towards one set of colors, clans, or strategies, more than it "should" based on how strong the cards are. This is important to notice, even to the point of watching replays of various seats in your 8-4. For example, in 8-4's, Boros and Orzhov were highly overdrafted in triple GTC, to the point of unprofitability; towards the end of triple KTK, Abzan was overdrafted and Temur criminally underdrafted; and in the present FKK format, I'm feeling that Jeskai is underdrafted so far. Knowing how the meta skews will give you a slight edge in reading signals and figuring out what paths to take.
*Game selection - flashback 8-4 drafts usually have stronger players (like me, I love old sets), except if they're phantom drafts. The older normal set, like THS block right now, will also have relatively stronger players compared to FKK.
*Large sealed events - often are very good EV, better than 8-4's, if only the minimum or slightly above minimum number of players have joined. Plus, the skill level in them is slightly lower than 8-4's, in my opinion. MOCS finals are an exception to that, of course, as the skill level is very high (but so are the payouts).
*Don't play 4-3-2-2, period. And move up from Swiss when you have a win rate ~63% or higher, or whatever the math is. Expect harder streaks of wins and losses though in 8-4.
It's definitely possible to go infinite. I played more drafts probably than anyone on MTGO last year, and I didn't put any money in from July onward (and was only buying some tix to do VMA before that).
Since KTK has come out, I've amassed about 2000 tix worth of cards, packs, and tix. All from playing 8-4 and various premier / MOCS / PTQ sealed events. But since I play so much, I probably have a deeper skill level, and have seen just more scenarios, than most casual players can obtain in limited.
Just a note, I think Michelle's deck fits the Control moniker more than anything.
I am not against the bannings though I question Scavenging Ooze's inclusion. It seems to me to be a presideboard and as such is quite quirky. Not saying it isn't good on its own but it is not a "Play it and Instawin" card. Also if you did make it tribe-only it would rarely ever be seen again as while people do play Ooze occasionally, the occasions are rare indeed.
You mention Craterhoof and I am of the opinion, were it more ubiquitous it would be a big offender of the offtribal. That it isn't speaks to the taste (and maybe wallet) of the average builder more than to the power of the card. Instawin out of nowhere is printed all over that card which is why it is a legacy staple with a high price tag.
Tarmogoyf is not an Instawin. It is just a bit harder to kill than average as it tends to shrug off bolts. Restricting it to its tribe will essentially ban it as Gofy is largely unplayable. TNN is a mean but focused card that happens to be pricy. As such I doubt anyone but Rom will bring them. I'm fine with a restriction to their tribe.
Knight might be the worst offender. It has shown its ugly head in so many off tribe positions I've begun thinking that those who use it just want to play KoTR tribal and toss their tribe of choice in place as an after thought. Still, with Humans as a large tribe and Knights as a solid tribe it will still see plenty of play imho. Good to go.
I don't mind the mentioned off-tribe additions. They don't make the deck more powerful compared to Tribal staples like SotP, Lightning Bolt, Vedalken Shackles and the like, and if some players prefer to play with additional creatures in their off-tribe slots that doesn't bother me at all. If those three cards are banned, such players will simply pick other powerful off-tribe creatures.
That being said, I don't think the restriction will have big impact on Tribal so I am fine either way. The only card I would really not like to see banned is Scavenging Ooze, because it's one of the few good anti-gy cards that you can play in Tribal. But since you also recognize this, there is no worry.
I support your suggestion to restrict Knight of the Reliquary, Tarmogoyf and True-Name Nemesis to their respective tribes only. Especially, I have broke Knight of the Reliquary's fetch ability many times in various of different decks and, I think, it is a fair decision for diversity.
Scavenging Ooze is also good against some specific strategies, but I don't think it is powerful as above three in general matter. Maybe, we can put it on a watch list for a while to see how it will continue to impact.
This is actually something which occurred to me whilst reading the article. It is a definite trend for the FTVs to touch upon all colours and artifacts, which is something we saw clearly in FTV:Annihilation. So, I suspect we may well see angels of all five colours, which isn't particularly difficult given the plethora of Bant, Boros and Orzhov Angels to choose from. Lightning Angel would fit the bill well, Angel of Despair is probably the most well-regarded in black, Platinum Angl is a shoe-in for an Artifact representative.
