So, played in a sealed PPTQ last weekend. Ended up getting shipped a disgustingly good sealed pool. I was able to play all 6 rares: Abzan Ascendancy, Mastery of the Unseen, Dromoka, the Eternal, Mardu Strike Leader, Utter End, and Wingmate Roc. I had some other nice removal and a couple uncommon dragons. All in all, a deck I couldn't help but be happy with. Of course, Swiss rounds weren't quite as smooth as I would have hoped. I drew round 2 because I may have played against my opponent's Yasova incorrectly (plus I never drew any removal for it). And round 5, I lost partly because of some mana issues (screw game one after keeping a two lander on the draw, and flood game 3). Still had a shot game 3, but couldn't quite get things to line up the way I needed.
Either way, I finished 4-1-1 and ended up in the top 8 draft. I first picked a Mastery of the Unseen, and found myself in Jeskai, which is the color combination I struggle with the most. Also, all but one person at the table ended up in white. Awkward.
I did end up getting a Jeskai Ascendancy, which was fun. Unfortunately, I didn't play my games well enough. I realized 2 things after the match. Both games I lost, I could have been swinging in a bit more because my opponent would not have blocked fearing prowess shenanigans. Game 1, I had lethal on board, but I was afraid my opponent would block one of my guys, and then I'd lose next turn. I realized that based upon how my opponent played out the rest of the match, he probably wouldn't have blocked and been blindsided by a Defiant Strike, Trumpet Blast, Temur Battlerage, prowess trigger lethal attack. I think that has been my problem piloting Jeskai decks in the past, is that with prowess, I can bluff a lot to get in more early damage and then swing big and catch my opponents off guard.
Either way, it was fun and a nice change from all the Standard PPTQ's I've had to play in.
That list of rares makes me incredibly jealous (my PPTQ was unplayable garbage). Six rares that range from "strong" to "absurd" within the same clan? Yeah, that's pretty nice! I bet you wish the top 8 used the sealed pools
I'm actually enjoying this format a whole lot. I have no idea why, but I like FKK better than triple Khans. Manifest plays a lot better than I had anticipated, and I think the format has slowed down a bit, which I'm always a fan of. I've been sick for the past few days, so I've been doing nothing but lying in bed & drafted FKK.
Manifest plays a lot better than I had anticipated
Right? I was unimpressed during the spoiler, but it's been fun!
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I realized that based upon how my opponent played out the rest of the match, he probably wouldn't have blocked and been blindsided by a Defiant Strike, Trumpet Blast, Temur Battlerage, prowess trigger lethal attack. I think that has been my problem piloting Jeskai decks in the past, is that with prowess, I can bluff a lot to get in more early damage and then swing big and catch my opponents off guard.
From my perspective it would be somewhat ridiculous if your opponent was "off guard" in such a situation. Jeskai decks almost always have War Flare or Trumpet Blast because if they draw one it's unlikely to be useful early, so it will sit in their hand. As such, any time either of those cards could mean lethal you need a very good reason to not block!
Congrats on the T8! Is there a correct way to play around Yasova? I always assumed it was a remove-this-or-die card.
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<Limited Clan>
I've fought my way through Yasova a couple of times without killing it, but it ain't easy. It's definitely a strong card.
Did any of you watch NumottheNummy's stream yesterday? I hadn't watched him before, but it was pretty great. Livestream of a PTQ (well, with a 10-minute delay) where he made the final, and a ton of nailbiters on the way there. I disagreed with many of his decisions during the draft, not least hatedrafting a Sultai Emissary instead of taking a Collateral Damage for his deck. Ironically, he ended up losing the third game in the final, a pretty sick game, to Collateral Damage. Perhaps not the same one, of course, but not unlikely!
