From my experience, winning the Sealed portion of a Prerelease is just pure luck. Yes, there will be good and bad players with good and bad decks, but it's NOTORIOUSLY a good player with a good deck that goes 4-0 and all the good players with ok decks and the bad players with insane decks go 3-1. It's also like 5 hours or something to play.
The better way to absorb the new set and it's interactions, combos, and just pure exposure is through many drafts. You are drafting Triple SoK, which very quickly becomes a dead format. That means you have just one chance to get it right.
I've just run through the spoiler and I'm putting my money on this card:
Charge Across the Araba 4W
Instant - Arcane
Sweep - Return any number of plains you control to their owner's hand. Creatures you control get +1/+1 until end of turn for each plains returned this way.
This card just looks completely insane. White has all kinds of little dudes with various abilities, but the fact is that you'll likely get tons of creatures if you force white. I didn't see anything but maybe the Channel Earthquake and Channel Hurricane and of course the bomb black Maro that would punish a creature swarm. The set feels like people will hold back spells to make their random creatures better.
Charge Across the Araba picks up lots of lands, which pumps up all your Wisdom cards, and just makes your team lethal. You can play it on defense if that should happen. I'm thinking monowhite here, but the problem is this guy is Uncommon I believe.
Anyway, what is your strategy for Triple SoK? This is the prime time to abuse a common in multiples like lots of Torrent of Stone or Myr Servitors.
I do the same thing every draft. All you have to do is stick low to the mana curve, pick up removal, and stay within 2-3 colors.
In this particular draft, the black common Gnat Miser will probably be underrated. The blue flip enchantment will also be good. If you pick up Pithing Needle, don't play it main. You won't know what your opponent's heavy hitters are until too late for that card to be useful.
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Some wonder why I carry 8 decks on me. The answer? I get tired of being boarded against in casual games, and 90% of the players I meet can't beat a jank deck I made to be tokens for a serious one.
I'm thinking that going green/black and picking up lots of deathmask nezumi and okina night-watch could be a good strategy. Yes, you have to keep lots of cards in hand to make them effective, but 4/3 fears for 4 and 7/6s for 5 are always good.
Fixed. While I did not triple Sok draft myself (for good reason, as I'd rather block draft and play a far more solid format.), I did know a few people that did. In between flight rounds I checked back on them and found that they had picked up several of these things and absolutely wrecked house.
But yeah, the original quote is true: Red is oddly underdrafted and is actually quite powerful. Green and white also stand as some of the stronger colors as well...
on another note, black is also very good. both of the "miser" creatures are really good. and they got the most efficient removal spell in the set, kagemaro's clutch
If you look at the set then you know that Red has the best removal. It has that Ghost lit Torrent of Stone guy as well as that rare Earthquake guy and the Spiraling Embers and of course the hot hot hot combolicious Barrel Down Sokenzan. It also has one of the best of the wiz-dom creatures in Akki Underling.
White finishes off the best removal with Cowed by Wisdom. I know people don't like it but seriously who doesn't like a Ghostly Prison? Cowed by Wisdom is underdrafted but it's the closest thing we have to Pacifism in this set. When you are trying to keep 7 or more cards in your hand at all times then Cowed By Wisdom will almost always stall them beyond repair. That's why I was happy to snag 3 of them along with 3 barrel down sokenzan, 1 channel fire guy, and 1 spiralling Embers. I felt I had enough removal.
The other amazing Wisdom creature is the 2/3 bushido 1 that pumps +X/+0 where X is the number of cards in hand. That guy's insane and always gets blocked immediately.
Charge Across the Araba was everything it was cracked up to be. As was the 2/1 +0/+X wisdom creature. Akki Underling was hot hot hot, and Spiritual Visit saved my butt sooo many times.
And who passes a card that says "All your creatures get +2/+0"?
Now tell me who passes 4 of them. I got as many as I could but I only ended up playing 1 since I had to have more removal than game breakers.
Red was insane. A LOT of great creatures to draft from in that set.
One card, sink into takenuma. Very broken when you get 5 to 6 of them. Plus with all the efficient black critters, all you have to do is pick a second color, usually green cause of all the cheap fat in this set.
Also, choosing an uncommon when starting a thread like this isnt very efficient, cause chances are you probably wont see one.
The deck works like a charm: The 1/1 visit tokens and pesky flyers become quite deadly with charge across the araba, and it becomes rather hard to block them with the Shinen. This is my actual draft deck
I completely agree with NorrYtt about Charge Across the Araba . In the draft I entered at the prerelease, I ended up getting 2 of them, one of which was like a 5th or 6th pick. The other I 1st picked at the very beginning of the draft. I ended up playing somewhat of a green/white weenie deck, which was killed backed up with this card.