Also, you're definitely on the 'Ask again' list, Pete. It was indeed fun!
Yes, yes, a thousand times, yes. The dislike to which you allude in your opening sentence was born of inclusions such as those, cards which render the tribe an irrelevance, placed into a deck because their strength can win the game by themselves. Sticking the ones you highlight into the 'own tribes only' list is an elegant and effective solution of which I am entirely in favour. In perhaps the least unexpected expression of support for this idea, you have mine.
im interested to see if they can sell a pack of 15 white cards... white is personally my least favorite color to play. aren't all the other FTV sets a balanced variety of 5 colors?
So you are saying that no one SHOULD play 4322 but people do it for all sorts of reasons. That is again self-contradicting to me. If people have reasons to play 4322 then they SHOULD play 4322 since it appenrently maximizes their utility.
A good reason to play 4322 over swiss is like the others point out the time issue. Which draft will fire first? Also, All the arguments for playing swiss over 4322 assumes that you can play the same number of 4322 drafts as you can with swiss drafts. But that is clearly not true for a given amount of time.
I also read your argument as saying that skill level and draft queue is independent of each other. But an important assumption in the '4322' propability EV argument saying never to play 4322 is that player skills are ordered as 84 > 4322 > swiss.
Yea I have burn now :) Elves was just appealing because the most expensive card is Gaea's cradle and that is only 26 or tix. I am now 3 Glimpse, 3-4 Natural Orders, 2 Craterhoofs, and 4 Cradles away from having elves built. I will get there and will love to test with you.
It is actually missing 4 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben. Thanks for catching that and sorry for the confusion.
When I was doing drafts I'd frequently go for whichever was about to fire to make the best use of my available time.
Since I'd spent an about equal amount of time playing both swiss and 4322..
I feel pretty comfortable stating that while the math strongly indicates the higher overall payout events to be superior for 84 and swiss that is for the group thinking collectively as a whole.
4322 is more appropriate for selfish impatient bastards like myself.
To elaborate, the key factor is the overall quality of your draft vs the overall quality of your opponents drafts.
If I had a strong draft of cards, chances were good I'd see the final round.
If my draft was poor I'd be lucky to make it out of the first round.
If we ignore the shared possibility of not winning anything.
My expected payout for each event based on personal ability and self interest would have been something like:
8-4: 0 packs. Eliminated second round nearly every time.
Swiss: 2.5 packs. Usually made "finals", but only won them half the time.
4322: 3 packs. I either made 2 packs for 1 round or I made the finals and again won those about half the time.
8-4 and 4322 have about the same time commitment overall. You can generally tell if your pool is strong enough or not after the first round to know if you need to commit to playing through to the finals and can skip out to play another event if your odds aren't good.
Swiss requires you to play out each and every round even on a bad card pool for the possibility of 3 packs.
In terms of wins, two match wins in a row followed by a loss would net you 4, 3 or 2 packs.
And one win followed by "two losses" (counting the rounds you didn't get to play in at all for 84 and 4322) would net you 0, 1, or 2 packs.
If your most probably outcomes are 4 or 0, 3 or 2, 2 or 1 you logically would pick the one with the higher average.
Relegating the scrub outs and the event champion outcomes as outliers caused by random card pool and shuffler occurrences.
Obviously a good or bad player could dismiss this reasoning entirely as good players should play 8-4 and bad players should play Swiss to increase their overall payouts per event.
But, for selfish middle of the ground players, 4322 serves as an acceptable average with minimal time obligation.
I.e. it is Swiss for the impatient.
Not that I'm commenting on this article directly to advocate or dismiss.
Just my personal experience with drafting.
I relied heavily on the format having an overall high EV as a set.
I just wish I'd held on to all those foil Karn Liberated for when Tron took off as a deck in Modern. xD
Hindsight and all that.
The main board appears to be missing two cards.
It lists 22 creatures (actually 24), 12 "other" (actually 10) and 22 lands.