In other news, the final chapters of HPMOR are being released now, which excites me more than I care to admit. I don't remember if any of you are into it (though I seem to remember that PhanTom is), but it's pretty sweet. Quickly summarized: it's an alternative universe where Harry is incredibly smart & an aspiring scientist, and part of the story is the humor of throwing this highly logical mind into the highly illogical world of wizardry and seeing how he handles it, and partly it's essentially an introduction to rational thinking, akin to how Sophie's World is to philosophy. It's also a really intriguing story in its own right, made interesting by the enemy being (at least) equally smarter than canon-Voldemort as Harry is than canon-Harry. The author hasn't been posting new chapters in a long time, having just worked on the final 20 or so for like a year, but now he's apparently done, and releasing one chapter a day.
I just had a look at that pool (yeah, I'm a bit behind on these things - interest in Magic has been a bit low the past few weeks, but I'm going to pick it up again for GP Liverpool in three weeks). That has to be one of the worst piles I've ever seen, and I think dropping straight away was a solid play. I guess if there weren't many rounds (five or less) you might just try to get there with the UR pile.
Are you planning to play any other PPTQs? I'm actually considering to fly to Stockholm for the PTQ. The projection for that PTQ is about 30 players. That's a 1/8 chance to Q - like going straight into top 8. Seems worth the extra money.
You really just need to embrace the rage. I keep a small colony of hamsters next to my computer and every time I lose a match to mana screw I throw one against the wall.
No, sadly, we don't have any more. The playerbase here is solid (I'd estimate it at 500 tournament players in this area), but we only have one L2 judge for the entire country (L2s are required for PPTQs), and most of the activity is at a single store (the only one in Oslo), and that store, however big, will only get one PPTQ per season. And at that one I got that pool I linked to.
But yes, I think it's totally worth it to go to Stockholm. Unless, of course, a lot of other players have reached the same conclusion.
I read HPMOR last year and really enjoyed big parts of it, although the large sections of it that were basically authorial inserts of opinions on subjects like morality, blame, responsibility, death, sapience, and religion kinda turned me off it. I just couldn't get past my irritation at how Harry would suddenly decide to stop being a scientist for however long it took to harangue someone for having opinions which are equally as unprovable as his own, especially in a universe that's different enough from our own that some of the opinions he holds are just completely nonsensical. I also found his amazing skill at everything he attempted to be a little tiresome; application of rational thought makes a lot of things easier, but that doesn't mean he needs to have fantastic reflexes and godly willpower and total clarity of mind and focus that basically automatically trumps everything anyone else ever does. You can tell the author is really impressed with the character he created. That said, I did like the actual story part of the story, and will probably pick it up again at some point.
@bateleur Indeed it would be somewhat ridiculous to be caught "off guard." That being said, my opponent did not seem to be the strongest. Game 2, which I won, I had Jeskai Ascendancy on board with two creatures. I attacked. He chose to block neither. I then happily played a couple of spells, stacked my triggers, and won the game. Blocking meant he was almost certainly losing a creature, but he seemed to think there wasn't much chance of me actually having the spells in hand to win at that point. When I mentioned to him after the match that I had combinations of cards in games 1 and 3 that would have gotten me very close to winning, he was shocked. His has simply assumed that being at 16 or 17 life was perfectly safe, which is why I think he may not have blocked game one, and I might have missed the opportunity to steal a win. Ah well.
I was hoping that I would be able to head down to Memphis this weekend to play my Temur Aggro deck at the GP. Unfortunately, this is the week that my professor decided to load us up with homework, so taking a trip this weekend would be very ill-advised. (Also, I don't really have the money for it.) So instead I will try to get some work done, then try out the last PPTQ in our area. A local shop has 3 different stores, so they are hosting three PPTQs at their larger location (Standard and Sealed on Saturday and Mondern on Sunday). I can't play on Sunday, plus I don't play much Modern. So Saturday will be interesting. My chances of opening another broken pool seem low, but the sealed tournament will most likely be smaller. I have had some good success with my Standard deck (a PTQ top 8 and a PPTQ top 4) and still feel good about it and some changes I've made since FRF was released. So unless there are fewer than 20 people doing Sealed, I will probably play in standard and hope for the best.
