To add to Dorvan's response, each color has maybe a couple playable 2s in Aether Revolt, and they're not going to come around very late. Green has the most, but black has just one, and while other options exist in Kaladesh, it's only 1/3 of the draft pool now. I drafted BR in the top 8 of a pptq a couple weeks ago, and I was lucky to get the 2s I had, and it was at least somewhat thanks to a glut of them in my colors in Kaladesh and reading the draft well. After pack 2, I had a measly pair, and I prioritized them highly.
Chaser is easily the best common 2-drop in the set, as it simply outclasses every other option, synergizes with Improvise, crews vehicles well later, and adds energy, all at a low cost in a format that simply IS aggressive.
Nobody is claiming Cavalry is bad, but it's not so much better than other options at 5 that it's even in consideration over a card of Chaser's caliber.
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Dorvan is right on this one. In high level drafts, prioritizing 2-drops is really important, and Chaser is one of the best in the set in one of the more preferable colors in the format.
It's an aggressive environment, and even if midrange or control decks exist, hedging toward aggression with a first pick is generally a far better strategic play than taking a 5-drop, unless the expensive option is significantly more powerful. Cavalry is fine, but it's absolutely not at a premium, nor is it likely even green's best common (Scrounging Bandar takes that crown, IMO). If this were Ridgescale Tusker, it wouldn't even be a conversation, for example.
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I regret getting hyped up for Monstrous Onslaught, as I ended up cutting the card from my GW deck, which only had 2 ways to get 4 power on the board. I blame that user who hyped me up, since it's much closer to my initial evaluation of "insane if you have a 6 power guy on board, okay with 4 power, and bad with 3 or less power". The green implement did a ton of work throughout the day, since it just gave a random counter for free.
I was completely blown out by that card twice this weekend, and I scored a 4-for-1 with it myself the one time I cast it in the midnight prerelease. The format seemed slow enough that it wasn't necessary to rush its deployment, yet there were enough relevant "go wide" strategies to still push an opponent into a situation in which it deals a considerable blow to their board.
Admittedly, the Tusker and Crazy Train seemed better overall, but I still can't see myself passing Onslaught P1p1 often.
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My primary concern is color balance, as green and black seemed very heavily represented, but most games I played yesterday were fun and interactive.
Played 3 events, opened an invention in every pool (but none of them limited playable), and went 5-0, 3-1-1, and 3-1. Played aggro GW, aggro GB, and wonky GW with 2 Consulate Dreadnought and 2 Aerial Modification for maximum hilarity. It was horrible, but very fun, and it won plenty of games.
I was really impressed by the combination of solid curves and interesting combat interactions, all while never feeling completely run over. Aether Poisoner is very good for the format at common, and the common vehicles in Aether Revolt are generally pretty awful, which balances things from the "lose to Freighter" nature of Kaladesh.
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Be careful not to undervalue Unbridled Growth. I think that card will be sneakily good in this format, as it fixes a bit and allows for basically zero-risk, on-curve Revolt usage.
I also think the green X spell will be best on uncrewed vehicles and things like Puzzleknots, as it lessens the likelihood of removal blowouts.
Really nice review overall!
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With vehicles, creatures that grow in and due to combat, and the card being green, I think it's a bit shortsighted to expect the median to be that low. It's not a card that I expect to see slammed on turn 5, but when it is, it wouldn't surprise me if it's for 4 (just off of first thoughts, Peema Outrider, the new 2/3 that pumps on attack, and Renegade Freighter can easily allow this at common), and beyond that, 2 commons allow for it to hit for a whopping 6 on turn 6.
I also warn against underestimating the power of scaling, spreading, functionally undisruptable damage in a limited format out of a color that shouldn't be able to access it. Green's pool looks INSANE, and it already ranks as the best and deepest color in Kaladesh. The beast and train are obviously incredibly strong, but I'll always choose a spell like this over a creature if the power is comparable, and I'm worried it actually won't be, in that Onslaught will be simply unreal.
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Assuming I'm reading it correctly, which I sincerely hope I'm not, Monstrous Onslaught looks unbelievably overpowered for an uncommon. If it's indeed unable to be disrupted by removal or bounce to lower the power measurement, then that card will often function like a slightly nerfed Plague Wind.
