i belove LD, counterspells, and weird decks, so whenever i lose to shipwreck singer, stymied hopes, LD, or strange flamespeak adept + aqueous form + bident decks (happened yesterday!!), i smile and kind of laugh and think "good job! that was a fun way to lose".
and even when i lose to mana screw, i don't get pissed off because i EXPECT to get mana screwed at least a quarter of my games. (i say "well, it's part of the game, and i can accept that")
but everytime i see those ****ing ordeals turn two or three, i curse and start to hate Magic. i start to think "why did wizards print such limited warping cards?! they don't make the game more enjoyable for me AT ALL!"
advice on how to deal with this? is this normal to have cards you feel are stupid to have to play against?
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Goblins have poor impulse control. Don't click this link!!
some of my favourite flavour text:
Wayward Soul "no home no heart no hope"
—Stronghold graffito
Raging Goblin He raged at the world, at his family, at his life. But mostly he just raged.
Ordeals are by no means the most uninteractive cards you'll ever play against if you continue to play limited for a few formats' duration. Most formats have at least one card or combination of cards which make you mentally facepalm and move on to the next game. For examples, feel free to search the forums for references to Pack Rat or Invisible Stalker + Butcher's Cleaver.
If the annoying card is rare/mythic, and lacks good answers, often the best response is to just suck it up and not let it get you down; alternatively, if it doesn't annoy you too much, you can go back through your plays and figure out whether you could have won through the stupid card if you'd played better.
If, as in the case of Ordeals, the card is an uncommon cycle of five, just sucking up the losses will cause you to lose a lot. In this case the best answers are found in drafting and deckbuilding; the best thing to do is to try and blow up the creature not the Ordeal. Voyage's End is clearly good and should be taken highly, I'd also recommend taking Pharika's Cure higher than you already are. Essentially what you want to do versus Ordeal is to have several answers to the creature, as you lose value from killing the enchantment if you don't do it immediately and killing the enchanted creature leaves you up a card.
You could fight fire with fire and take the ordeals. Otherwise draft decks that make the ordeals an iffy prospect. Voyage's End, Griptide, Lightning Strike, deal with things directly. Nessian Courser and the like give a wall that forces them to 2 for 1 if they attack. Or in the case of my favorite archtype to draft (Vaporkin, Ordeal of Thassa) concede and go to g2.
i actually seem to not ever draft anymore, but only play phantom sealed so "picking" cards to fight against ordeals won't work for me.
but the suggestions still stand: try to deckbuild against ordeals, or if i don't want to do that [ie don't want to have to warp my deck to fit the existence of ordeals], just suck it up the same way as i'd suck it up when i see a mythic bomb or mana screw, and take the loss and hope for a more fun game 2.
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Goblins have poor impulse control. Don't click this link!!
some of my favourite flavour text:
Wayward Soul "no home no heart no hope"
—Stronghold graffito
Raging Goblin He raged at the world, at his family, at his life. But mostly he just raged.
I don't mind the idea of 'walkers in limited, more the idea that Wizards have just given up on ever trying to balance them. Just stick 'em at mythic and hope people don't notice, is the current plan, and that offends me more than any particular game that is an uninteractive mess because we have to share our beautiful limited game with constructed players.
i actually seem to not ever draft anymore, but only play phantom sealed so "picking" cards to fight against ordeals won't work for me.
but the suggestions still stand: try to deckbuild against ordeals, or if i don't want to do that [ie don't want to have to warp my deck to fit the existence of ordeals], just suck it up the same way as i'd suck it up when i see a mythic bomb or mana screw, and take the loss and hope for a more fun game 2.
For me, personally, I've tried both ways and I find that refusing to adapt just makes me hate the format in general.
It's true that it's easy to build decks in this format that would be a lot of fun if there was no necessity to have answers to Ordeals, and it's frustrating that such decks aren't viable because people want to end the game by turn 6. But there's still fun to be had in learning to adapt. For example, this is a great format for learning how to sideboard, thanks to the voltron strategy. Nothing is quite as satisfying as seeing your opponent's turn 2 Phalanx Leader and realizing you have two answers in your hand, ready to punish him for trying to be lame.
