I'm sorry that drafting is always so tough for you.
Drafting has more factors then constructed making it more difficult.
Not only do you have to evaluate the cards your seeing, but be able to read the swings in direction the rest of the pod is taking, be able to know when to drop a color early even if you pulled a bomb, deck construction, and how the mechanics of the cards your using works.
Playing magic well in general takes skill, and certain decks have more advanced piloting requirements, but drafting can easily melt your brain.
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The EDH stax primer When you absolutely, positively got to kill every permanent in the room, accept no substitutes.
Drafting is one of the hardest things in magic. A lot harder than standard and modern that's for damn sure. When it comes to legacy and vintage it's a different story as both of those formats are pretty difficult with their vast cardpool versus the limited cardpool of limited environments. But the draft itself/when you're selecting cards is what separates the men from the boys.
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"Yawgmoth," Freyalise whispered as she set the bomb, "now you will pay for your treachery."
Martell's deck is merely okay. Very draw dependent, as are all but the most absurd aggressive decks in limited (which is why aggressive limited formats tend to be terrible).
Yam's deck is the best, although he misbuilt it. There is absolutely no way he should have been siding that Viper's Kiss.
I think that Martell´s is much more consistent that the Yam´s deck.
Yam didn´t get the spells that the deck need to be really good (only 5 spells total), and one Griptide is not enough.
Martell´s deck is not awesome, but his game plan is clearer.
There's a certain subset of player on this board who will obsess over "signals" and end up losing focus on synergy and card quality as a result. Their opponents at their LGS probably don't even know what a signal is and are probably rare-drafting or playing Dimir in Gatecrash because they think it's cool.
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These days, some wizards are finding they have a little too much deck left at the end of their $$$.
MTG finance guy- follow me on Twitter@RichArschmann or RichardArschmann on Reddit
Coming from someone who plays a lot of standard competitively, as well as who drafts a lot... if you play constructed and think the outcome of your tournament has nothing to do with the crapshoot of the archetypes you get paired against, you're just lying to yourself.
I love standard because I can tweak or brew a deck meticulously to prepare against an established meta. The tweaks you make, the SB choices you make, are really what stands out. I feel that just copying a netdeck and a SB guide, you learn nothing. The worst players in MTG are generally strict constructed players probably for this reason. The best players I have ever met excel at limited as well as constructed.
I love drafting, because it encompasses all skills of MTG in one format. I am better at drafting, but I tend to play standard a bit more due to the better payouts. (I only play on MTGO).
I don't really play limited anymore; it got too boring.
Sealed and booster drafts only become boring when the set(s) you're using have too much fodder in the form of inefficiently slow cards, cards which are too situational, and vanilla creatures. Unfortunately, that's the problem with the great majority of sets which have cards that should never have been printed because you almost never maindeck them even in limited unless you're desperately low on playable options. Honestly, build your own cube(s) which only contain higher power level cards, and I guarantee that you'll never get bored of drafting again.
Anyhow, the best I can come up with myself is a game in the top 8 of a PTQ back during Urza block in which we were starting game 3 with time already expired, so the tiebreaker rule was that whoever had more life after 3 turns would win. And I lost to... healing salve.
Sealed and booster drafts only become boring when the set(s) you're using have too much fodder in the form of inefficiently slow cards, cards which are too situational, and vanilla creatures.
I agree that some formats get boring a lot more quickly than other formats, but I don't think any two people are going to agree on what makes a format boring.
I agree that some formats get boring a lot more quickly than other formats, but I don't think any two people are going to agree on what makes a format boring.
What makes a format boring, in the most objective terms, is repetitiveness/predictability
Hence why cawblade was a disaster for the game at large
Of course mirror matches were intense as hell but only a small minority of players enjoyed those
It's also why limited is the format with the most built-in mechanisms against "boring format syndrome": the constant shifting card pool and players with whom you draft almost guarantees a unique experience each draft
That being said, in terms of actual matches what one of the previous posters said was true: the "right play" is easier to identify in limited matches, but that doesn't make the format boring since drafting is a lot more than just the matches
What makes a format boring, in the most objective terms, is repetitiveness/predictability
There are some people who love draft formats where they can sit down and be very confident they have a good idea what it is they're going to be doing/forcing. For instance, Jon Finkel streamed holiday cube drafts and just literally forced storm every. Single. Time. And in more normal formats, there are people who just forced gruul or forced mono red or forced whatever. And they were perfectly happy doing so, and found their pleasure in perfecting and maximizing that single technique.
