I'm a little worried that it won't be very much fun to draft. For example, a lot of the key storm cards are at higher rarities. Also, the Master editions in the past were pretty terrible, but hopefully they've learned from list (just look at Modern Masters!)
I didn't particularly mind the Masters Edition formats, but then again I kinda like most formats that are not about curving monsters & more about durdling around with card advantage and 7-drops.
I'm slightly optimistic about this myself, mostly because of Modern Masters and how I was skeptical at first, but it turned out to be an absolutely excellent format. I suspect I'll do a few of these and figure out if the format seems solid, and if so, I'll do a lot more.
My first impression is that seems more like Modern Masters than ME-ME4 in that the power level at common is pretty high. Also, the standout mechanic at common is cycling, which I think is a good thing for the format.
So my first impression from actually seeing the commons is this: "Holy cow, they just put the whole tournament madness deck in there!" If I draft this, I'll be looking for any reason to be UG madness.
BR aggro looks like a thing too, with Dark Ritual and Chain Lightning at common. But it looks like UW actually has some solid control tools to slow down those types of aggressive decks. Interested to see the uncommons and rares.
Seems like an utterly pointless discussion, as the probability of those appearing in the same pack are astronomical. Tarmogoyf and foil Bob in the same Modern Masters pack is common compared to that.
@Dark Ritual: Under normal circumstances a card like that is unplayable in limited, but I suppose we'll see. In either case, it's certainly unplayable outside of combo...
@Dark Ritual: Under normal circumstances a card like that is unplayable in limited, but I suppose we'll see. In either case, it's certainly unplayable outside of combo...
Is Dark Ritual unplayable in sui-black? Seems like exactly what that deck wants to cast anywhere between turn 1-3.
Dark Ritual is good when you can reliably slam a turn 1 Hypnotic Specter or Necropotence or something like that, but in limited you won't be able to do that a high enough percentage of the time that it's worth it to run a card that is fundamentally card disadvantage & also highly situational - it's only good with specific spells at a specific point in the game, and your turn 2 four drop or the like can easily be negated by the opponent.
I suspect that we'll see a number of players running Dark Ritual, but I also suspect that only 10% or so of those who do should actually be running it.
@Dark Ritual: Under normal circumstances a card like that is unplayable in limited, but I suppose we'll see. In either case, it's certainly unplayable outside of combo...
Is Dark Ritual unplayable in sui-black? Seems like exactly what that deck wants to cast anywhere between turn 1-3.
Dark Ritual is sometimes a mull to 6, always puts you down a card, and is the most putrid top deck imaginable. Like any card there might be the occasional deck that wants it, but I don't think as an archetype sui-black does.
Well, I imagine UB storm with Dark Ritual, Frantic Search, Brainstorm, Obsessive Search, and Deep Analysis at common does. Frantic Search interacts well with a number of those cards and is completely unplayable outside storm and Madness, meaning you can probably draft a couple reliably. If Tendrils is printed at uncommon, then I'll be really excited about UB storm.
Tendrils and Brain Freeze are both at uncommon. In limited brain freeze might actually require less mana and a lower storm count to kill your opponent. On turn 4 an opponent will have either 30 or 29 cards in their library.
Also if you fire up MTGO go to your collection, choose Vintage Masters and set owned to >= 0, you can see the complete list of cards with their new rarities and art. I will neither confirm nor deny the rumor that I spent about 30 minutes last night staring at a foil Black Lotus and some foil moxes...
Hmm... Too bad they weren't allowed to reprint Empty the Warrens. RB Goblin storm looks like a possibility, albeit inconsistent. Skirk Prospector + Beetleback Chief + Goblin Matron at common and Ringleader at uncommon alongside common cheap burn spells (Chain Lightning, Kindle) make it reasonable to chain a few creatures/burn and finish someone off with a mini-Tendrils, which you may even be able to find with Demonic Tutor or Gamble or Vamp Tutor. Empty the Warrens with Skirk Prospector would have made it pretty consistent. Oh well.
I'm a bit nervous for the format. I only re-started MTG during Shards, and have no familiarity with Vintage or other Eternal formats... it seems like one's skill at Limited will have less influence on the outcome than one's knowledge of Vintage. Maybe not; MMA was crazy awesome and not that foreign.