Wit's End is the PERFECT answer to your opponent's Monomania however.
Just hold on to your Wit's End when they Monomania, so you can Wit's End them on your next turn!!!
I think this is fairly reminiscent of the "Jace Battles" we have seen in past standards.. My guess is we will soon witness the great Monomania-Wit's End battles.
i don't know if whining like this is allowed in these forums, but i just played a phantom sealed event, which i won. i played 5 theros phantom sealed events so far, and won THREE of them (and 1-2'd and 2-1's the others). and i'm actually a below average player in terms of skill, too!
and each time i won these three phantom events? it's 'cause i always seem to open a pool with most of phalanx leader, favoured hoplite, wingsteed riders, plus things like cantrip auras and aqueous forms and gods willings and ordeals.
the last game was won with a single favoured hoplite, aqueous form, god's willing, an ordeal, and another aura. and these wins feel so /empty/!
MissMua said:
I concur that after a few turns Ordeals lose their power, but if you can play one on turn 2, you're almost guaranteed to win. I'm fairly sure Wizards underestimated their power in design and apparently playtesting has missed them as well.
thanks for putting words to a feeling i have inside!
it's time for karma to come back and make me, like, not open broken white cards -- and for me to be beaten by them.
Dolphan said:
Ordeals are much dodgier in sealed, since it's harder to build the aggro-heroic decks that make best use of them. They don't come down early as much, which brings more answers into play.
if this is true, then i guess i have been EXCEPTIONALLY lucky. (the only thing i love about white blue in this set is Daxos... which i opened in *three* of my five pools! feels weird that it's white, though. feels more blue-black to me, which would explain why i love Daxos.. .)
i guess winning three events by stupid luck is better than losing by stupid luck, but i can just imagine how demoralizing it feels for the other player... .
Voynich said:
But I can certainly understand the frustration if you refuse to ever adopt that cheesy strategy yourself.
eh heh heh... *sweatdrop*
i'll turn myself in. *holds out wrists to be handcuffed*. guilty as (not) charged.
I don't mind the idea of 'walkers in limited, more the idea that Wizards have just given up on ever trying to balance them. Just stick 'em at mythic and hope people don't notice, is the current plan, and that offends me more than any particular game that is an uninteractive mess because we have to share our beautiful limited game with constructed players.
That has always been the way they were. Original Jace was almost completely unbeatable in limited in any game that wasn't a complete blowout and I've seen the first Gideon act as an eight turn fog+repeated removal in games that were already lost without topdecking him, even if they're less blatantly powerful in limited than Elspeth or Memory Adept. Mythics were never, ever an even remotely logical idea for limited. They should have been like tip cards/tokens. Extras that sometimes appear, but always with an actual rare, that you just keep if you open and can't play in limited (unless house rules want to let you).
They should have been like tip cards/tokens. Extras that sometimes appear, but always with an actual rare, that you just keep if you open and can't play in limited (unless house rules want to let you).
oo, i had never thought of that. that makes all kinds of sense, to me!
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Goblins have poor impulse control. Don't click this link!!
some of my favourite flavour text:
Wayward Soul "no home no heart no hope"
—Stronghold graffito
Raging Goblin He raged at the world, at his family, at his life. But mostly he just raged.
Funnily enough, my most hated card is still Behemoth Sledge. At least Pack Rat was a rare. Behemoth Sledge in SCA was just obnoxious and usually unbeatable without sideboarded artifact removal. Of course there probably have been worse cards. But hates and such aren't meant to be rational.
more likely you're being too harsh on your own skill level!
I agree. But, he's Canadian, would you expect any different?
You know, I actually didn't hate on Pack Rat as much as most others simply because of the sheer joy you can get out of actually beating it. My personal favorite was once outracing it, but my second favorite was Detention Sphere. It was funny to occasionally get rage out of a guy that had Pack Rat. Lotleth Troll was also pretty freaking busted. I actually hated facing Lol Troll more than Rat.