My first round opponent, who was sitting directly to my left during the draft, ended up playing the same colors as me ironically enough. Luckily, he wasnt sporting the killer trick. Our match was very close and came down to one stellar/lucky play in the 3rd game. The game winning play came with credit going to my other MVP: Shinen of Life's Roar . With its built in Lure ability I was able to force through 23 damage when he was at 16 and had the possibility to gain only a maximum of 7 life via Miren, the Moaning Well .
Heres my tech FORCE WHITE!!!!!
deck list:
6!!!xAraba Moth
2xHand of Honor
3x Plow through Reito
2x Moonwing Moth
2x Death's Denial
2x Hand of cruelty
3x Kuro's Taken
2x Sink into Takenuma
2x Skull Collector
I didn't care about the hand size ****e, all I wanted to grab were 2/2's for two and plows. The plows won me a few games and the flyers were all strong.
In a weenie deck like this, deaths denial is sooooo good. One of my opponents popped a Kagemaro for 5 to kill my board, next turn I cast the denial for 7 and the turn after all 7 were back into play. My stratagy was to ignore removal, grab all the cheep flyers and guys I could and beat down faster then the bombs came online. Good times
Unlike the above strategy, my deck focused mainly on keeping a large hand. No one at my table was Black, they were all fighting over Red, White, and Green. This made Deathmask Nezumi a monster if I could keep 7 cards in hand.
If your deck cares about hand size, always Draw. I won the die roll each round, and didn't care. I always drew. This way, on turn 4 when my Deathmask would attack, it would be a 4/3 with Fear. He would always hit.
On a couple of games, I went the other way. I'd drop my hand as fast as I could, only to use Sink into Takenuma to sweep all my lands back, forcing my opponent to discard, and kill with Rats.
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I managed to bust open a Cloudhoof Kirin, and nearly pissed my pants. I didn't do that well due to extreme mana flooding (I was only playing two colors, and drew five lands in a row of the wrong color, and then drew all the other color cards.) However, in sealed with that, this chick dropped Honden of Cleansing Fire against my blue black deck. I nearly cried, as she was at 40 life and I'm at 4. I had the Cloudhoof on the table with an O-Naginata attached to block her large flier (and possibly kill it) and had weenies to stop hers. She had been swinging on me, and I had been eating the damage and chancing it instead of blocking, b/c with her Honden out, I could not beat her through life kill. Luckily, I managed to start this sick chain of Kemuri-Onna dropping to bounce a Kemuri-Onna to play it and bounce the other, emptying her hand (and keeping it that way) and milling her for five each time, while keeping my Kirin there. I managed to deck her.
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New Rules come out for 1999 6th Edition... "THEY'RE TURNING MAGIC INTO PORTAL! THE GAME IS RUINED! EVERYONE PETITION AND GET THEM TO CHANGE IT BACK!"
New Rules come out for 2010 Edition... "THEY'RE TURNING MAGIC INTO YU-GI-OH! THE GAME IS RUINED! EVERYONE PETITION AND GET THEM TO CHANGE IT BACK!"
New Rules come out for *Reserved for something in 2020* "THEY'RE TURNING MAGIC INTO *currently "simple" game by the more "skilled" players*! THE GAME IS..." etc.
It has to be red, its got efficient creatures and okay removal and as many people have already mentioned its under drafted.
It also has one of my favorite new creatures(for limited at least) Oni of Wild Places which is fantastic a 6/5 for 5R with haste is a finisher in its own right and when you add on 2 useful creature types(demon and spirit) meaning it can enhance ogre/demon or spiritcraft strategies and the fact that its "drawback" isn't really a drawback since it has haste and since you can just bounce a much cheaper red creature instead, its alround a fantastic card(you can even easily splash for it).
It has to be red, its got efficient creatures and okay removal and as many people have already mentioned its under drafted.
It also has one of my favorite new creatures(for limited at least) Oni of Wild Places which is fantastic a 6/5 for 5R with haste is a finisher in its own right and when you add on 2 useful creature types(demon and spirit) meaning it can enhance ogre/demon or spiritcraft strategies and the fact that its "drawback" isn't really a drawback since it has haste and since you can just bounce a much cheaper red creature instead, its alround a fantastic card(you can even easily splash for it).
I love that guy. 6 damage for 6 is hot and it even has a 5 butt to boot! Sink into Takenuma seems threatening. I haven't considered it as playable but it is probably more playable in this format than any of the other discard at comparable costs. It's certainly amazing with Akki Underlings and Deathmask Nezumi on the board.