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My Decks: EDH: Sygg, River Cutthroat , Road to Scion
Grimgrin, Corpseborn Modern: Polytokes IRL: Progenitus Polymorph , Goblins
You won't need to know anything about Vintage or eternal formats to draft this format, aside from perhaps decent familiarity with Storm math. Most decks are going to be typical limited decks. Removal, Bombs, and CA will be king. Looks like the format isn't too aggressive, so that should be the general rule of thumb. There might be some Storm decks, although i have a hard time seeing them work as they werent' really a thing in Modern Masters. I think you really need too much help from uncommons and rares.
You won't need to know anything about Vintage or eternal formats to draft this format, aside from perhaps decent familiarity with Storm math. Most decks are going to be typical limited decks. Removal, Bombs, and CA will be king. Looks like the format isn't too aggressive, so that should be the general rule of thumb. There might be some Storm decks, although i have a hard time seeing them work as they werent' really a thing in Modern Masters. I think you really need too much help from uncommons and rares.
In Modern Masters UR Storm was bad because you needed too much support from rares and because Storm is pretty bad in Modern in general due to epic bannings (well, by Eternal standards of what "storm" should do). The format has no good rituals or cantrips. I mean, to build storm you needed to do things like have a suspend dork resolve and cast Desperate Ritual for +1 mana and then return Grinning Ignus to hand and recast it.... Weak.
This set looks promising. Sure, your storm deck is mad consistent if you P1P1 Bargain, Necropotence, Time Spiral, Timetwister, YawgWin or Memory Jar. But the number of enablers at common and uncommon listed by Sene (particularly ones that are basically unplayable in non-storm decks) means I'm actually excited to try to draft it in general, if the cards are right.
I'm a little sad about no Megrim in a "filler uncommon" slot. Bad card is bad, but drafting Megrim with Hymns and Jar/Wheel of Fortune is just LOLOL.
You won't need to know anything about Vintage or eternal formats to draft this format, aside from perhaps decent familiarity with Storm math. Most decks are going to be typical limited decks. Removal, Bombs, and CA will be king. Looks like the format isn't too aggressive, so that should be the general rule of thumb. There might be some Storm decks, although i have a hard time seeing them work as they werent' really a thing in Modern Masters. I think you really need too much help from uncommons and rares.
In Modern Masters UR Storm was bad because you needed too much support from rares and because Storm is pretty bad in Modern in general due to epic bannings (well, by Eternal standards of what "storm" should do). The format has no good rituals or cantrips. I mean, to build storm you needed to do things like have a suspend dork resolve and cast Desperate Ritual for +1 mana and then return Grinning Ignus to hand and recast it.... Weak.
This set looks promising. Sure, your storm deck is mad consistent if you P1P1 Bargain, Necropotence, Time Spiral, Timetwister, YawgWin or Memory Jar. But the number of enablers at common and uncommon listed by Sene (particularly ones that are basically unplayable in non-storm decks) means I'm actually excited to try to draft it in general, if the cards are right.
I'm a little sad about no Megrim in a "filler uncommon" slot. Bad card is bad, but drafting Megrim with Hymns and Jar/Wheel of Fortune is just LOLOL.
The thing is, though, you are going to have a really hard time getting a lethal storm without the rares. You need storm 9 to win with Brain Freeze and 10 to win with Tendrils. That's going to be very hard to do without a busted mythic or rare (or Twister), or a bunch of the premium uncommons like FOF and Gush. However, FoF is going to be a first pick by most decks in the format, so you aren't going to be able to get a bunch of them. And unlike with Empty and Grapeshot in Modern Masters, you can't do a small storm for 4 and be happy with it. It's basically all or nothing. Temporal Fissure seems more like a tempo play than a storm card, where a U/G deck will gush or cloud of faeries into it to bounce a couple creatures.
Definitely excited to play though, even if the price point makes experimenting a pretty iffy proposition. Losing three drafts to figure out that Storm doesn't work is a pretty serious dent to the ticket stache.
I went 3-0 with this one. Started out with Man-o'-War, then Arrogant Wurm trying to draft madness, but I quickly abandoned that plan and went for blue-black control instead. The deck seemed pretty good, and I won the draft fairly easily.
This one was really hard to build, mostly because I didn't know how fast the format was, meaning I wasn't sure how inconsistent I could let my deck be. I probably should have splashed the Death Grasp from the start (I boarded it in every match), seeing as Chartooth Cougar fetched both red and white because of my Plateau, giving me three sources for free. My first build had that as well as maindeck Blazing Specter and Goblin Commando, but I was worried about aggressive starts and tried to reduce my red splash, and added cards like Paralyze to stem some bleeding. I'm not yet sure what was correct.