I read HPMOR last year and really enjoyed big parts of it, although the large sections of it that were basically authorial inserts of opinions on subjects like morality, blame, responsibility, death, sapience, and religion kinda turned me off it. I just couldn't get past my irritation at how Harry would suddenly decide to stop being a scientist for however long it took to harangue someone for having opinions which are equally as unprovable as his own, especially in a universe that's different enough from our own that some of the opinions he holds are just completely nonsensical. I also found his amazing skill at everything he attempted to be a little tiresome; application of rational thought makes a lot of things easier, but that doesn't mean he needs to have fantastic reflexes and godly willpower and total clarity of mind and focus that basically automatically trumps everything anyone else ever does. You can tell the author is really impressed with the character he created. That said, I did like the actual story part of the story, and will probably pick it up again at some point.
True, he's kind of OP. But the enemy is even more OP & always 2 steps ahead of him, so it's not like he always wins. And as for the opinions you're talking about, those are opinions I either 100% share, or accept as an interesting way of thinking about it, which makes them more tolerable I suppose
Anyway, I just checked my stats spreadsheet, and I've actually played quite a bit more FKK than triple Khans at this point. I've been mostly bedridden for a week and a half or so, and I haven't done much but play Modo, so I've played more FKK than any other format for in the past 2-3 years. I feel pretty good about it too, so I guess I wish I was going to GP Liverpool now. Unfortunately I can't, due to work. But GP Firenze flights are booked tonight!
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A friend convinced me to go to the prerelease today (originally wasn't intending to), and it was good. The set seems like it could be quite good for limited. All the games I played today, with one exception due to an opponent keeping two lands on the play and manascrewing, were very interactive and fun games of Magic. I had a bombless UB deck which I went 4-1 with (losing to said friend, who went 5-0). I had a decent amount of good removal, though (2 Ultimate Price, 2 Defeat, 1 Douse in Gloom), and the deck had a lot of play to it.
Some interesting cards: Monastery Loremaster - I expected him to be good, and he really delivered. I'm very excited about drafting this new Mnemonic Wall. Profaner of the Dead - Opened two of these (it was my promo), and they were mediocre. Removed one of them from my deck after a couple of rounds. Though it did do a solid job against Ojutai's Summons in one game. I guess they could be good in board stall games, but interestingly enough, I didn't see any real board stalls all day. Mystic Meditation - Better than I expected. I didn't even start mine, but added it to my deck after two rounds after being convinced by my friend to do so. It seemed a bit clunky to me at first, but it was very solid.
Overall, I'm looking forward to playing more with this set. It looks good to me.
Just got back from the prerelease myself. Had some fun, but the format is very different from the Magic I'm used to playing, just because removal is as good as its been in a long, long time. I had a pretty nice pool with some major endgame to it (double Ojutai's Summons, 3 rare dragons, Sarkhan and Ugin) and enough mana fixing that I basically felt obligated to go for the 4-color special, but I had very little removal. Predictably I got utterly wrecked by decks that were curving out into multiple removal spells, so ended up 3-2. I tried siding into a lower curve but that didn't really help because removal is removal; eventually I got myself a clue and brought in Glint and Coat with Venom, which should probably both have been in the maindeck from the beginning.
I've never been a huge fan of sets with removal this strong, just because it makes formats so swingy, but I'll admit I'm pretty ready for a change from what we've had in the past few blocks, so I guess I'm glad for a format with some different kinds of play.
I think Exploit is going to end up as one of my favorite mechanics ever. It's just so sweet!
I swept the three prerelease events I played, running UB twice and UW once. I'm with Sene, in that it all felt fairly interactive and fun. Hopefully that maintains for a while.