The card I think I hated the most to lose to was Umezawa's Jitte. That was just straight up dumb. Unless your opponent was an idiot, you just couldn't really beat it short of having artifact removal. Similar to the Sledge. But, at least Umezawa's was rare. Loxodon Warhammer fills essentially the same butthole uncommon, unraceable equipment role. I don't really know how the Sledge got printed after Warhammer. They realized their mistake and bumped Warhammer up to uncommon, but then had Sledge. I think that Unflinching Courage is as close as you get to a balanced version of the effect.
You know, I actually didn't hate on Pack Rat as much as most others simply because of the sheer joy you can get out of actually beating it. My personal favorite was once outracing it, but my second favorite was Detention Sphere. It was funny to occasionally get rage out of a guy that had Pack Rat. Lotleth Troll was also pretty freaking busted. I actually hated facing Lol Troll more than Rat.
See, I might agree if the win was earned in any real way. There were two ways to beat pack rat, basically. Luck into a rare/uncommon that answers it (Detention Sphere, Supreme Verdict, Mizzium Mortars) and manage to draw it in time or hope he plays like an idiot and runs it out before he can protect it from single target removal. You never really earn wins against Pack Rat, you simply get lucky or hope he plays poorly. Even if you somehow manage to outrace it, you basically just spent ten minutes turning cards sideways and never thinking. That card was all sorts of a mistake from Wizards.
I played 6-packs sealed theros until they yanked them and my observation was that either you played Wx or something else. If not Wx, you often were in the minority usually in the loser bracket. In one selaed we were at least 6 Wx players (I was, played three in three rounds and two of them played another Wx.) The format was a kind of degenerate whoever-sticks-his-wingsteed wins. I still have a typical (?) unpublished pwn screenshot at home with my 9/9, flying, vigilance lifelink monster.
Ordeals are just a symptom of an overall malaise in 6-booster sealed in Theros.
Every game you win is a game where you had a fair bit of luck. Luck isn't what determines whether you "earned" a win. The only way that term has any meaning at all is if you use it to mean you played well.
For example, if you have Detention Sphere and you have the Discipline to wait to hit the Rat until he spends 4 cards to it, then sure, you absolutely "earned" your win. Saying he won because he got lucky with his opens is pointless, because everyone does, always, with every game.
Wit's End is the PERFECT answer to your opponent's Monomania however.
Just hold on to your Wit's End when they Monomania, so you can Wit's End them on your next turn!!!
I think this is fairly reminiscent of the "Jace Battles" we have seen in past standards.. My guess is we will soon witness the great Monomania-Wit's End battles.
I played 6-packs sealed theros until they yanked them and my observation was that either you played Wx or something else. If not Wx, you often were in the minority usually in the loser bracket. In one selaed we were at least 6 Wx players (I was, played three in three rounds and two of them played another Wx.) The format was a kind of degenerate whoever-sticks-his-wingsteed wins. I still have a typical (?) unpublished pwn screenshot at home with my 9/9, flying, vigilance lifelink monster.
Ordeals are just a symptom of an overall malaise in 6-booster sealed in Theros.
I've won a number of those 6 pack sealeds without going Wx. I think a lot of times people see how strong those types of decks are and try to force it when their pool just isn't deep enough to support it.
Every game you win is a game where you had a fair bit of luck. Luck isn't what determines whether you "earned" a win. The only way that term has any meaning at all is if you use it to mean you played well.
For example, if you have Detention Sphere and you have the Discipline to wait to hit the Rat until he spends 4 cards to it, then sure, you absolutely "earned" your win. Saying he won because he got lucky with his opens is pointless, because everyone does, always, with every game.
The first statement is utter nonsense in limited. I just finished a ROE draft online where my opponent had absolutely absurd luck (we were laughing about it the entire time) and I didn't have any sort of ridiculous drafting luck (no bombs and a UW levelers deck that got cut out of all but a handful of solid levelers), yet I still outplayed him significantly and 2-0ed him. I completely earned it. That's what I meant.