The wisdom creatures are so good! The House was everything I had hoped it would be. 7/6 for 5 is amazing!! Descendant of Kiyomaro is great. Kagemaro is da-bomb. Akki Underling is great. Deathmask Nezumi did hit me once but Barrel Down Sokenzan killed him hotly. I haven't seen the blue 2/2 go online yet but a 4/4 flyer for 4 seems highly threatening to me. I know it's a good pick but it seem so much less attractive than the others of the cycle.
it'd be hard to rank these guys. But we should try. Here's my list:
1. House
2. Descendant of Kiyomaro
3. Akki Underling
4. Blue 2/2 that flies... eventually.
5. Deathmask Nezumi
The only reason I have it in this order is because I didn't get a chance to play with the blue guy. I played against it but it died so easily and only ever hit me once.
In this environment a 4 power for 5 while not great is also not that bad. When it becomes a house however it's insane. And it's not that hard to make it a house. After that the aggressiveness of a 3/5 spink-esque creature is just amazing at the cost of 3. Having a 3-end to begin with protects it from so much removal already which makes it that much higher a draft pick. I value Akki Underling very highly as I've had a chance to play with it. To begin with he's a 2/1 for 2 which is a good draft pick already. (Though one toughness does hurt sometimes.) His ability is more limited than the blue guy who you only have to have more cards than your opponent rather than the 7 cards or more clause... but.... keeping 7 cards in hand to have a 4/2 first striker is not that big a deal because he comes out so early in the game. Developing board position in the early game isn't difficult. If your curve is low enough you can miss a land drop to keep the pace of the game in your favor with such an aggressive 2 drop. I place him above the fear rat because black is overdrafted and fear is less valuable because of that. I do like the fear rat but because he costs 3 he's more difficult to "activate". And because of that I say that the flyer is better... but again I have only played against the Blue one and the black one and watched people play the white one and the green house.
As far as bombs go, I figure the Cloudhoof Kirin would be amazing. I think the black Kirin is the best one (even though people still say the white one is better and some people say the red one is the best. meh, to each his own.) In limited it's hard to say. My friend comboed out with the green kirin and the white guy that flips at 30 life. Woot!
The prerelease was very fun. Sorry lubabah didn't get to go to the finals of the draft, but ogre did. And I did. I could post my draft when I get home from work today. It wasn't terrible.
I didn't do a triple Saviors draft, but I was lucky enough to get a Charge Across the Araba in the main event of the prerelease, and a buttload of 3/3 blue flyers (The channel one, and Teller of Lies, and some other one, I forget what its name was, I think it was the 3/1 guy.) I played U/w and dropped 3 games all day. I was 3-1 overall, 7-3 on games. I won every game I drew the Charge, sadly enough I didn't draw it twice against the same guy and ended up losing 1-2. Charge Across the Araba is ABSOLUTELY a first pick. The person that got it 5th or 6th, consider yourself lucky, because once people start drafting Kamigawa block, you're not going to get it that late ever again.
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I had 2,580 posts on 'news, and then it had to go and be ****ty.
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Thats not true at all. In two of my flights, my sealed decks were very fast, and their curves were very aggressive. I got to play first every game that day, and it helped me go 4-1 then 5-0 in my flights. Not ever deck wants to draw first in this format, g/b and r/b can have very fsat starts with low end curves.
Charge across the Araba is just plain sick. I won a good half of my games because I had two of them in Sealed. Once, I hit a guy at 20 with a set of four 1/1 tokens (Promise of Bunrei ). He was planning to Alpha strike me next turn, so he let it through. Charge, sweeping 4, turned 4 points into 20. The entire Sweep mechanic is just broken, with easily amplified scalable effects. Even the "weakest" of them, Plow through Reito , is a potentially game-turning combat trick.
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Some wonder why I carry 8 decks on me. The answer? I get tired of being boarded against in casual games, and 90% of the players I meet can't beat a jank deck I made to be tokens for a serious one.
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The better way to absorb the new set and it's interactions, combos, and just pure exposure is through many drafts. You are drafting Triple SoK, which very quickly becomes a dead format. That means you have just one chance to get it right.
I've just run through the spoiler and I'm putting my money on this card:
Charge Across the Araba 4W
Instant - Arcane
Sweep - Return any number of plains you control to their owner's hand. Creatures you control get +1/+1 until end of turn for each plains returned this way.