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I agree with that. I only played in one prerelease but it was a lot of fun. Exploit was such a fun mechanic and provided a lot of enjoyment in being able to turn a lot of things into value. I played UB with a stupidly good pool. 2 Ultimate Price, 1 Flatten, Silumgar, Silumgar Assassin, 3 Ojutai Breath, 2 Anticipates and a bunch of the value exploit dudes like the -3/-3 and the 2x zombie guys. I too loved the Loremaster and Gurmag Drowner. Those were great things to play.
It did seem very swingy, but it was a lot of fun and really interactive. The last couple rounds at my prerelease were some of the most intense/close games of magic I've played in a long time.
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Man, I've played so little Magic lately... I did do a couple triple ARB phantom drafts. Had some trouble, kind of bad at the new client... declined to cascade once, and it cost me a game in an intense jund mirror.
Had fun with ARB, though. It was nice to sling cards again.
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I'll be sad if people don't start calling The Chain Veil "Fleetwood Mac."
Man, I've played so little Magic lately... I did do a couple triple ARB phantom drafts. Had some trouble, kind of bad at the new client... declined to cascade once, and it cost me a game in an intense jund mirror.
Had fun with ARB, though. It was nice to sling cards again.
Oh no! Triple Alara Reborn is just about the worst format I can imagine Should at least have done FKK, or even better, triple RoE, which was online a couple of weeks ago.
See, I got back into magic after an eight year break during Conflux. So, I have a weird love for triple Conflux (first draft ever), triple ARB, and just about any combination of Shards block.
Triple ARB was a lot less fun than I remembered, but it's honestly a pleasure just to draft a format that I know the ins and outs of.
Triple ROE is probably my second favorite format of all time (first being Innistrad, I know I missed the golden age of limited, RGD through TFP, oh well) so I would've loved to do that. I'll have to start paying more attention.
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I'll be sad if people don't start calling The Chain Veil "Fleetwood Mac."
Yeah, I'll continue singing the praises of TPF if you give me the opportunity It felt great last year, when there were a couple of weeks of TPF flashback drafts on Modo, to see the reactions of the players in the Limited sub who hadn't drafted the format before. After having touted the format as the best of all time for years, it was awesome to see how many of the other guys also thought it was amazing (this post and onwards is just one big TPF lovefest).
Anyway, as for the current format, I really haven't figured it out yet. I've done eight DDF drafts, and haven't done too well. My impression from the prerelease was that it was a reasonably slow and interactive format, but that has not been my impression in the drafts I have done; durdly strategies have been destroyed, removal hasn't been great, and aggressive decks have been the best by a fair amount. When I'm drafting blue, I'm eschewing the exploit cards and such in favor of more aggressive options, which is really not what I'd hoped would happen. So far I'm a little let down, but we'll see. It'll be interesting to follow the Pro Tour! I'm very curious to see what the pros have figured out about the format.
Well, I've only played one draft of the format and got bored.
I suppose part of it is that I'm completely lost faith in WotC's ability to design for Limited. It was Gatecrash that did it, really. RtR was a great set, so Gatecrash and Dragon's Maze ought to have been like shooting fish in a barrel.
Oh well, I gave up after Ice Age thinking I wouldn't play again, which turned out to be very wrong, so who knows what the future may hold?
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I still think modern Limited is fun - most of the time. Theros was atrocious; it's easily my least favorite block, but both Khans and Fate Reforged were, I thought, quite good. Which isn't to say that neither have their fair share of (in my mind) mistakes, but I found them quite enjoyable. Besides, Modern Masters and Vintage Masters were both great, and I have high hopes for both Modern Masters 2015 and Tempest Remastered.
There are definitely some design choices they keep making that I don't understand, but the thing that I've been noticing is that most of the recent draft formats have a pretty samey feel to them. I mean, I still enjoy playing the individual games, but I do miss the days where you could draft truly wonky decks and do okay with them. Nothing we've had in the past several years has really compared to being able to draft a Wall deck in RoE or a Giants deck in Lorwyn, or a Zubera deck in Kamigawa. These days the synergy decks are much more tame and less risky, and I just find the prospect of a new format a lot less exciting than I used to. Nothing really changes.