In general, this set looks dangerous from a balance standpoint, in that the power level at uncommon is astronomical. The last time that happened (Mirrodin Beseiged), drafts were incredibly imbalanced and determined by pack quality at each spot at the table.
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The problem with block as a format for a Pro Tour to me is simply that it's flat out irrelevant at all other times. It doesn't affect anything, and I'm absolutely fine with them marginalizing it.
I liked core sets for limited, but the main reason is that where I play these days (and it isn't much), the group isn't always super competitive, and when kids come to start playing, they have the perfect level of complexity to allow me to mentor them a bit. I relish those types of opportunities, being a teacher and all.
Speaking of that, today was my first day back as a full time teacher. I worked my butt off last year to get recertified, and now I'm working with 6th graders on their writing. If that's not a concept that's familiar to you, it's basically institutionalized child torture. :-P
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I have a problem with Raid. I absolutely hate abilities that reward players for what they already do, especially when they don't really allow for much actual disruption. Compare Raid to Bloodthirst. They're functionally quite similar, and they reward similar types of aggressive play. The difference is that Bloodthirst actually makes combat really skill testing and an actual interactive mind game. With Raid, if my opponent swings with something, there's basically nothing I can do to prevent his turning on the Raid abilities of his guys in hand. Certainly it matters and could improve my outlook if many of them impact damaged creatures (think Orzhov Euthanist), but if they're more often just bigger guys or ones with much more relevant abilities, I dislike that Raid will be both difficult to disrupt from the other side of the table and could thus lead to some pretty downhill types of game states.
Prowess just seems lazy to me. This ability has been around forever, and unless they spice it up somehow (not by saturating with spells, but with adding effects to the triggers or something), it's going to feel retread.
I do absolutely love the functionality that Morph brings to the game, though. It adds playables to each card pool, and even though playing Grey Ogres isn't ever going to be ideal, off color Morphs are a great way to bait removal or mess with opponents' heads.
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Phantom M15 sealed. I'm at around 12, while my opponent is at 9. My board is clear other than for a Hornet Nest. My opponent has a lifted Aeronaut Tinkerer and a Bronze Sable. He plays a Frost Lynx to tap my Nest, swings for 4, and passes.
End of turn, I Blastfire Bolt my Nest. On my turn, I play the green Paragon and swing for 10.
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Jaraxxus is perfectly fine in Handlock builds as a second life total reset alongside Alexstraza. He's quite nuts, especially when you pop out a 6/6 for 2 and immediately give it Taunt.
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Personally I think cards with binary answers like Enchantments are a mistake.
The worst card in arena right now - in gameplay terms - is Big Game Hunter. Because most of the creatures it kills are excellent, so you want them in your deck... unless the opponent has BGH, at which point they're suddenly really bad, possibly losing you the game. However, with no targets, BGH itself is pretty bad. And the card's an Epic, so it's not like you should just assume everyone has it.
Hearthstone has some pretty unwelcome complexity already, but it's mostly not offputting to beginners because the game hides it from you. For example: Do you know what order multiple deathrattle triggers fire in? Mostly you don't have to think about it, but when one's an Abomination and another's going to spawn creatures, suddenly it matters.
I agree with this, but I find that Blood Knight is far more swingy than BGH, as Scarlet Crusader is fairly good on curve, and it's absolutely soul crushing to flat out lose to a 6/6 or sometimes even a 9/9 stupidly early in the game. It's certainly less ubiquitous than BGH, in that there are far more targets for BGH in your average arena deck, but I find I lose to Blood Knight far more often. I certainly dislike the general uselessness of BGH in comparison with BK being at least serviceable as a 3/3 for 3, but at the same time, I love that having BGH can allow for tricky plays with power pumping stuff like Blessing of Kings, Dark Iron Dwarf, and even Cold Blood in some cases. It's narrow, for sure, but it's utility that I can appreciate. I also find that when my opponent kills my enormous dude with BGH, I'm certainly behind on the exchange, but the game state determines whether the play loses me the game far more than the actual card interplay itself. It's still small enough such that the situations in which the 4/2 body is incredibly relevant are ones that likely had you relying too heavily on the fat it killed anyway. Most decks have ways of killing or negating fat, and while BGH is obviously better as an answer to an Ironbark Protector than, say, Hex is, having your big guy removed is really only as crippling as the board state was before you played it. Other than huge Taunt dudes, if you're way behind on board before you play them, fat guys like War Golem or even Ragnaros aren't really going to turn things around anyway.
