I'm looking for some help and guidance. I recently found MTG and signed up online as I'm into gaming but looking for something a bit different. I'm not really interested in collecting and playing standard. But what has interested me is the sealed and draft games. I played some games to get the feel for it and i really enjoy the gameplay, deckbuilding, not sure at the moment.
I joined the sealed league and read a bit about deckbuilding, mana curve, before i started playing. So i built my deck and felt good about what i created. I had half my creatures flying and some good removal. But when i played, just got slaughtered all the time. My opponents were either bringing out bombs (planeswalker or enchantment), which i could do nothing about or every turn, they were just bringing out creatures and just overpowering me. I cannot find in my pool any bombs that could change the game like that. I had a good mix of 2/3/4 mana creatures, but they would either not show up in my hand early on or the mana would not show up at all.
I've played in the sealed league twice now, but each game is the same, either no mana shows up, or i have the creatures and they play one card which wipes me out or no creatures show up i can play early so i get overpowered. I'm feeling so frustrated. Is it me, typical noob? Is it MTGO? I don't get the powerful cards the other players do?
I enjoy the gameplay, but i think deckbuilding is defeating me or the MTGO engine itself.
Any help/guidance would be appreciated. What can i do? Shall i move on?
SO luck is an element of draft. In draft you need to follow a slightly different stratagy then constructed. "Break" It's an acronom for the order of stuff you should draft typicly to come ahead. You will also need to do some reserch in to a set. How many lands are you playing in your 40 card draft deck? It sounds like you may have a poor mix (I try to aim for 16-17 mana sources)
B= Bombs, These are the busted broken cars in a draft, Most (but not all) are rare/mythics and always have massive board impact on the game when played,These are the most luck swingy cards.
R= Removal, You need removal/combat tricks, creature kill, burn, tap down, passify, fight its in most colors some form of removal and you need it, Good removal is scarce so when you see it GRAB it.
E= Evasion, Flying, trample, Fear, If its hard to block its worth having. better to have a 2 or 3 power evasion creature then 3 or 4 power one without.
A= Attack, when in doupt and their is no evasion, bombs or removal to be had get the body with the highest attack stat.
K= crap the duds anything that does not fit in the rest.
Sealed is even more luck based then draft and a bad pool can hurt you. Hope this helps alitte
SO luck is an element of draft. In draft you need to follow a slightly different stratagy then constructed. "Break" It's an acronom for the order of stuff you should draft typicly to come ahead. You will also need to do some reserch in to a set. How many lands are you playing in your 40 card draft deck? It sounds like you may have a poor mix (I try to aim for 16-17 mana sources)
B= Bombs, These are the busted broken cars in a draft, Most (but not all) are rare/mythics and always have massive board impact on the game when played,These are the most luck swingy cards.
R= Removal, You need removal/combat tricks, creature kill, burn, tap down, passify, fight its in most colors some form of removal and you need it, Good removal is scarce so when you see it GRAB it.
E= Evasion, Flying, trample, Fear, If its hard to block its worth having. better to have a 2 or 3 power evasion creature then 3 or 4 power one without.
A= Attack, when in doupt and their is no evasion, bombs or removal to be had get the body with the highest attack stat.
K= crap the duds anything that does not fit in the rest.
Sealed is even more luck based then draft and a bad pool can hurt you. Hope this helps alitte
Thankyou for the time to write the reply. It certainly does help. In all the games I've played so far I've stuck to 17 lands, 15 creatures and 8 other cards (combination of removal, advantage, auras etc, though I've tried to make sure I have at least 4 removal cards of some kind) and made sure it had a good mana curve (2/3 mana costs with the most cards). Would you do anything different here?
I take your point on researching the sets. I've been watching videos and have found draftsim, which seems to be really good for learning to draft. I thought a creature with 3/5 and no other abilities was good. Maybe I have a lot to learn!
Combat Tricks (Giant growth style cards +x+x until end of turn or +x+x to attacking/blocking creatures) are the worst type of removal but still are removal. Its alittle better if its attached to a body, but most of the time they are just weak removal. Good but not stellar. Also context is imporatn a 3/5 with no abilitys that say only costs 1 or 2 mana would be good
Also remember I didn't say land i said mana sources, so if you have cards like lay of the land or a mana dork they should count in in your total.
I wanted to clarify bombs a little bit. Bombs are often multiplue of break, for example Visara the Dreadful is a draft bomb, She is repeatable removal, High power, and evasion. Similarly Luxodon War Hammer is a bomb because it turns any creature in to a high attack/evasion creature (and gives you lifelink which is a bonus padding to health total)it also is hard to remove in most drafts without heavy artifact removal. Not all rares are bombs, Tarmagoyf while a great card in construction is NOT a draft bomb at all. You simply are not likely enough to have ways to buff him to behing the super slugger he is in construction often being a "weak" 2/3 3/4.
That being said on to removal, not all removal is spells, for example Sparksmith is really good draft removal. "Pingers" can also be qualifed as them, even creature that tap down other creatures. Mother of Runes could be viewed as evasion since it can give a creature conditional unblockability. ect.
Ok, so I've been spending a few days trying to learn the above, reading and watching. I entered the rivals friendly draft league. I devised a plan going into it. As each match was a single game, I wanted to be aggressive as well as take out their good cards. Here is my draft:
How would you rate this draft?
I actually ended up going 3-4, which I am super pleased about. I made a couple of mistakes, I didn't mulligan when I had 1 land and another when I had 5 lands. I lost both those games. The last game I lost we were both down to 4 life each. I had 4 lands out and could not get another land drawn at all. This restricted me a bit and I felt I could of won that one. But I chalk that up to luck and not disheartened.