I personally don't grok that at all. I love a limited format where I can sit down and open a pack and have no idea what kind of deck I'm going to end up with, and ideally potentially end up with a deck unlike any that I've ever seen before. But I know that other people view things very differently.
The holiday cube wasn't a boring format because Finkel forced storm every time.
What Finkel chooses to do has no bearing on the quality of the format.
One of the key things of formats in MtG is that you don't control what other players do. This is why a bad format is a predictable one: a bad format is where you know what most opponents will run, that's why cawblade was awful: everybody ran cawblade; it wasn't a bad format because cawblade was a bad deck.
Finkel, in a holiday cube draft, doesn't represent the entire field. Sure his opponents can expect him to play storm but he doesn't know what they're playing.
The holiday cube wasn't a boring format because Finkel forced storm every time.
The point I'm trying to make is that while it seems like you and I are basically in agreement as to what makes a format fun and interesting, other people might disagree.
If someone really loves drafting storm, and there's a format in which there are only three archetypes available, and one of them is storm, that person might just love that draft format, whereas you and I would exhaust all three possibilities fairly quickly and get sick of it.
A format with no really distinct archetypes at all, in which everything is just kind of good stuff decks of various color combinations, is one that I'd really enjoy, and one that other people might hate. Different strokes.
These kinds of distinctions are important when talking about the balance of a format
I think I understand the point you are trying to make but I think you are going about it the wrong way
The holiday cube doesn't offer just three possibilities of deck types; Finkel likes to draft Storm over and over again in order to master it
That does not reveal anything about the format though. You seem to be claiming that because there are people who don't like variety, or at the very least do not actively seek it, that it doesn't mean that variety is key for a format to be good
I just think that's entirely misguided: variety in a format doesn't care about what individual choices are made in a vacuum, it cares about those choices in the context of everybody else's choices. If you don't play Cawblade in late 2011 you are on the outside looking in; Finkel forces Storm in the Holiday Cude doesn't compare to that situation since, by the very nature of the format, him forcing Storm makes it harder for other players to play Storm and this will necessarily lead to a more diverse playing field.
The holiday cube doesn't offer just three possibilities of deck types; Finkel likes to draft Storm over and over again in order to master it
That does not reveal anything about the format though. You seem to be claiming that because there are people who don't like variety, or at the very least do not actively seek it, that it doesn't mean that variety is key for a format to be good
That is exactly what I'm claiming. A format is "good" if people like it, kind of by definiton. Some people like variety. (I am one of them.) For us, a format with a lot of variety is good. Other people like really tuning and mastering a specific archetype (Finkel and storm in cube is a bad example, I just tossed it out there because it was the first one that came to mind). For instance, some people like drafting heroic over and over and over again in Theros. If that's what they enjoy, more power to them. And for them, a format that you or I might enjoy and consider "good" wouldn't necessarily be "good" and vice versa. For every limited format I've hated (Kamigawa, Zendikar, Lorwyn) there are people who claim to have loved it. (With the notable exception of Coldsnap.)
Rise of the Eldrazi is a limited format that many experienced players (including me) consider to be one of the best ever, but which is viewed by Wizards as somewhat of a failure.
I wish that our opinion of variety=good was universally considered to be true, because then Wizards would make nothing but sets that we would love.
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Drafting has more factors then constructed making it more difficult.
Not only do you have to evaluate the cards your seeing, but be able to read the swings in direction the rest of the pod is taking, be able to know when to drop a color early even if you pulled a bomb, deck construction, and how the mechanics of the cards your using works.
Playing magic well in general takes skill, and certain decks have more advanced piloting requirements, but drafting can easily melt your brain.
The EDH stax primer
When you absolutely, positively got to kill every permanent in the room, accept no substitutes.
No need to be sorry
You made me laugh, that's good enough for me
I'll be looking towards seeing how you do at the next limited event you can attend and show everyone just how boss you are!
Currently Playing:
Retired
I think that Martell´s is much more consistent that the Yam´s deck.
Yam didn´t get the spells that the deck need to be really good (only 5 spells total), and one Griptide is not enough.
Martell´s deck is not awesome, but his game plan is clearer.
Though I'll put it in a small font.
Please stop hijacking my reply box.
MTG finance guy- follow me on Twitter@RichArschmann or RichardArschmann on Reddit
I love standard because I can tweak or brew a deck meticulously to prepare against an established meta. The tweaks you make, the SB choices you make, are really what stands out. I feel that just copying a netdeck and a SB guide, you learn nothing. The worst players in MTG are generally strict constructed players probably for this reason. The best players I have ever met excel at limited as well as constructed.