The second statement is silly. If all he's doing is chucking cards to Pack Rat and you have Detention Sphere, you obviously just wait until he'll overrun you with them before you use it. It's not like you deserve to lose (no one earns wins with Pack Rat, either), but it certainly wasn't even a remotely challenging play. You just have a different (arbitrary) definition of earning a win. I think you earn a win when you pull out a victory in a situation where a mediocre player wouldn't have. If anyone could have won when you did if they swapped places, I'm not sure why you'd say they earned a win.
He said it was the most insane populate deck ever. That means it was beyond a normal draw which means he got far more lucky than normal. If his play wouldn't have won him the game with a more normal level of deck, he didn't really earn it - although that's because Pack Rat is so degenerate that he didn't have a chance to.
How is your definition useful for anything, though?
Say we're playing Poker, and I get four aces, and I go all in, but you have a straight flush. Did I get lucky or unlucky? Obviously unlucky, right? Extremely unlucky, in fact. The statistical favorability of getting four of a kind doesn't mean squat unless it actually results in a favorable outcome for me personally.
In the same way, getting an amazing populate deck on its own isn't lucky unless I can leverage it to win games. If my opponents all managed to open crazy bombs that answer my deck well, and I lose all my matches, then I certainly didn't get lucky. So if my opponent gets crazy bombs that answer my deck well and I still beat them, how is that not an earned win?
Saying that individual improbably favorable events invalidate your ability to earn a win is absurd. EVERY event that happens is both individually improbable, and favorable to one side or the other.
Wit's End is the PERFECT answer to your opponent's Monomania however.
Just hold on to your Wit's End when they Monomania, so you can Wit's End them on your next turn!!!
I think this is fairly reminiscent of the "Jace Battles" we have seen in past standards.. My guess is we will soon witness the great Monomania-Wit's End battles.
The most insane populate deck you've ever drafted sounds like you had a fair bit of luck. =p
Well, I absolutely did get lucky to get all of the cards I did. I mean, who expects to get 6 Centaur's Herald in a draft deck? Of course, my 'lucky' deck didn't have any rares or mythics in it either, which seems to be the grist for this thread.
Funnily enough, my most hated card is still Behemoth Sledge. At least Pack Rat was a rare. Behemoth Sledge in SCA was just obnoxious and usually unbeatable without sideboarded artifact removal. Of course there probably have been worse cards. But hates and such aren't meant to be rational.
That has always been the way they were. Original Jace was almost completely unbeatable in limited in any game that wasn't a complete blowout and I've seen the first Gideon act as an eight turn fog+repeated removal in games that were already lost without topdecking him, even if they're less blatantly powerful in limited than Elspeth or Memory Adept. Mythics were never, ever an even remotely logical idea for limited. They should have been like tip cards/tokens. Extras that sometimes appear, but always with an actual rare, that you just keep if you open and can't play in limited (unless house rules want to let you).
Favored Hoplite into Ordeal is pretty much unwinnable. Even with Baleful Eidolon or Sedge Scorpion you won't kill the creature before the Ordeal went off and that's assuming they don't have some turn 3 play.
This is patently false. You can block and kill Hoplite the turn after the ordeal hits having only taken 3 damage.
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and even when i lose to mana screw, i don't get pissed off because i EXPECT to get mana screwed at least a quarter of my games. (i say "well, it's part of the game, and i can accept that")
but everytime i see those ****ing ordeals turn two or three, i curse and start to hate Magic. i start to think "why did wizards print such limited warping cards?! they don't make the game more enjoyable for me AT ALL!"
advice on how to deal with this? is this normal to have cards you feel are stupid to have to play against?
Goblins have poor impulse control. Don't click this link!!
some of my favourite flavour text:
Wayward Soul
"no home no heart no hope"
—Stronghold graffito
Raging Goblin
He raged at the world, at his family, at his life. But mostly he just raged.
If the annoying card is rare/mythic, and lacks good answers, often the best response is to just suck it up and not let it get you down; alternatively, if it doesn't annoy you too much, you can go back through your plays and figure out whether you could have won through the stupid card if you'd played better.