I'm curious as to what the missing two cards might be, even if it is just a miscount of cards already listed.
There are plenty of people who choose between swiss and 4322 based solely on which one will start soonest.
I would see your point more if you weren't able to so clearly demonstrate it. IE: The fact that comments inform readers is not irrelevant.
Rather they care about their time more than the monetary return value.
Dark Depths perhaps? :p
No one SHOULD play 4322, but people do. If no one ever played them, hopefully the payout would change to 5322. If they were 5322, they would be totally fine.
Has nothing to do with smart or dumb. Some people just don't care about the value. That has zero to do with intelligence, play skill, or anything else.
You will find good and bad and in between players in 8-4, 4322, or Swiss. People play what they want to play for all sorts of reasons.
You are saying that nothing in the math supports 4322 over 84 or swiss. But that is based on your non-stated assumptions. If my win percentages is 1% in swiss and 84 but it is 100% when playing 4322 then 4322 is the dominat option. It is easy to reach a certain conclusion when you get to pick the assumptions.
Draft EV is determined by the self-selection of players into the queues. Following your logic it would be natural to say that no one should ever play 4322. However, the queues still fire. So then it would be natural to assume that only dumb players enter the 4322 drafts. Since you are a smart player then clearly you have an advantage in the queue with all the dumb players.
All the arguments saying that 4322 is strictly dominated assumes that you will meet better players in the 4322 queue than in the swiss queue. But that is a self-contradiction since good players would know not to join the 4322 using the same argument.
Crazy that Rishadan Port is $30 more expensive the Black Lotus.
This makes me happy :) I'm looking forward to seeing you in the legacy cues someday. FYI, I saw a 4-0 list that costs 240 tix. and it isn't burn! it's a turbo-depths deck. it seems pretty good actually. the only money card is Dark Depths, the rest is dirt cheap.
Also, with the amount of legacy decks that don't run basics, ghost quarter is a wasteland more often than not these days.
your idea is excellent. I think there are other cards that would be good to include in those restrictions, although I'm drawing a blank atm. scavenging ooze shouldn't be there imo but the others are fine. that knight is definitely nasty
I know where you are coming from, and I opened my original comment with genuine respect for the content creation effort, but the article presents demonstrably bad, actively harmful advice.
If the article "did no harm" then I wouldn't have 1-starred it, but if you are going to tout 4322s and advise passing 4-ticket cards to help people go infinite, and then ignore the math and constructive criticism refuting your claims, a full star is a generous rating.
It sounds like JXClaytor is content that this article has garnered views and comments, but that's pretty short-sighted. He *has* to know this advice is bad, yet published it anyway. Perhaps the need for content was that dire, but the article is a disservice to the readers of the site looking for sound advice, not something to feel "correct" about because of clicks/comments.
I really expect Akroma and Linvala to be in the set. I would hope that Platinum Angel is a shoo-in.
I can't see them doing the set without Baneslayer.
Just remember that Wizards is doing the set so you know there will be plenty of chaff in the set. Wizards can't ever get anything completely right. At best they can get something 75-80% right and most of the time they can't even reach that bar.
Wizards makes the game but it's the community that makes the game great.
To add a bit to your basic analysis, here's a few things I've noticed may be important to keep in mind if you're really grinding a lot of limited
*Metagame - Often the format will skew towards one set of colors, clans, or strategies, more than it "should" based on how strong the cards are. This is important to notice, even to the point of watching replays of various seats in your 8-4. For example, in 8-4's, Boros and Orzhov were highly overdrafted in triple GTC, to the point of unprofitability; towards the end of triple KTK, Abzan was overdrafted and Temur criminally underdrafted; and in the present FKK format, I'm feeling that Jeskai is underdrafted so far. Knowing how the meta skews will give you a slight edge in reading signals and figuring out what paths to take.
*Game selection - flashback 8-4 drafts usually have stronger players (like me, I love old sets), except if they're phantom drafts. The older normal set, like THS block right now, will also have relatively stronger players compared to FKK.