I love drafting, because it encompasses all skills of MTG in one format. I am better at drafting, but I tend to play standard a bit more due to the better payouts. (I only play on MTGO).
Standard:
RW Boros devotion/Purphoros combo
RGB Jund Midrange
Modern:
WB Martyr.proc
Sealed and booster drafts only become boring when the set(s) you're using have too much fodder in the form of inefficiently slow cards, cards which are too situational, and vanilla creatures. Unfortunately, that's the problem with the great majority of sets which have cards that should never have been printed because you almost never maindeck them even in limited unless you're desperately low on playable options. Honestly, build your own cube(s) which only contain higher power level cards, and I guarantee that you'll never get bored of drafting again.
I agree that some formats get boring a lot more quickly than other formats, but I don't think any two people are going to agree on what makes a format boring.
What makes a format boring, in the most objective terms, is repetitiveness/predictability
Hence why cawblade was a disaster for the game at large
Of course mirror matches were intense as hell but only a small minority of players enjoyed those
It's also why limited is the format with the most built-in mechanisms against "boring format syndrome": the constant shifting card pool and players with whom you draft almost guarantees a unique experience each draft
That being said, in terms of actual matches what one of the previous posters said was true: the "right play" is easier to identify in limited matches, but that doesn't make the format boring since drafting is a lot more than just the matches
There are some people who love draft formats where they can sit down and be very confident they have a good idea what it is they're going to be doing/forcing. For instance, Jon Finkel streamed holiday cube drafts and just literally forced storm every. Single. Time. And in more normal formats, there are people who just forced gruul or forced mono red or forced whatever. And they were perfectly happy doing so, and found their pleasure in perfecting and maximizing that single technique.
I personally don't grok that at all. I love a limited format where I can sit down and open a pack and have no idea what kind of deck I'm going to end up with, and ideally potentially end up with a deck unlike any that I've ever seen before. But I know that other people view things very differently.
The holiday cube wasn't a boring format because Finkel forced storm every time.
What Finkel chooses to do has no bearing on the quality of the format.
One of the key things of formats in MtG is that you don't control what other players do. This is why a bad format is a predictable one: a bad format is where you know what most opponents will run, that's why cawblade was awful: everybody ran cawblade; it wasn't a bad format because cawblade was a bad deck.
Finkel, in a holiday cube draft, doesn't represent the entire field. Sure his opponents can expect him to play storm but he doesn't know what they're playing.
The point I'm trying to make is that while it seems like you and I are basically in agreement as to what makes a format fun and interesting, other people might disagree.
If someone really loves drafting storm, and there's a format in which there are only three archetypes available, and one of them is storm, that person might just love that draft format, whereas you and I would exhaust all three possibilities fairly quickly and get sick of it.
A format with no really distinct archetypes at all, in which everything is just kind of good stuff decks of various color combinations, is one that I'd really enjoy, and one that other people might hate. Different strokes.
These kinds of distinctions are important when talking about the balance of a format
I think I understand the point you are trying to make but I think you are going about it the wrong way
The holiday cube doesn't offer just three possibilities of deck types; Finkel likes to draft Storm over and over again in order to master it
That does not reveal anything about the format though. You seem to be claiming that because there are people who don't like variety, or at the very least do not actively seek it, that it doesn't mean that variety is key for a format to be good
I just think that's entirely misguided: variety in a format doesn't care about what individual choices are made in a vacuum, it cares about those choices in the context of everybody else's choices. If you don't play Cawblade in late 2011 you are on the outside looking in; Finkel forces Storm in the Holiday Cude doesn't compare to that situation since, by the very nature of the format, him forcing Storm makes it harder for other players to play Storm and this will necessarily lead to a more diverse playing field.
Personal perferences do not matter
That is exactly what I'm claiming. A format is "good" if people like it, kind of by definiton. Some people like variety. (I am one of them.) For us, a format with a lot of variety is good. Other people like really tuning and mastering a specific archetype (Finkel and storm in cube is a bad example, I just tossed it out there because it was the first one that came to mind). For instance, some people like drafting heroic over and over and over again in Theros. If that's what they enjoy, more power to them. And for them, a format that you or I might enjoy and consider "good" wouldn't necessarily be "good" and vice versa. For every limited format I've hated (Kamigawa, Zendikar, Lorwyn) there are people who claim to have loved it. (With the notable exception of Coldsnap.)
Rise of the Eldrazi is a limited format that many experienced players (including me) consider to be one of the best ever, but which is viewed by Wizards as somewhat of a failure.
I wish that our opinion of variety=good was universally considered to be true, because then Wizards would make nothing but sets that we would love.