A very positive step forward, anyone have any pointers going forward?
Soul of the rap is alittle weak you may have tried to pick something different. 5 mana for 3/2 power (even with flying/hexproof) I woiuld far rather you get another air elemental. the difference between 3 power and 4 power is high, it takes 5 attacks at 4 power to win a game, but it takes 7 attacks at 3. This is a HUGE difference. Queens commice is also soemthing that is situational, (if this was instant it would quilfy as conditional removal saddly it is not so its like 3 mana for only 2 power with not evasion.
Also NEVER keep a 1 land hand unless you are down to 5 cards. With your curve as it is (alot of smaller stuff) i would also suggest not keeping more then 3 lands unless you have mulled already. Never muligan past 4 for any reason UNELSS its constructed and you are fishing for layline that will instantly winn you the game.
Some interesting points to consider. I figured flying and hex could win you the game, but I take your point. Queens commish, I liked lifelink and attacking with them would force my opponent to do something about it, otherwise I get lives back. I thought it would tie into my whole aggro style plan.
Great advice so far which I appreciate. I'm starting to enjoy the game more and I'm managing to get some wins. I appreciate everything so far
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I'm looking for some help and guidance. I recently found MTG and signed up online as I'm into gaming but looking for something a bit different. I'm not really interested in collecting and playing standard. But what has interested me is the sealed and draft games. I played some games to get the feel for it and i really enjoy the gameplay, deckbuilding, not sure at the moment.
I joined the sealed league and read a bit about deckbuilding, mana curve, before i started playing. So i built my deck and felt good about what i created. I had half my creatures flying and some good removal. But when i played, just got slaughtered all the time. My opponents were either bringing out bombs (planeswalker or enchantment), which i could do nothing about or every turn, they were just bringing out creatures and just overpowering me. I cannot find in my pool any bombs that could change the game like that. I had a good mix of 2/3/4 mana creatures, but they would either not show up in my hand early on or the mana would not show up at all.
I've played in the sealed league twice now, but each game is the same, either no mana shows up, or i have the creatures and they play one card which wipes me out or no creatures show up i can play early so i get overpowered. I'm feeling so frustrated. Is it me, typical noob? Is it MTGO? I don't get the powerful cards the other players do?
I enjoy the gameplay, but i think deckbuilding is defeating me or the MTGO engine itself.
Any help/guidance would be appreciated. What can i do? Shall i move on?
B= Bombs, These are the busted broken cars in a draft, Most (but not all) are rare/mythics and always have massive board impact on the game when played,These are the most luck swingy cards.
R= Removal, You need removal/combat tricks, creature kill, burn, tap down, passify, fight its in most colors some form of removal and you need it, Good removal is scarce so when you see it GRAB it.
E= Evasion, Flying, trample, Fear, If its hard to block its worth having. better to have a 2 or 3 power evasion creature then 3 or 4 power one without.
A= Attack, when in doupt and their is no evasion, bombs or removal to be had get the body with the highest attack stat.
K= crap the duds anything that does not fit in the rest.
Sealed is even more luck based then draft and a bad pool can hurt you. Hope this helps alitte
Thankyou for the time to write the reply. It certainly does help. In all the games I've played so far I've stuck to 17 lands, 15 creatures and 8 other cards (combination of removal, advantage, auras etc, though I've tried to make sure I have at least 4 removal cards of some kind) and made sure it had a good mana curve (2/3 mana costs with the most cards). Would you do anything different here?
I take your point on researching the sets. I've been watching videos and have found draftsim, which seems to be really good for learning to draft. I thought a creature with 3/5 and no other abilities was good. Maybe I have a lot to learn!
Also remember I didn't say land i said mana sources, so if you have cards like lay of the land or a mana dork they should count in in your total.
I wanted to clarify bombs a little bit. Bombs are often multiplue of break, for example Visara the Dreadful is a draft bomb, She is repeatable removal, High power, and evasion. Similarly Luxodon War Hammer is a bomb because it turns any creature in to a high attack/evasion creature (and gives you lifelink which is a bonus padding to health total)it also is hard to remove in most drafts without heavy artifact removal. Not all rares are bombs, Tarmagoyf while a great card in construction is NOT a draft bomb at all. You simply are not likely enough to have ways to buff him to behing the super slugger he is in construction often being a "weak" 2/3 3/4.
That being said on to removal, not all removal is spells, for example Sparksmith is really good draft removal. "Pingers" can also be qualifed as them, even creature that tap down other creatures. Mother of Runes could be viewed as evasion since it can give a creature conditional unblockability. ect.
How would you rate this draft?
I actually ended up going 3-4, which I am super pleased about. I made a couple of mistakes, I didn't mulligan when I had 1 land and another when I had 5 lands. I lost both those games. The last game I lost we were both down to 4 life each. I had 4 lands out and could not get another land drawn at all. This restricted me a bit and I felt I could of won that one. But I chalk that up to luck and not disheartened.
A very positive step forward, anyone have any pointers going forward?
Thanks
Also NEVER keep a 1 land hand unless you are down to 5 cards. With your curve as it is (alot of smaller stuff) i would also suggest not keeping more then 3 lands unless you have mulled already. Never muligan past 4 for any reason UNELSS its constructed and you are fishing for layline that will instantly winn you the game.
Great advice so far which I appreciate. I'm starting to enjoy the game more and I'm managing to get some wins. I appreciate everything so far