If, as in the case of Ordeals, the card is an uncommon cycle of five, just sucking up the losses will cause you to lose a lot. In this case the best answers are found in drafting and deckbuilding; the best thing to do is to try and blow up the creature not the Ordeal. Voyage's End is clearly good and should be taken highly, I'd also recommend taking Pharika's Cure higher than you already are. Essentially what you want to do versus Ordeal is to have several answers to the creature, as you lose value from killing the enchantment if you don't do it immediately and killing the enchanted creature leaves you up a card.
I hate playing against planeswalkers in limited.
but the suggestions still stand: try to deckbuild against ordeals, or if i don't want to do that [ie don't want to have to warp my deck to fit the existence of ordeals], just suck it up the same way as i'd suck it up when i see a mythic bomb or mana screw, and take the loss and hope for a more fun game 2.
Goblins have poor impulse control. Don't click this link!!
some of my favourite flavour text:
Wayward Soul
"no home no heart no hope"
—Stronghold graffito
Raging Goblin
He raged at the world, at his family, at his life. But mostly he just raged.
I don't mind the idea of 'walkers in limited, more the idea that Wizards have just given up on ever trying to balance them. Just stick 'em at mythic and hope people don't notice, is the current plan, and that offends me more than any particular game that is an uninteractive mess because we have to share our beautiful limited game with constructed players.
For me, personally, I've tried both ways and I find that refusing to adapt just makes me hate the format in general.
It's true that it's easy to build decks in this format that would be a lot of fun if there was no necessity to have answers to Ordeals, and it's frustrating that such decks aren't viable because people want to end the game by turn 6. But there's still fun to be had in learning to adapt. For example, this is a great format for learning how to sideboard, thanks to the voltron strategy. Nothing is quite as satisfying as seeing your opponent's turn 2 Phalanx Leader and realizing you have two answers in your hand, ready to punish him for trying to be lame.
and each time i won these three phantom events? it's 'cause i always seem to open a pool with most of phalanx leader, favoured hoplite, wingsteed riders, plus things like cantrip auras and aqueous forms and gods willings and ordeals.
the last game was won with a single favoured hoplite, aqueous form, god's willing, an ordeal, and another aura. and these wins feel so /empty/!
MissMua said:
thanks for putting words to a feeling i have inside!
it's time for karma to come back and make me, like, not open broken white cards -- and for me to be beaten by them.
Dolphan said:
if this is true, then i guess i have been EXCEPTIONALLY lucky. (the only thing i love about white blue in this set is Daxos... which i opened in *three* of my five pools! feels weird that it's white, though. feels more blue-black to me, which would explain why i love Daxos.. .)
i guess winning three events by stupid luck is better than losing by stupid luck, but i can just imagine how demoralizing it feels for the other player... .
Voynich said:
eh heh heh... *sweatdrop*
i'll turn myself in. *holds out wrists to be handcuffed*. guilty as (not) charged.
Goblins have poor impulse control. Don't click this link!!
some of my favourite flavour text:
Wayward Soul
"no home no heart no hope"
—Stronghold graffito
Raging Goblin
He raged at the world, at his family, at his life. But mostly he just raged.
That has always been the way they were. Original Jace was almost completely unbeatable in limited in any game that wasn't a complete blowout and I've seen the first Gideon act as an eight turn fog+repeated removal in games that were already lost without topdecking him, even if they're less blatantly powerful in limited than Elspeth or Memory Adept. Mythics were never, ever an even remotely logical idea for limited. They should have been like tip cards/tokens. Extras that sometimes appear, but always with an actual rare, that you just keep if you open and can't play in limited (unless house rules want to let you).
oo, i had never thought of that. that makes all kinds of sense, to me!
Goblins have poor impulse control. Don't click this link!!
some of my favourite flavour text:
Wayward Soul
"no home no heart no hope"
—Stronghold graffito
Raging Goblin
He raged at the world, at his family, at his life. But mostly he just raged.
I agree. But, he's Canadian, would you expect any different?
You know, I actually didn't hate on Pack Rat as much as most others simply because of the sheer joy you can get out of actually beating it. My personal favorite was once outracing it, but my second favorite was Detention Sphere. It was funny to occasionally get rage out of a guy that had Pack Rat. Lotleth Troll was also pretty freaking busted. I actually hated facing Lol Troll more than Rat.