I mean, I still enjoy playing the individual games, but I do miss the days where you could draft truly wonky decks and do okay with them.
Doing okay with the wonky decks is still possible. There are still build-around-me cards floating around. Goblinslide. Spellheart Chimera. Maze's End. Assault Formation.
I'm not too fond of DTK, though, as decks tend to be too aggressive to allow for my creative deckbuilding. Trying the ramp - Savage Ventmaw - Clone Legion 'combo' deck earned me a quick 0-3 at the FNM last week ...
Trying the ramp - Savage Ventmaw - Clone Legion 'combo' deck earned me a quick 0-3 at the FNM last week ...
But never mind the result - did you get the combo off?
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I'll just paste my facebook post on the Belgian group here (cause I've been typing on my phone a lot already) - ignore the references to people you don't know.
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Yay!!
So here's a short not-quite-tournament report. (I'm leaving out the tournament itself cause match reports are boring and I just want to tag a few people. 😌)
I went to Stockholm because I totally didn't feel like playing this ptq. I generally don't enjoy Standard and didn't have much time to test, and just didn't feel like it. So when I had to choose between Stockholm, Düsseldorf and skipping it, I felt all the options were bad. Even skipping, because then I'd feel guilty towards Chris (who I beat in the finals of the pptq) and never want to play another pptq. Therefore the only way to save my weekend was by qualifying, so I went to Stockholm as that gave me the best odds of that. That meant I'd have to go alone unfortunately, but I was not there to have fun, only to qualify.
For my deck I saw two options. Esper dragons was an easy default choice, but I also really liked the look of Wescoe's Bant deck. I tested one evening with Robbert, Yannick en Wim, where I played the Bant deck. I figured if I didn't like it I could fall back on Esper. I actually liked the deck but it seemed way too hard to play. I felt that, with at most one more evening to test, I wouldn't be able to play that deck well enough, so I picked Esper.
As it turned out I didn't manage to find time to join another testing session. Which meant r1 of the ptq was my first game with the deck. But that was fine because the deck looked quite easy to play, and control decks are pretty natural to me. Also I read a bit about the various decks in the format so I felt decently prepared.
I made an adaptation to the deck to beat the mirror. I put in Pearl Lake Ancient maindeck instead of Ugin and replaced Disdainful Stroke with Dragonlord's Prerogative. This way I would have inevitability as well as more card draw. I've seen some lists which only add Prerogative, which doesn't make much sense to me because I read game 1 in the mirror often comes down to decking. I thought my changes should give me a pretty big edge in the mirror, but I was still a bit unsure because it was all just theory as I didn't test anything. Anyway it worked out fine as PLA destroyed the one mirror I played and I never missed Ugin in the other matches.
In the tournament I beat Abzan aggro, RG dragons, Esper and mono red. Then I wanted to draw against my r5 opponent (who was also 4-0) but for some reason he didn't want to. So I crushed him (he was also mono red). I felt like this was a good omen because in the pptq I was also 4-0 in a 6-round tournament, and also unable to draw because I was downpaired against Michael. This worked out well because I then got top seed for top 8, and it was the same now. My quarter final (or let's call it final) was a rematch from round 1 (Abzan aggro) and despite losing game 1 I came back for the win. 😄
Thanks a lot to Yannick for lending me the deck!
Thanks all for the support! Especially Pascal Marijn Robbert Jan Yannick.
You really just need to embrace the rage. I keep a small colony of hamsters next to my computer and every time I lose a match to mana screw I throw one against the wall.
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Either way, I finished 4-1-1 and ended up in the top 8 draft. I first picked a Mastery of the Unseen, and found myself in Jeskai, which is the color combination I struggle with the most. Also, all but one person at the table ended up in white. Awkward.