*Large sealed events - often are very good EV, better than 8-4's, if only the minimum or slightly above minimum number of players have joined. Plus, the skill level in them is slightly lower than 8-4's, in my opinion. MOCS finals are an exception to that, of course, as the skill level is very high (but so are the payouts).
*Don't play 4-3-2-2, period. And move up from Swiss when you have a win rate ~63% or higher, or whatever the math is. Expect harder streaks of wins and losses though in 8-4.
Good luck!
It's definitely possible to go infinite. I played more drafts probably than anyone on MTGO last year, and I didn't put any money in from July onward (and was only buying some tix to do VMA before that).
Since KTK has come out, I've amassed about 2000 tix worth of cards, packs, and tix. All from playing 8-4 and various premier / MOCS / PTQ sealed events. But since I play so much, I probably have a deeper skill level, and have seen just more scenarios, than most casual players can obtain in limited.
Just a note, I think Michelle's deck fits the Control moniker more than anything.
I am not against the bannings though I question Scavenging Ooze's inclusion. It seems to me to be a presideboard and as such is quite quirky. Not saying it isn't good on its own but it is not a "Play it and Instawin" card. Also if you did make it tribe-only it would rarely ever be seen again as while people do play Ooze occasionally, the occasions are rare indeed.
You mention Craterhoof and I am of the opinion, were it more ubiquitous it would be a big offender of the offtribal. That it isn't speaks to the taste (and maybe wallet) of the average builder more than to the power of the card. Instawin out of nowhere is printed all over that card which is why it is a legacy staple with a high price tag.
Tarmogoyf is not an Instawin. It is just a bit harder to kill than average as it tends to shrug off bolts. Restricting it to its tribe will essentially ban it as Gofy is largely unplayable. TNN is a mean but focused card that happens to be pricy. As such I doubt anyone but Rom will bring them. I'm fine with a restriction to their tribe.
Knight might be the worst offender. It has shown its ugly head in so many off tribe positions I've begun thinking that those who use it just want to play KoTR tribal and toss their tribe of choice in place as an after thought. Still, with Humans as a large tribe and Knights as a solid tribe it will still see plenty of play imho. Good to go.
I don't mind the mentioned off-tribe additions. They don't make the deck more powerful compared to Tribal staples like SotP, Lightning Bolt, Vedalken Shackles and the like, and if some players prefer to play with additional creatures in their off-tribe slots that doesn't bother me at all. If those three cards are banned, such players will simply pick other powerful off-tribe creatures.
That being said, I don't think the restriction will have big impact on Tribal so I am fine either way. The only card I would really not like to see banned is Scavenging Ooze, because it's one of the few good anti-gy cards that you can play in Tribal. But since you also recognize this, there is no worry.
I support your suggestion to restrict Knight of the Reliquary, Tarmogoyf and True-Name Nemesis to their respective tribes only. Especially, I have broke Knight of the Reliquary's fetch ability many times in various of different decks and, I think, it is a fair decision for diversity.
Scavenging Ooze is also good against some specific strategies, but I don't think it is powerful as above three in general matter. Maybe, we can put it on a watch list for a while to see how it will continue to impact.
This is actually something which occurred to me whilst reading the article. It is a definite trend for the FTVs to touch upon all colours and artifacts, which is something we saw clearly in FTV:Annihilation. So, I suspect we may well see angels of all five colours, which isn't particularly difficult given the plethora of Bant, Boros and Orzhov Angels to choose from. Lightning Angel would fit the bill well, Angel of Despair is probably the most well-regarded in black, Platinum Angl is a shoe-in for an Artifact representative.
Also, you're definitely on the 'Ask again' list, Pete. It was indeed fun!
Yes, yes, a thousand times, yes. The dislike to which you allude in your opening sentence was born of inclusions such as those, cards which render the tribe an irrelevance, placed into a deck because their strength can win the game by themselves. Sticking the ones you highlight into the 'own tribes only' list is an elegant and effective solution of which I am entirely in favour. In perhaps the least unexpected expression of support for this idea, you have mine.
im interested to see if they can sell a pack of 15 white cards... white is personally my least favorite color to play. aren't all the other FTV sets a balanced variety of 5 colors?
-j
Great cast !