I really like BR, because the two shard mechanics (saccing stuff and unearth) play REALLY well together. Having said that, both Esper and Bant have very powerful linear strategies (artifacts and exalted), and if underdrafted they are table winning.
My personal preference is for Naya, simply because that's the shard that is base green, so it transitions into 5-colour better.
A few drafts in this format have honestly just served to remind me of how immensely frustrating it is. There is nothing quite as tilting as an opponent who slams turn 3 Woolly Thoctar off no fixing both games. Of course, 3 colors & no fixing is bad in the long run, but the payoff is so high when it works, and the opponent is just left sitting there, resigned.
Haha, I know what you mean. It's worse when 5C HAS fixing, and you're sitting there trying your best to catch up from a Stun Sniper followed by a Sedraxis Specter followed by a Voices of the Void followed by like, a Bull Cerodon. You're just like, darnit, guess I should've just picked the best card in each pack and some fixing and called it a deck (which is actually pretty close to an optimal strategy...).
A few drafts in this format have honestly just served to remind me of how immensely frustrating it is. There is nothing quite as tilting as an opponent who slams turn 3 Woolly Thoctar off no fixing both games. Of course, 3 colors & no fixing is bad in the long run, but the payoff is so high when it works, and the opponent is just left sitting there, resigned.
I think I'm done with this one already, heh.
Agreed. It makes for a bad format, just like stuff like Ordeals do. It may be the objectively correct decision to just risk your mana and play the absrudly more powerful multi-color cards. Similarly, it absollutely is worth it to to just go for it in BTT and slap an ordeal on something and hope they dont' have an answer. That makes for bad magic, in my mind. And incredibly frustrating magic. I too am done with this format. It just doesn't have a lot to offer.
Hold on, weren't you guys saying that the way to do it was to draft a two colour aggro deck?
If what you're saying is that that is a flawed approach, than I agree with you.
Alara block is like a normal set, except that you need to draft fixing as well as creatures and removal. And the norm is a shard, not a normal 2 colour pair. I've never felt completely out of it in a game, which I can't say is true in Theros block.
Hold on, weren't you guys saying that the way to do it was to draft a two colour aggro deck?
If what you're saying is that that is a flawed approach, than I agree with you.
Alara block is like a normal set, except that you need to draft fixing as well as creatures and removal. And the norm is a shard, not a normal 2 colour pair. I've never felt completely out of it in a game, which I can't say is true in Theros block.
No, what I"m saying is that multi-colored monstrosities can win when they hit their man, evne if they were otherwise terribly built with a bad mana base. And that is really frustrating. And sometimes it might be a plan to just go for that and pray.
And for what it's worth, in the drafts that I did, I had far and away the most success with white green aggro (straight or with a small splash), and it was easily the deck I lost to the most. It is the best deck in this format.
Hold on, weren't you guys saying that the way to do it was to draft a two colour aggro deck?
If what you're saying is that that is a flawed approach, than I agree with you.
Alara block is like a normal set, except that you need to draft fixing as well as creatures and removal. And the norm is a shard, not a normal 2 colour pair. I've never felt completely out of it in a game, which I can't say is true in Theros block.
I'm certainly not adamant about that strategy; like I said, this is one of the recent formats I've the least experience with, but the issue is that your reward for just randomly getting there off just basics is so high since you can slam your ridiculous 3-color bomb or whatnot on curve without spending your early turns cobbling together your mana. This does, essentially, give the poorly built decks (with 6-6-5 manabases or similar) some obscene nutdraws that randomly trounce decks that are built for consistency (either by having few colors or lots of fixing), and that is frustrating.
Can't you do that in any format though? Draft 'off colour' bombs, run them in a deck where the manabase is poor, then 'steal' wins by lucking into your mana?
I mean the all basics deck that curves out with Wooly Thoctar *can* stomp someone, but it will lose to it's own mana often too.
My personal preference is for Naya, simply because that's the shard that is base green, so it transitions into 5-colour better.
I think I'm done with this one already, heh.
Agreed. It makes for a bad format, just like stuff like Ordeals do. It may be the objectively correct decision to just risk your mana and play the absrudly more powerful multi-color cards. Similarly, it absollutely is worth it to to just go for it in BTT and slap an ordeal on something and hope they dont' have an answer. That makes for bad magic, in my mind. And incredibly frustrating magic. I too am done with this format. It just doesn't have a lot to offer.
If what you're saying is that that is a flawed approach, than I agree with you.
Alara block is like a normal set, except that you need to draft fixing as well as creatures and removal. And the norm is a shard, not a normal 2 colour pair. I've never felt completely out of it in a game, which I can't say is true in Theros block.
No, what I"m saying is that multi-colored monstrosities can win when they hit their man, evne if they were otherwise terribly built with a bad mana base. And that is really frustrating. And sometimes it might be a plan to just go for that and pray.
And for what it's worth, in the drafts that I did, I had far and away the most success with white green aggro (straight or with a small splash), and it was easily the deck I lost to the most. It is the best deck in this format.
I'm certainly not adamant about that strategy; like I said, this is one of the recent formats I've the least experience with, but the issue is that your reward for just randomly getting there off just basics is so high since you can slam your ridiculous 3-color bomb or whatnot on curve without spending your early turns cobbling together your mana. This does, essentially, give the poorly built decks (with 6-6-5 manabases or similar) some obscene nutdraws that randomly trounce decks that are built for consistency (either by having few colors or lots of fixing), and that is frustrating.
I mean the all basics deck that curves out with Wooly Thoctar *can* stomp someone, but it will lose to it's own mana often too.