The card I think I hated the most to lose to was Umezawa's Jitte. That was just straight up dumb. Unless your opponent was an idiot, you just couldn't really beat it short of having artifact removal. Similar to the Sledge. But, at least Umezawa's was rare. Loxodon Warhammer fills essentially the same butthole uncommon, unraceable equipment role. I don't really know how the Sledge got printed after Warhammer. They realized their mistake and bumped Warhammer up to uncommon, but then had Sledge. I think that Unflinching Courage is as close as you get to a balanced version of the effect.
See, I might agree if the win was earned in any real way. There were two ways to beat pack rat, basically. Luck into a rare/uncommon that answers it (Detention Sphere, Supreme Verdict, Mizzium Mortars) and manage to draw it in time or hope he plays like an idiot and runs it out before he can protect it from single target removal. You never really earn wins against Pack Rat, you simply get lucky or hope he plays poorly. Even if you somehow manage to outrace it, you basically just spent ten minutes turning cards sideways and never thinking. That card was all sorts of a mistake from Wizards.
Ordeals are just a symptom of an overall malaise in 6-booster sealed in Theros.
I beat pack rat once (with the most insane populate deck I've ever drafted). Just saying.
The most insane populate deck you've ever drafted sounds like you had a fair bit of luck. =p
For example, if you have Detention Sphere and you have the Discipline to wait to hit the Rat until he spends 4 cards to it, then sure, you absolutely "earned" your win. Saying he won because he got lucky with his opens is pointless, because everyone does, always, with every game.
I've won a number of those 6 pack sealeds without going Wx. I think a lot of times people see how strong those types of decks are and try to force it when their pool just isn't deep enough to support it.
The first statement is utter nonsense in limited. I just finished a ROE draft online where my opponent had absolutely absurd luck (we were laughing about it the entire time) and I didn't have any sort of ridiculous drafting luck (no bombs and a UW levelers deck that got cut out of all but a handful of solid levelers), yet I still outplayed him significantly and 2-0ed him. I completely earned it. That's what I meant.
The second statement is silly. If all he's doing is chucking cards to Pack Rat and you have Detention Sphere, you obviously just wait until he'll overrun you with them before you use it. It's not like you deserve to lose (no one earns wins with Pack Rat, either), but it certainly wasn't even a remotely challenging play. You just have a different (arbitrary) definition of earning a win. I think you earn a win when you pull out a victory in a situation where a mediocre player wouldn't have. If anyone could have won when you did if they swapped places, I'm not sure why you'd say they earned a win.
He said it was the most insane populate deck ever. That means it was beyond a normal draw which means he got far more lucky than normal. If his play wouldn't have won him the game with a more normal level of deck, he didn't really earn it - although that's because Pack Rat is so degenerate that he didn't have a chance to.
Say we're playing Poker, and I get four aces, and I go all in, but you have a straight flush. Did I get lucky or unlucky? Obviously unlucky, right? Extremely unlucky, in fact. The statistical favorability of getting four of a kind doesn't mean squat unless it actually results in a favorable outcome for me personally.
In the same way, getting an amazing populate deck on its own isn't lucky unless I can leverage it to win games. If my opponents all managed to open crazy bombs that answer my deck well, and I lose all my matches, then I certainly didn't get lucky. So if my opponent gets crazy bombs that answer my deck well and I still beat them, how is that not an earned win?
Saying that individual improbably favorable events invalidate your ability to earn a win is absurd. EVERY event that happens is both individually improbable, and favorable to one side or the other.
Well, I absolutely did get lucky to get all of the cards I did. I mean, who expects to get 6 Centaur's Herald in a draft deck? Of course, my 'lucky' deck didn't have any rares or mythics in it either, which seems to be the grist for this thread.
For what it's worth, I felt I earned my win.
You have clearly never been on wrong end of a Charging Troll wearing an Armadillo Cloak.
Only started playing at Lorwyn, so no.
Jace Beleren was a completely unbeatable blowout in limited but Ajani Vengeant isn't worth mentioning?
This is patently false. You can block and kill Hoplite the turn after the ordeal hits having only taken 3 damage.