I did end up getting a Jeskai Ascendancy, which was fun. Unfortunately, I didn't play my games well enough. I realized 2 things after the match. Both games I lost, I could have been swinging in a bit more because my opponent would not have blocked fearing prowess shenanigans. Game 1, I had lethal on board, but I was afraid my opponent would block one of my guys, and then I'd lose next turn. I realized that based upon how my opponent played out the rest of the match, he probably wouldn't have blocked and been blindsided by a Defiant Strike, Trumpet Blast, Temur Battlerage, prowess trigger lethal attack. I think that has been my problem piloting Jeskai decks in the past, is that with prowess, I can bluff a lot to get in more early damage and then swing big and catch my opponents off guard.
Either way, it was fun and a nice change from all the Standard PPTQ's I've had to play in.
I'm actually enjoying this format a whole lot. I have no idea why, but I like FKK better than triple Khans. Manifest plays a lot better than I had anticipated, and I think the format has slowed down a bit, which I'm always a fan of. I've been sick for the past few days, so I've been doing nothing but lying in bed & drafted FKK.
@Promatim: I don't think so.
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Grimgrin, Corpseborn
Modern: Polytokes
IRL: Progenitus Polymorph , Goblins
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Congrats on the T8! Is there a correct way to play around Yasova? I always assumed it was a remove-this-or-die card.
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<Limited Clan>
Did any of you watch NumottheNummy's stream yesterday? I hadn't watched him before, but it was pretty great. Livestream of a PTQ (well, with a 10-minute delay) where he made the final, and a ton of nailbiters on the way there. I disagreed with many of his decisions during the draft, not least hatedrafting a Sultai Emissary instead of taking a Collateral Damage for his deck. Ironically, he ended up losing the third game in the final, a pretty sick game, to Collateral Damage. Perhaps not the same one, of course, but not unlikely!
In other news, the final chapters of HPMOR are being released now, which excites me more than I care to admit. I don't remember if any of you are into it (though I seem to remember that PhanTom is), but it's pretty sweet. Quickly summarized: it's an alternative universe where Harry is incredibly smart & an aspiring scientist, and part of the story is the humor of throwing this highly logical mind into the highly illogical world of wizardry and seeing how he handles it, and partly it's essentially an introduction to rational thinking, akin to how Sophie's World is to philosophy. It's also a really intriguing story in its own right, made interesting by the enemy being (at least) equally smarter than canon-Voldemort as Harry is than canon-Harry. The author hasn't been posting new chapters in a long time, having just worked on the final 20 or so for like a year, but now he's apparently done, and releasing one chapter a day.
I just had a look at that pool (yeah, I'm a bit behind on these things - interest in Magic has been a bit low the past few weeks, but I'm going to pick it up again for GP Liverpool in three weeks). That has to be one of the worst piles I've ever seen, and I think dropping straight away was a solid play. I guess if there weren't many rounds (five or less) you might just try to get there with the UR pile.
Are you planning to play any other PPTQs? I'm actually considering to fly to Stockholm for the PTQ. The projection for that PTQ is about 30 players. That's a 1/8 chance to Q - like going straight into top 8. Seems worth the extra money.
But yes, I think it's totally worth it to go to Stockholm. Unless, of course, a lot of other players have reached the same conclusion.
I was hoping that I would be able to head down to Memphis this weekend to play my Temur Aggro deck at the GP. Unfortunately, this is the week that my professor decided to load us up with homework, so taking a trip this weekend would be very ill-advised. (Also, I don't really have the money for it.) So instead I will try to get some work done, then try out the last PPTQ in our area. A local shop has 3 different stores, so they are hosting three PPTQs at their larger location (Standard and Sealed on Saturday and Mondern on Sunday). I can't play on Sunday, plus I don't play much Modern. So Saturday will be interesting. My chances of opening another broken pool seem low, but the sealed tournament will most likely be smaller. I have had some good success with my Standard deck (a PTQ top 8 and a PPTQ top 4) and still feel good about it and some changes I've made since FRF was released. So unless there are fewer than 20 people doing Sealed, I will probably play in standard and hope for the best.