I do agree about the Deathrattle complexity as well. I'm pretty sure it's a function of priority similar to what happens to stacking in Magic, but there isn't really a mechanism to explain exactly how this works within the game aside from trial and error.
Magic-wise, I've drafted a couple times to celebrate getting a new teaching job (I'm back!), and I've enjoyed M15 so far. It seems pretty balanced and skill intensive, aside from there being too few answers to the nut token Convoke deck. I drafted online yesterday, as I had some extra stuff, and I ended up with a fairly absurd UW deck without a single Raise the Alarm or Triplicate Spirits. I beat a couple token-type decks (one with Soul of Theros), mainly through solid evasion, double Dauntless River Marshall, and bombs (Avacyn and Ajani).
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Signalling is like farting: it's a natural thing that helps people avoid being where you are, and if you try to do it deliberately, things turn to crap fast.
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I hereby found the American Chapter of the Zealots of Semantics. All glory to The Curmudgeon.
I just played a Mage deck with some card draw, Voodoo Doctors, Elvish Archers, Earthen Ring Farseers, and eventually Alexstraza. If you can max out her board with 1/X guys, which isn't too hard, you can theoretically just play Alex every other turn and use burn to ping her to death. I loved the first wing; so much tricky play and new experiences. I'm looking forward to the upcoming weeks' worth of content!
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I agree that one thread on a board can't really be toxic to the community, but I'm also wary of how useful a purely venting thread can be, given the attitudes people invariably have when feeling the need to scream at a screen through text.
With that said, I think if the idea were warped a bit into a grounding exercise, it could be both cathartic and productive. Why not make the thread something to the effect of, "Post your frustrations, and we'll talk you off the cliff" kind of thing, where people in both camps can come with rage complaints or serious frustrations, and others can try to temper the response somehow and offer a counter-anecdote or something similar to mitigate the upset the poster is feeling. I know this sounds like, well, the purpose of the whole forum, but having a place to quickly drop a story that ticked you off might be nice, especially if you can come back with a cooler head to find reasonable, measured responses.
It'd take some moderation and would require that everyone play along and not stoke the flames, but it might be more accepted and useful that way.
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Chaser is easily the best common 2-drop in the set, as it simply outclasses every other option, synergizes with Improvise, crews vehicles well later, and adds energy, all at a low cost in a format that simply IS aggressive.
Nobody is claiming Cavalry is bad, but it's not so much better than other options at 5 that it's even in consideration over a card of Chaser's caliber.
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It's an aggressive environment, and even if midrange or control decks exist, hedging toward aggression with a first pick is generally a far better strategic play than taking a 5-drop, unless the expensive option is significantly more powerful. Cavalry is fine, but it's absolutely not at a premium, nor is it likely even green's best common (Scrounging Bandar takes that crown, IMO). If this were Ridgescale Tusker, it wouldn't even be a conversation, for example.
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I was completely blown out by that card twice this weekend, and I scored a 4-for-1 with it myself the one time I cast it in the midnight prerelease. The format seemed slow enough that it wasn't necessary to rush its deployment, yet there were enough relevant "go wide" strategies to still push an opponent into a situation in which it deals a considerable blow to their board.
Admittedly, the Tusker and Crazy Train seemed better overall, but I still can't see myself passing Onslaught P1p1 often.
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Played 3 events, opened an invention in every pool (but none of them limited playable), and went 5-0, 3-1-1, and 3-1. Played aggro GW, aggro GB, and wonky GW with 2 Consulate Dreadnought and 2 Aerial Modification for maximum hilarity. It was horrible, but very fun, and it won plenty of games.
I was really impressed by the combination of solid curves and interesting combat interactions, all while never feeling completely run over. Aether Poisoner is very good for the format at common, and the common vehicles in Aether Revolt are generally pretty awful, which balances things from the "lose to Freighter" nature of Kaladesh.
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I also think the green X spell will be best on uncrewed vehicles and things like Puzzleknots, as it lessens the likelihood of removal blowouts.
Really nice review overall!
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I also warn against underestimating the power of scaling, spreading, functionally undisruptable damage in a limited format out of a color that shouldn't be able to access it. Green's pool looks INSANE, and it already ranks as the best and deepest color in Kaladesh. The beast and train are obviously incredibly strong, but I'll always choose a spell like this over a creature if the power is comparable, and I'm worried it actually won't be, in that Onslaught will be simply unreal.