This card just looks completely insane. White has all kinds of little dudes with various abilities, but the fact is that you'll likely get tons of creatures if you force white. I didn't see anything but maybe the Channel Earthquake and Channel Hurricane and of course the bomb black Maro that would punish a creature swarm. The set feels like people will hold back spells to make their random creatures better.
Charge Across the Araba picks up lots of lands, which pumps up all your Wisdom cards, and just makes your team lethal. You can play it on defense if that should happen. I'm thinking monowhite here, but the problem is this guy is Uncommon I believe.
Anyway, what is your strategy for Triple SoK? This is the prime time to abuse a common in multiples like lots of Torrent of Stone or Myr Servitors.
In this particular draft, the black common Gnat Miser will probably be underrated. The blue flip enchantment will also be good. If you pick up Pithing Needle, don't play it main. You won't know what your opponent's heavy hitters are until too late for that card to be useful.
Fixed. While I did not triple Sok draft myself (for good reason, as I'd rather block draft and play a far more solid format.), I did know a few people that did. In between flight rounds I checked back on them and found that they had picked up several of these things and absolutely wrecked house.
But yeah, the original quote is true: Red is oddly underdrafted and is actually quite powerful. Green and white also stand as some of the stronger colors as well...
on another note, black is also very good. both of the "miser" creatures are really good. and they got the most efficient removal spell in the set, kagemaro's clutch
Just my thoughts based on Team Sealed.
Red certainly was under drafted.
If you look at the set then you know that Red has the best removal. It has that Ghost lit Torrent of Stone guy as well as that rare Earthquake guy and the Spiraling Embers and of course the hot hot hot combolicious Barrel Down Sokenzan. It also has one of the best of the wiz-dom creatures in Akki Underling.
White finishes off the best removal with Cowed by Wisdom. I know people don't like it but seriously who doesn't like a Ghostly Prison? Cowed by Wisdom is underdrafted but it's the closest thing we have to Pacifism in this set. When you are trying to keep 7 or more cards in your hand at all times then Cowed By Wisdom will almost always stall them beyond repair. That's why I was happy to snag 3 of them along with 3 barrel down sokenzan, 1 channel fire guy, and 1 spiralling Embers. I felt I had enough removal.
The other amazing Wisdom creature is the 2/3 bushido 1 that pumps +X/+0 where X is the number of cards in hand. That guy's insane and always gets blocked immediately.
Charge Across the Araba was everything it was cracked up to be. As was the 2/1 +0/+X wisdom creature. Akki Underling was hot hot hot, and Spiritual Visit saved my butt sooo many times.
And who passes a card that says "All your creatures get +2/+0"?
Now tell me who passes 4 of them. I got as many as I could but I only ended up playing 1 since I had to have more removal than game breakers.
Red was insane. A LOT of great creatures to draft from in that set.
Also, choosing an uncommon when starting a thread like this isnt very efficient, cause chances are you probably wont see one.
[html]http://www.magictraders.com/reflists/TheDragon.html[/html]
I collect Foil Dragons and Foil Angels. Got one for me?
9 Plains
7 Forest
3 Shinen of Life`s Roar
2 Moonwing Moth
3 Araba Mothrider
1 Hand of Honor
1 Okina Nightwatch
6! Spiritual Visit
2 Plow Through Reito
2 Charge Across the Araba
4 [CARD]Inner Calm, Outer Strength
[/CARD]
The deck works like a charm: The 1/1 visit tokens and pesky flyers become quite deadly with charge across the araba, and it becomes rather hard to block them with the Shinen. This is my actual draft deck
My first round opponent, who was sitting directly to my left during the draft, ended up playing the same colors as me ironically enough. Luckily, he wasnt sporting the killer trick. Our match was very close and came down to one stellar/lucky play in the 3rd game. The game winning play came with credit going to my other MVP: Shinen of Life's Roar . With its built in Lure ability I was able to force through 23 damage when he was at 16 and had the possibility to gain only a maximum of 7 life via Miren, the Moaning Well .
To wrap things up in my opinion I believe that Charge Across the Araba is the best, if not better, limited uncommom since Grab the Reins .
deck list:
6!!!xAraba Moth
2xHand of Honor
3x Plow through Reito
2x Moonwing Moth
2x Death's Denial
2x Hand of cruelty
3x Kuro's Taken
2x Sink into Takenuma
2x Skull Collector
I didn't care about the hand size ****e, all I wanted to grab were 2/2's for two and plows. The plows won me a few games and the flyers were all strong.