Anyway, I just checked my stats spreadsheet, and I've actually played quite a bit more FKK than triple Khans at this point. I've been mostly bedridden for a week and a half or so, and I haven't done much but play Modo, so I've played more FKK than any other format for in the past 2-3 years. I feel pretty good about it too, so I guess I wish I was going to GP Liverpool now. Unfortunately I can't, due to work. But GP Firenze flights are booked tonight!
A friend convinced me to go to the prerelease today (originally wasn't intending to), and it was good. The set seems like it could be quite good for limited. All the games I played today, with one exception due to an opponent keeping two lands on the play and manascrewing, were very interactive and fun games of Magic. I had a bombless UB deck which I went 4-1 with (losing to said friend, who went 5-0). I had a decent amount of good removal, though (2 Ultimate Price, 2 Defeat, 1 Douse in Gloom), and the deck had a lot of play to it.
Some interesting cards:
Monastery Loremaster - I expected him to be good, and he really delivered. I'm very excited about drafting this new Mnemonic Wall.
Profaner of the Dead - Opened two of these (it was my promo), and they were mediocre. Removed one of them from my deck after a couple of rounds. Though it did do a solid job against Ojutai's Summons in one game. I guess they could be good in board stall games, but interestingly enough, I didn't see any real board stalls all day.
Mystic Meditation - Better than I expected. I didn't even start mine, but added it to my deck after two rounds after being convinced by my friend to do so. It seemed a bit clunky to me at first, but it was very solid.
Overall, I'm looking forward to playing more with this set. It looks good to me.
I've never been a huge fan of sets with removal this strong, just because it makes formats so swingy, but I'll admit I'm pretty ready for a change from what we've had in the past few blocks, so I guess I'm glad for a format with some different kinds of play.
I swept the three prerelease events I played, running UB twice and UW once. I'm with Sene, in that it all felt fairly interactive and fun. Hopefully that maintains for a while.
:dance:Fact or Fiction of the [Limited] Clan:dance:
It did seem very swingy, but it was a lot of fun and really interactive. The last couple rounds at my prerelease were some of the most intense/close games of magic I've played in a long time.
Man, I've played so little Magic lately... I did do a couple triple ARB phantom drafts. Had some trouble, kind of bad at the new client... declined to cascade once, and it cost me a game in an intense jund mirror.
Had fun with ARB, though. It was nice to sling cards again.
Triple ARB was a lot less fun than I remembered, but it's honestly a pleasure just to draft a format that I know the ins and outs of.
Triple ROE is probably my second favorite format of all time (first being Innistrad, I know I missed the golden age of limited, RGD through TFP, oh well) so I would've loved to do that. I'll have to start paying more attention.
Anyway, as for the current format, I really haven't figured it out yet. I've done eight DDF drafts, and haven't done too well. My impression from the prerelease was that it was a reasonably slow and interactive format, but that has not been my impression in the drafts I have done; durdly strategies have been destroyed, removal hasn't been great, and aggressive decks have been the best by a fair amount. When I'm drafting blue, I'm eschewing the exploit cards and such in favor of more aggressive options, which is really not what I'd hoped would happen. So far I'm a little let down, but we'll see. It'll be interesting to follow the Pro Tour! I'm very curious to see what the pros have figured out about the format.
I suppose part of it is that I'm completely lost faith in WotC's ability to design for Limited. It was Gatecrash that did it, really. RtR was a great set, so Gatecrash and Dragon's Maze ought to have been like shooting fish in a barrel.
Oh well, I gave up after Ice Age thinking I wouldn't play again, which turned out to be very wrong, so who knows what the future may hold?