It was a really tough event. My first round opponent blew me out several times in the first game, first with Magister of Worth, and then twice more with two Urborg Uprisings. I was winning even after the first Uprising, but the second one broke me. I boarded in the greedy cards (he was 4CC) and won games 2 and 3 after some hard-fought games. Round 2 was pretty easy, but round 3 was one I really shouldn't have won. In the first game, my opponent plays turn 2 Survival of the Fittest and starts going nuts with Basking Rootwalla, Arrogant Wurm and Genesis. He even had Living Death! And Sol Ring. And two Flametongue Kavu. And Erhnam Djinn & Yawgmoth's Bargain. But I poked through damage every now and then, and set up a big turn (my only creature in play was Psychatog) where I managed to go Famine + Chain Lighning his Brindle Shoat token + Counterspell the Arrogant Wurm he attempted to flash in, and get him with my Tog. In game 2 I got in a couple of clutch counterspells, and killed him with a couple of Nekrataals. Round 4 was also very tough, my opponent was white/blue aggro with solid creatures and good spells, such as Fact or Fiction and Decree of Justice. He played Decree for 3 angels in the second game, but I played Animate Dead on his Scrivener to get back Repel, kill an Angel, and attack in such a way that his Serendib Efreet left him dead in two turns. And when he couldn't kill me on his turn, I won.
Seems like a pretty grindy format, which I like. Counterspells have been good so far. Looks like I'll be drafting this a bit, and we're off to a good 7-0 start
Here's the deck I drafted... a pretty poor strom deck, although I lost two games to my own poor handling of storm: in one case I had the necessary storm count but I got greedy and flashed back deep analysis... therefore killing myself because I had only 3 life. Doh! The other time, I was flooded so that show it to my opp i played my lands... which prevented me from properly playing nostalgic dreams, which could have brought back brainfreeze for the kill. Oh well, I should not doubt that storm can win out of nowhere and keep cards in hand for frantic researches.
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Where's the discussion?
http://www.wizards.com/Magic/Magazine/Article.aspx?x=mtg/daily/li/299
I'm a little worried that it won't be very much fun to draft. For example, a lot of the key storm cards are at higher rarities. Also, the Master editions in the past were pretty terrible, but hopefully they've learned from list (just look at Modern Masters!)
A comic about the world's most addictive game, Magic: The Gathering.
I'm slightly optimistic about this myself, mostly because of Modern Masters and how I was skeptical at first, but it turned out to be an absolutely excellent format. I suspect I'll do a few of these and figure out if the format seems solid, and if so, I'll do a lot more.
My first impression is that seems more like Modern Masters than ME-ME4 in that the power level at common is pretty high. Also, the standout mechanic at common is cycling, which I think is a good thing for the format.
Practice for Khans of Tarkir Limited:
Draft: (#1) (#2) (#3) (#4) (#5)
BR aggro looks like a thing too, with Dark Ritual and Chain Lightning at common. But it looks like UW actually has some solid control tools to slow down those types of aggressive decks. Interested to see the uncommons and rares.
P1P1 do you draft foil Time Walk or non-foil Ancestral Recall?
Not possible. P9 (foil or not) only shows up in the foil slot.
Practice for Khans of Tarkir Limited:
Draft: (#1) (#2) (#3) (#4) (#5)
@Dark Ritual: Under normal circumstances a card like that is unplayable in limited, but I suppose we'll see. In either case, it's certainly unplayable outside of combo...
Is Dark Ritual unplayable in sui-black? Seems like exactly what that deck wants to cast anywhere between turn 1-3.
I suspect that we'll see a number of players running Dark Ritual, but I also suspect that only 10% or so of those who do should actually be running it.
But we'll see.
Dark Ritual is sometimes a mull to 6, always puts you down a card, and is the most putrid top deck imaginable. Like any card there might be the occasional deck that wants it, but I don't think as an archetype sui-black does.
I don't know if that was honestly a question about tendrils but, if so, here's the answer:
http://www.wizards.com/Magic/Magazine/Article.aspx?x=mtg/daily/arcana/1507
Tendrils and Brain Freeze are both at uncommon. In limited brain freeze might actually require less mana and a lower storm count to kill your opponent. On turn 4 an opponent will have either 30 or 29 cards in their library.