In a weenie deck like this, deaths denial is sooooo good. One of my opponents popped a Kagemaro for 5 to kill my board, next turn I cast the denial for 7 and the turn after all 7 were back into play. My stratagy was to ignore removal, grab all the cheep flyers and guys I could and beat down faster then the bombs came online. Good times
2x Kuro's Taken
3x Raving Oni-Slave
5x Deathmask Nezumi
2x Kami of Empty Graves
1x Razorjaw Oni
1x Maga, Traitor to Mortals
1x Kiku's Shadow
4x Kagemaro's Clutch
1x Exiled inot Darkness
1x Sink inot Takenumo
1x Death Denied
1x O-Naginata
17x Swamp
1x Mikokoro, Center of the Sea
Unlike the above strategy, my deck focused mainly on keeping a large hand. No one at my table was Black, they were all fighting over Red, White, and Green. This made Deathmask Nezumi a monster if I could keep 7 cards in hand.
If your deck cares about hand size, always Draw. I won the die roll each round, and didn't care. I always drew. This way, on turn 4 when my Deathmask would attack, it would be a 4/3 with Fear. He would always hit.
On a couple of games, I went the other way. I'd drop my hand as fast as I could, only to use Sink into Takenuma to sweep all my lands back, forcing my opponent to discard, and kill with Rats.
It also has one of my favorite new creatures(for limited at least) Oni of Wild Places which is fantastic a 6/5 for 5R with haste is a finisher in its own right and when you add on 2 useful creature types(demon and spirit) meaning it can enhance ogre/demon or spiritcraft strategies and the fact that its "drawback" isn't really a drawback since it has haste and since you can just bounce a much cheaper red creature instead, its alround a fantastic card(you can even easily splash for it).
Machius proudly supports R_E's right to Rumour!
I love that guy. 6 damage for 6 is hot and it even has a 5 butt to boot! Sink into Takenuma seems threatening. I haven't considered it as playable but it is probably more playable in this format than any of the other discard at comparable costs. It's certainly amazing with Akki Underlings and Deathmask Nezumi on the board.
The wisdom creatures are so good! The House was everything I had hoped it would be. 7/6 for 5 is amazing!! Descendant of Kiyomaro is great. Kagemaro is da-bomb. Akki Underling is great. Deathmask Nezumi did hit me once but Barrel Down Sokenzan killed him hotly. I haven't seen the blue 2/2 go online yet but a 4/4 flyer for 4 seems highly threatening to me. I know it's a good pick but it seem so much less attractive than the others of the cycle.
it'd be hard to rank these guys. But we should try. Here's my list:
1. House
2. Descendant of Kiyomaro
3. Akki Underling
4. Blue 2/2 that flies... eventually.
5. Deathmask Nezumi
The only reason I have it in this order is because I didn't get a chance to play with the blue guy. I played against it but it died so easily and only ever hit me once.
In this environment a 4 power for 5 while not great is also not that bad. When it becomes a house however it's insane. And it's not that hard to make it a house. After that the aggressiveness of a 3/5 spink-esque creature is just amazing at the cost of 3. Having a 3-end to begin with protects it from so much removal already which makes it that much higher a draft pick. I value Akki Underling very highly as I've had a chance to play with it. To begin with he's a 2/1 for 2 which is a good draft pick already. (Though one toughness does hurt sometimes.) His ability is more limited than the blue guy who you only have to have more cards than your opponent rather than the 7 cards or more clause... but.... keeping 7 cards in hand to have a 4/2 first striker is not that big a deal because he comes out so early in the game. Developing board position in the early game isn't difficult. If your curve is low enough you can miss a land drop to keep the pace of the game in your favor with such an aggressive 2 drop. I place him above the fear rat because black is overdrafted and fear is less valuable because of that. I do like the fear rat but because he costs 3 he's more difficult to "activate". And because of that I say that the flyer is better... but again I have only played against the Blue one and the black one and watched people play the white one and the green house.
As far as bombs go, I figure the Cloudhoof Kirin would be amazing. I think the black Kirin is the best one (even though people still say the white one is better and some people say the red one is the best. meh, to each his own.) In limited it's hard to say. My friend comboed out with the green kirin and the white guy that flips at 30 life. Woot!
The prerelease was very fun. Sorry lubabah didn't get to go to the finals of the draft, but ogre did. And I did. I could post my draft when I get home from work today. It wasn't terrible.
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don't play first
also, draft green and/or black
Thats not true at all. In two of my flights, my sealed decks were very fast, and their curves were very aggressive. I got to play first every game that day, and it helped me go 4-1 then 5-0 in my flights. Not ever deck wants to draw first in this format, g/b and r/b can have very fsat starts with low end curves.