(I'm on on this site much anymore. If you want to get in touch it's probably best to email me: dom@heffalumps.org)
Forum Awards: Best Writer 2005, Best Limited Strategist 2005-2012
5CB PotM - June 2005, November 2005, February 2006, April 2008, May 2008, Feb 2009
MTGSalvation Articles: 1-20, plus guest appearance on MTGCast #86!
<Limited Clan>
Doing okay with the wonky decks is still possible. There are still build-around-me cards floating around. Goblinslide. Spellheart Chimera. Maze's End. Assault Formation.
I'm not too fond of DTK, though, as decks tend to be too aggressive to allow for my creative deckbuilding. Trying the ramp - Savage Ventmaw - Clone Legion 'combo' deck earned me a quick 0-3 at the FNM last week ...
L1 Judge
(I'm on on this site much anymore. If you want to get in touch it's probably best to email me: dom@heffalumps.org)
Forum Awards: Best Writer 2005, Best Limited Strategist 2005-2012
5CB PotM - June 2005, November 2005, February 2006, April 2008, May 2008, Feb 2009
MTGSalvation Articles: 1-20, plus guest appearance on MTGCast #86!
<Limited Clan>
I'll just paste my facebook post on the Belgian group here (cause I've been typing on my phone a lot already) - ignore the references to people you don't know.
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Yay!!
So here's a short not-quite-tournament report. (I'm leaving out the tournament itself cause match reports are boring and I just want to tag a few people. 😌)
I went to Stockholm because I totally didn't feel like playing this ptq. I generally don't enjoy Standard and didn't have much time to test, and just didn't feel like it. So when I had to choose between Stockholm, Düsseldorf and skipping it, I felt all the options were bad. Even skipping, because then I'd feel guilty towards Chris (who I beat in the finals of the pptq) and never want to play another pptq. Therefore the only way to save my weekend was by qualifying, so I went to Stockholm as that gave me the best odds of that. That meant I'd have to go alone unfortunately, but I was not there to have fun, only to qualify.
For my deck I saw two options. Esper dragons was an easy default choice, but I also really liked the look of Wescoe's Bant deck. I tested one evening with Robbert, Yannick en Wim, where I played the Bant deck. I figured if I didn't like it I could fall back on Esper. I actually liked the deck but it seemed way too hard to play. I felt that, with at most one more evening to test, I wouldn't be able to play that deck well enough, so I picked Esper.
As it turned out I didn't manage to find time to join another testing session. Which meant r1 of the ptq was my first game with the deck. But that was fine because the deck looked quite easy to play, and control decks are pretty natural to me. Also I read a bit about the various decks in the format so I felt decently prepared.
I made an adaptation to the deck to beat the mirror. I put in Pearl Lake Ancient maindeck instead of Ugin and replaced Disdainful Stroke with Dragonlord's Prerogative. This way I would have inevitability as well as more card draw. I've seen some lists which only add Prerogative, which doesn't make much sense to me because I read game 1 in the mirror often comes down to decking. I thought my changes should give me a pretty big edge in the mirror, but I was still a bit unsure because it was all just theory as I didn't test anything. Anyway it worked out fine as PLA destroyed the one mirror I played and I never missed Ugin in the other matches.
In the tournament I beat Abzan aggro, RG dragons, Esper and mono red. Then I wanted to draw against my r5 opponent (who was also 4-0) but for some reason he didn't want to. So I crushed him (he was also mono red). I felt like this was a good omen because in the pptq I was also 4-0 in a 6-round tournament, and also unable to draw because I was downpaired against Michael. This worked out well because I then got top seed for top 8, and it was the same now. My quarter final (or let's call it final) was a rematch from round 1 (Abzan aggro) and despite losing game 1 I came back for the win. 😄
Thanks a lot to Yannick for lending me the deck!
Thanks all for the support! Especially Pascal Marijn Robbert Jan Yannick.