Cloud of Faeries - uncommon
Deep Analysis - common
Mind's Desire - rare
Plea for Power - rare (essentially a 3U Concentrate)
Temporal Fissure - common
Brain Freeze - uncommon
Brainstorm - common
Fact or Fiction - uncommon
Frantic Search - common
Gush - uncommon
High Tide - uncommon (if you're monoblue, which seems like a possibility)
Stroke of Genius - rare
Turnabout - uncommon
Nightscape Familiar - common
Tendrils of Agony - uncommon
Cabal Ritual - uncommon
Dark Ritual - common
My Decks:
EDH: Sygg, River Cutthroat , Road to Scion
Grimgrin, Corpseborn
Modern: Polytokes
IRL: Progenitus Polymorph , Goblins
Just a friendly reminder that I will drive this car off a bridge
In Modern Masters UR Storm was bad because you needed too much support from rares and because Storm is pretty bad in Modern in general due to epic bannings (well, by Eternal standards of what "storm" should do). The format has no good rituals or cantrips. I mean, to build storm you needed to do things like have a suspend dork resolve and cast Desperate Ritual for +1 mana and then return Grinning Ignus to hand and recast it.... Weak.
This set looks promising. Sure, your storm deck is mad consistent if you P1P1 Bargain, Necropotence, Time Spiral, Timetwister, YawgWin or Memory Jar. But the number of enablers at common and uncommon listed by Sene (particularly ones that are basically unplayable in non-storm decks) means I'm actually excited to try to draft it in general, if the cards are right.
I'm a little sad about no Megrim in a "filler uncommon" slot. Bad card is bad, but drafting Megrim with Hymns and Jar/Wheel of Fortune is just LOLOL.
Practice for Khans of Tarkir Limited:
Draft: (#1) (#2) (#3) (#4) (#5)
The thing is, though, you are going to have a really hard time getting a lethal storm without the rares. You need storm 9 to win with Brain Freeze and 10 to win with Tendrils. That's going to be very hard to do without a busted mythic or rare (or Twister), or a bunch of the premium uncommons like FOF and Gush. However, FoF is going to be a first pick by most decks in the format, so you aren't going to be able to get a bunch of them. And unlike with Empty and Grapeshot in Modern Masters, you can't do a small storm for 4 and be happy with it. It's basically all or nothing. Temporal Fissure seems more like a tempo play than a storm card, where a U/G deck will gush or cloud of faeries into it to bounce a couple creatures.
Definitely excited to play though, even if the price point makes experimenting a pretty iffy proposition. Losing three drafts to figure out that Storm doesn't work is a pretty serious dent to the ticket stache.
I went 3-0 with this one. Started out with Man-o'-War, then Arrogant Wurm trying to draft madness, but I quickly abandoned that plan and went for blue-black control instead. The deck seemed pretty good, and I won the draft fairly easily.
This one was really hard to build, mostly because I didn't know how fast the format was, meaning I wasn't sure how inconsistent I could let my deck be. I probably should have splashed the Death Grasp from the start (I boarded it in every match), seeing as Chartooth Cougar fetched both red and white because of my Plateau, giving me three sources for free. My first build had that as well as maindeck Blazing Specter and Goblin Commando, but I was worried about aggressive starts and tried to reduce my red splash, and added cards like Paralyze to stem some bleeding. I'm not yet sure what was correct.
It was a really tough event. My first round opponent blew me out several times in the first game, first with Magister of Worth, and then twice more with two Urborg Uprisings. I was winning even after the first Uprising, but the second one broke me. I boarded in the greedy cards (he was 4CC) and won games 2 and 3 after some hard-fought games. Round 2 was pretty easy, but round 3 was one I really shouldn't have won. In the first game, my opponent plays turn 2 Survival of the Fittest and starts going nuts with Basking Rootwalla, Arrogant Wurm and Genesis. He even had Living Death! And Sol Ring. And two Flametongue Kavu. And Erhnam Djinn & Yawgmoth's Bargain. But I poked through damage every now and then, and set up a big turn (my only creature in play was Psychatog) where I managed to go Famine + Chain Lighning his Brindle Shoat token + Counterspell the Arrogant Wurm he attempted to flash in, and get him with my Tog. In game 2 I got in a couple of clutch counterspells, and killed him with a couple of Nekrataals. Round 4 was also very tough, my opponent was white/blue aggro with solid creatures and good spells, such as Fact or Fiction and Decree of Justice. He played Decree for 3 angels in the second game, but I played Animate Dead on his Scrivener to get back Repel, kill an Angel, and attack in such a way that his Serendib Efreet left him dead in two turns. And when he couldn't kill me on his turn, I won.
Seems like a pretty grindy format, which I like. Counterspells have been good so far. Looks like I'll be drafting this a bit, and we're off to a good 7-0 start