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In general, this set looks dangerous from a balance standpoint, in that the power level at uncommon is astronomical. The last time that happened (Mirrodin Beseiged), drafts were incredibly imbalanced and determined by pack quality at each spot at the table.
:dance:Fact or Fiction of the [Limited] Clan:dance:
I liked core sets for limited, but the main reason is that where I play these days (and it isn't much), the group isn't always super competitive, and when kids come to start playing, they have the perfect level of complexity to allow me to mentor them a bit. I relish those types of opportunities, being a teacher and all.
Speaking of that, today was my first day back as a full time teacher. I worked my butt off last year to get recertified, and now I'm working with 6th graders on their writing. If that's not a concept that's familiar to you, it's basically institutionalized child torture. :-P
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Prowess just seems lazy to me. This ability has been around forever, and unless they spice it up somehow (not by saturating with spells, but with adding effects to the triggers or something), it's going to feel retread.
I do absolutely love the functionality that Morph brings to the game, though. It adds playables to each card pool, and even though playing Grey Ogres isn't ever going to be ideal, off color Morphs are a great way to bait removal or mess with opponents' heads.
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End of turn, I Blastfire Bolt my Nest. On my turn, I play the green Paragon and swing for 10.
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I agree with this, but I find that Blood Knight is far more swingy than BGH, as Scarlet Crusader is fairly good on curve, and it's absolutely soul crushing to flat out lose to a 6/6 or sometimes even a 9/9 stupidly early in the game. It's certainly less ubiquitous than BGH, in that there are far more targets for BGH in your average arena deck, but I find I lose to Blood Knight far more often. I certainly dislike the general uselessness of BGH in comparison with BK being at least serviceable as a 3/3 for 3, but at the same time, I love that having BGH can allow for tricky plays with power pumping stuff like Blessing of Kings, Dark Iron Dwarf, and even Cold Blood in some cases. It's narrow, for sure, but it's utility that I can appreciate. I also find that when my opponent kills my enormous dude with BGH, I'm certainly behind on the exchange, but the game state determines whether the play loses me the game far more than the actual card interplay itself. It's still small enough such that the situations in which the 4/2 body is incredibly relevant are ones that likely had you relying too heavily on the fat it killed anyway. Most decks have ways of killing or negating fat, and while BGH is obviously better as an answer to an Ironbark Protector than, say, Hex is, having your big guy removed is really only as crippling as the board state was before you played it. Other than huge Taunt dudes, if you're way behind on board before you play them, fat guys like War Golem or even Ragnaros aren't really going to turn things around anyway.
I do agree about the Deathrattle complexity as well. I'm pretty sure it's a function of priority similar to what happens to stacking in Magic, but there isn't really a mechanism to explain exactly how this works within the game aside from trial and error.
Magic-wise, I've drafted a couple times to celebrate getting a new teaching job (I'm back!), and I've enjoyed M15 so far. It seems pretty balanced and skill intensive, aside from there being too few answers to the nut token Convoke deck. I drafted online yesterday, as I had some extra stuff, and I ended up with a fairly absurd UW deck without a single Raise the Alarm or Triplicate Spirits. I beat a couple token-type decks (one with Soul of Theros), mainly through solid evasion, double Dauntless River Marshall, and bombs (Avacyn and Ajani).
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At literally every prerelease, someone will yell "KHAAAAAAAAAAAAANS!" and think that they were the first to be so gosh dern clever.
As an aside, I will be this person at my prerelease.
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With that said, I think if the idea were warped a bit into a grounding exercise, it could be both cathartic and productive. Why not make the thread something to the effect of, "Post your frustrations, and we'll talk you off the cliff" kind of thing, where people in both camps can come with rage complaints or serious frustrations, and others can try to temper the response somehow and offer a counter-anecdote or something similar to mitigate the upset the poster is feeling. I know this sounds like, well, the purpose of the whole forum, but having a place to quickly drop a story that ticked you off might be nice, especially if you can come back with a cooler head to find reasonable, measured responses.
It'd take some moderation and would require that everyone play along and not stoke the flames, but it might be more accepted and useful that way.
:dance:Fact or Fiction of the [Limited] Clan:dance: