My loss was in the first round where I failed to hit my plains and got run over by GW tokens big stuff convoke
Had to grind out wins in the next two matchs Nameless Inversion with Soulshift is pretty dirty, especially with Thief of Hope
Fun draft but not worth 35$. I got a Blinkmoth Nexus in my draft pool, won a pack that had a Surgical Extraction, then bought 3 for 40 and traded in a bunch of money cards fro Dragons of Tarkir for another 3 and got Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobyte, Fulminator Mage and Remand as my money cards out of those 6 packs. You never expect money with packs but when they cost this much it's hard to justify the cost. The draft environment doesn't make me want to spend that much on it either: maybe I ought to draft it a few more times to find out if I'm right you say? Ah! But that would require spending almost 100 dollars on drafting (3 drafts) and I don't want to spend a hundred dollars to find out if my initial impression was misplaced; I usually spend that much money on things I'm sure are worth it.
I'll likely draft one more time but that will be that.
Good money at the store today: foil Dark Confidant, foil and regular Tarmogoyfs in three pods (each pod had one player with the sweet money pull).
i don't see what your problem with spirits is. archetypes that depend on one or two commons are nothing new, especially in formats with 10 color combinations. if you see a thief of hope late, you know it's a signal; if you don't, you just draft whatever else is open. the archetype doesn't have a lot of good commons, true, but that's because nobody else wants those cards. restless apparition and pillory of the sleepless can only be played in wb, and thief of hope, moonlit strider, waxmane baku, devouring greed and scuttling death wheel every time if nobody else is drafting spirits. if wb is open, you'll end up with a reasonable deck. it's the same thing with elementals, btw, with smokebraider being the main common.
other color combinations may technically have more commons, but that's because a lot of them can be played in different archetypes, so people will actually fight over them.
and the rg deck is the 5-color deck. it has fiery fall and sylvan bounty at common, it's pretty obvious that's the way it's intended to be drafted.
This is completely correct. The other archetypes have more commons because they overlap with one another. No one not in spirits is taking baku or thief. Also, while nameless inversion is good in any black deck, they will not value it as highly as you will. Meaning you can get them early out the pack and wheel a thief and baku p2 and p3. Elementals has 7 core commons that no one else wants. Same thing happens as happens in elementals. You can take the contested cards early and wheel smokebraiders. This allows you to go huge with igniter and flamekin. Your, just looking at the number of cards and forgetting no one else wants your cards, so you can get by with less of them. Also remember even if they would take "your" cards they won't value them the same way you will. This means you will get cards that are extremely powerful but only for you, way before they would just get picked out a pack to fill a curve.
Thief of Hope is certainly a high priority for the BW deck, but I'll be fairly shocked if the whole archetype hinges on that card, because it certainly never did before.
Both Thief and Waxmane Baku are cards that improve the tempo game of the spirits deck, but my point was that you don't need to play a tempo game with spirits at all. If you miss out completely on both those cards, you can still exhaust your opponents hand, stall the board, and win with Pillories and Rusalkas. The strategy is tried and true.
When the archetype was around before there were a whole lot more cards that gave you some kind of bonus for playing Spirits, not to mention more Spirits and better Arcane spells. It didn't hinge one one specific card because there were several options to fill that role. Now if you want to play Spirits as a thing, Thief (and Waxmane) is the only real payoff so you better get multiples. Otherwise you're just B/W with some very restrictive Gravediggers.
Again no one moves into it with out a clear signal. If you see pillory 5th pick w/b spirits is open and move in. If the enablers don't get opened that would suck, but that is also unlikely. No one else is taking your cards so any that are open fall into your lap. They are too narrow for other decks to take. You make it seem like getting 4 or more of a common is hard, that is just not true. Also this is not kamigawa draft, no one else is in arcane and spirits at the table.
Again no one moves into it with out a clear signal. If you see pillory 5th pick w/b spirits is open and move in. If the enablers don't get opened that would suck, but that is also unlikely. No one else is taking your cards so any that are open fall into your lap. They are too narrow for other decks to take. You make it seem like getting 4 or more of a common is hard, that is just not true. Also this is not kamigawa draft, no one else is in arcane and spirits at the table.
It is entirely possible for W/B to be wide open and you not to see any of the common enablers. If you get a late passed Baku and Thief of Hope in Pack 1, it isn't at all unreasonable for not a single other one to come your way. When there are only two common enablers, it isn't at all unlikely that they just don't show up in packs. Hell, this happened to me today where I picked up a 13th pick Baku and 14th pick Thief at the end of pack 1, and didn't see either of the enablers come around in packs 2 and 3 beyond that. Couple that with the rest of the spirits being nigh-on unplayably bad without a good number of those two.
Equally, most of the arcane spells are just plain bad. Otherworldly Journey has its uses. Grasp is sideboard material. And that sums up the Arcane spells that are worth considering. And if you don't get the enablers, Arcane just doesn't matter at all. It's a tacked on line of text with no meaning at that point, so there isn't any point in even worrying about them.
The fact that you fully admit that the reason these cards table is due to poor representation in the format means that you have to agree that the archetype is shallow. There are so few cards that matter, that the "marque" cards table simply because there isn't much to gain from them. And god forbid you get clear signals it's open in Pack 1, only to have middling crap in pack 2. Practically everything you would have taken later in the pack is utterly worthless in other decks/archetypes. The only reason to go into B/W aside from spirits is a ton of Raise the Alarms and Bone Splinters with a side of Pillory. Everything else you try to do will just be underwhelming compared to what else is happening.
The point is that Spirits is downright shallow. The grind them out strategy simply doesn't work when the removal in the colors is either a premium for other decks (Bone Splinters, Arrest, Nameless Inversion, Dismember), or mehtacular (Grim affliction). It also doesn't grind them out when your deck consists of wildly inefficient creatures who are only particularly good in the context of two specific cards that you may not see a good enough number to matter. And the cards you *really* want to see (Dismember and Spectral Procession) will just never get passed to you, ever, and don't have anything to do with the archetype to begin with.
The fact that the only "key" cards to the archetype are two that typically table indicates pretty clearly that the archetype is about as shallow as it can get.
i don't see what your problem with spirits is. archetypes that depend on one or two commons are nothing new, especially in formats with 10 color combinations. if you see a thief of hope late, you know it's a signal; if you don't, you just draft whatever else is open. the archetype doesn't have a lot of good commons, true, but that's because nobody else wants those cards. restless apparition and pillory of the sleepless can only be played in wb, and thief of hope, moonlit strider, waxmane baku, devouring greed and scuttling death wheel every time if nobody else is drafting spirits. if wb is open, you'll end up with a reasonable deck. it's the same thing with elementals, btw, with smokebraider being the main common.
other color combinations may technically have more commons, but that's because a lot of them can be played in different archetypes, so people will actually fight over them.
and the rg deck is the 5-color deck. it has fiery fall and sylvan bounty at common, it's pretty obvious that's the way it's intended to be drafted.
The fact that there are so few cards to the archetype that nobody cares to fight over them is a pretty big indicator that it is a shallow archetype. I dislike shallow archetypes. Every deck that is built in them effectively turns out the same, and there are few if any meaningful choices you can make. Equally, the lack of crossover is a huge problem as it can lead to a ruined draft through no particular fault of your own. Spirits is a cross your fingers and pray archetype, even if you received clear signals it was open early on. There aren't nearly enough spirits that are good on their own to make it work without a very large number of the enablers.
Again no one moves into it with out a clear signal. If you see pillory 5th pick w/b spirits is open and move in. If the enablers don't get opened that would suck, but that is also unlikely. No one else is taking your cards so any that are open fall into your lap. They are too narrow for other decks to take. You make it seem like getting 4 or more of a common is hard, that is just not true. Also this is not kamigawa draft, no one else is in arcane and spirits at the table.
It is entirely possible for W/B to be wide open and you not to see any of the common enablers. If you get a late passed Baku and Thief of Hope in Pack 1, it isn't at all unreasonable for not a single other one to come your way. When there are only two common enablers, it isn't at all unlikely that they just don't show up in packs. Hell, this happened to me today where I picked up a 13th pick Baku and 14th pick Thief at the end of pack 1, and didn't see either of the enablers come around in packs 2 and 3 beyond that. Couple that with the rest of the spirits being nigh-on unplayably bad without a good number of those two.
Equally, most of the arcane spells are just plain bad. Otherworldly Journey has its uses. Grasp is sideboard material. And that sums up the Arcane spells that are worth considering. And if you don't get the enablers, Arcane just doesn't matter at all. It's a tacked on line of text with no meaning at that point, so there isn't any point in even worrying about them.
The fact that you fully admit that the reason these cards table is due to poor representation in the format means that you have to agree that the archetype is shallow. There are so few cards that matter, that the "marque" cards table simply because there isn't much to gain from them. And god forbid you get clear signals it's open in Pack 1, only to have middling crap in pack 2. Practically everything you would have taken later in the pack is utterly worthless in other decks/archetypes. The only reason to go into B/W aside from spirits is a ton of Raise the Alarms and Bone Splinters with a side of Pillory. Everything else you try to do will just be underwhelming compared to what else is happening.
The point is that Spirits is downright shallow. The grind them out strategy simply doesn't work when the removal in the colors is either a premium for other decks (Bone Splinters, Arrest, Nameless Inversion, Dismember), or mehtacular (Grim affliction). It also doesn't grind them out when your deck consists of wildly inefficient creatures who are only particularly good in the context of two specific cards that you may not see a good enough number to matter. And the cards you *really* want to see (Dismember and Spectral Procession) will just never get passed to you, ever, and don't have anything to do with the archetype to begin with.
The fact that the only "key" cards to the archetype are two that typically table indicates pretty clearly that the archetype is about as shallow as it can get.
There are 101 commons in this set. You open 240 commons at an 8 man table. This means you should see 4-5 of thief or waxmane per draft. That is more than enough to allow your draft to work. Moreover you are taking arrest nameless inversion as second to first pick cards. No one will rate them that highly, they have other needs. Your talking about getting unlucky but that doesn't line up with the math. I am playing a card game not chess. You need to play to probabilities. Also no one takes otherworldly journey as high as you would as well. That becomes an easy second pick for you and if you cut the cards right in pack one, those other cards you want wheel back to you. Also dismember and procession are not the payoff cards. Relentless Apparition and Pillory are your payoff cards. No one else can play them. You really need to look at the math. Deciding what deck to draft on your feeling is just plain wrong.
Thief of Hope is certainly a high priority for the BW deck, but I'll be fairly shocked if the whole archetype hinges on that card, because it certainly never did before.
Both Thief and Waxmane Baku are cards that improve the tempo game of the spirits deck, but my point was that you don't need to play a tempo game with spirits at all. If you miss out completely on both those cards, you can still exhaust your opponents hand, stall the board, and win with Pillories and Rusalkas. The strategy is tried and true.
When the archetype was around before there were a whole lot more cards that gave you some kind of bonus for playing Spirits, not to mention more Spirits and better Arcane spells. It didn't hinge one one specific card because there were several options to fill that role. Now if you want to play Spirits as a thing, Thief (and Waxmane) is the only real payoff so you better get multiples. Otherwise you're just B/W with some very restrictive Gravediggers.
Again no one moves into it with out a clear signal. If you see pillory 5th pick w/b spirits is open and move in. If the enablers don't get opened that would suck, but that is also unlikely. No one else is taking your cards so any that are open fall into your lap. They are too narrow for other decks to take. You make it seem like getting 4 or more of a common is hard, that is just not true. Also this is not kamigawa draft, no one else is in arcane and spirits at the table.
I'm not suggesting that they're hard to get. I'm just saying that if you don't get multiple copies of that one specific card you're not really playing "Spirits," you're playing B/W mediocre/overcosted creatures that happen to share a type. Regardless of whether the deck is good with/without Thief of Hope, or who else wants to pick the pieces, that seems like a poorly executed archetype to me - there should be more than one good card to make you want to play that deck.
Again no one moves into it with out a clear signal. If you see pillory 5th pick w/b spirits is open and move in. If the enablers don't get opened that would suck, but that is also unlikely. No one else is taking your cards so any that are open fall into your lap. They are too narrow for other decks to take. You make it seem like getting 4 or more of a common is hard, that is just not true. Also this is not kamigawa draft, no one else is in arcane and spirits at the table.
It is entirely possible for W/B to be wide open and you not to see any of the common enablers. If you get a late passed Baku and Thief of Hope in Pack 1, it isn't at all unreasonable for not a single other one to come your way. When there are only two common enablers, it isn't at all unlikely that they just don't show up in packs. Hell, this happened to me today where I picked up a 13th pick Baku and 14th pick Thief at the end of pack 1, and didn't see either of the enablers come around in packs 2 and 3 beyond that. Couple that with the rest of the spirits being nigh-on unplayably bad without a good number of those two.
Equally, most of the arcane spells are just plain bad. Otherworldly Journey has its uses. Grasp is sideboard material. And that sums up the Arcane spells that are worth considering. And if you don't get the enablers, Arcane just doesn't matter at all. It's a tacked on line of text with no meaning at that point, so there isn't any point in even worrying about them.
The fact that you fully admit that the reason these cards table is due to poor representation in the format means that you have to agree that the archetype is shallow. There are so few cards that matter, that the "marque" cards table simply because there isn't much to gain from them. And god forbid you get clear signals it's open in Pack 1, only to have middling crap in pack 2. Practically everything you would have taken later in the pack is utterly worthless in other decks/archetypes. The only reason to go into B/W aside from spirits is a ton of Raise the Alarms and Bone Splinters with a side of Pillory. Everything else you try to do will just be underwhelming compared to what else is happening.
The point is that Spirits is downright shallow. The grind them out strategy simply doesn't work when the removal in the colors is either a premium for other decks (Bone Splinters, Arrest, Nameless Inversion, Dismember), or mehtacular (Grim affliction). It also doesn't grind them out when your deck consists of wildly inefficient creatures who are only particularly good in the context of two specific cards that you may not see a good enough number to matter. And the cards you *really* want to see (Dismember and Spectral Procession) will just never get passed to you, ever, and don't have anything to do with the archetype to begin with.
The fact that the only "key" cards to the archetype are two that typically table indicates pretty clearly that the archetype is about as shallow as it can get.
There are 101 commons in this set. You open 240 commons at an 8 man table. This means you should see 4-5 of thief or waxmane per draft. That is more than enough to allow your draft to work. Moreover you are taking arrest nameless inversion as second to first pick cards. No one will rate them that highly, they have other needs. Your talking about getting unlucky but that doesn't line up with the math. I am playing a card game not chess. You need to play to probabilities. Also no one takes otherworldly journey as high as you would as well. That becomes an easy second pick for you and if you cut the cards right in pack one, those other cards you want wheel back to you. Also dismember and procession are not the payoff cards. Relentless Apparition and Pillory are your payoff cards. No one else can play them. You really need to look at the math. Deciding what deck to draft on your feeling is just plain wrong.
That's not really how it works. You have about an 8% chance that any given pack will not have a given common (11/101 commons). Assuming equal distribution, there is about an 8% chance that you will not see any specific common in a given draft (.9^24). So, basically, on average, about 1/10 drafts will not even have a single Thief or Baku present.
Equally, even if true, 4-5 copies of cards that are absolutely necessary for the archetype to work isn't nearly enough. At some point, somebody may well pick one of those up late in the draft as the rest of the pack is pretty bad (Which I noticed is a very common occurence in MM15 draft; there is a ton of chaffe that nobody wants; you might as well pick a hedge bet later on on the off chance the archetype is open). If that happens even twice, you are completely screwed out of your archetype.
Having a mere two cards for you archetype to even function is shallow design. The rest of the spirits are down-right terrible without a critical mass of these two, and preferable 3-4 of each. The archetype simply cannot function at all without them. When nearly 1/10 drafts will have one of the two relevant cards not present at all, it just can work.
The fact they are common doesn't stop the archetype from being shallow. The archetype does one thing, and only one thing, there are few cards that even matter, and there isn't much variance in what you *can* do with it one draft from next. It's a parasitic and shallow archetype without any real depth, requiring too much finger-crossing to be consistent.
He was saying 4-5 of *either* Waxmane or Thief, which is close to average, between the two. Closer to 5.
I am personally in some doubt about the assertion that all the spirits besides Baku and Thief suck without them; I remember they mostly looked bad the first time around, too, but people wised up and made them work just fine. It's hard to beat a deck that is functionally immune to attrition and willing to play defensively. Regardless, I think we can all agree that Spirits is an archetype that can support probably about 1 drafter at the table, and that you therefore need to be cautious about committing very hard very early.
For sealed I made a B/R Bloodthirst deck and went 2nd place with it.
For draft I made a Soulshifters deck because nobody grabbed any of the cards. I got 3rd. Its actually very powerful. I literally cast the same Nameless Inversion 5 times in one game. The card advantage is real.
Just look hard at the rares and think to yourself "is this a bomb?". Most of the time it is you just might not know how to use it correctly.
All Is Dust was going around at my table. I was gobsmacked. I didn't get to play it but no way was I passing it on. Imagine that in a heavy artifact deck, what a beating. It was sideboard tech against color creature swarms and came in against UG but I didn't draw it.
I just did a draft tonight. I drafted a mono-red elemental with a bloodthirst sub-theme. It was awesome. I ended up with 4 of the common 2 bolts and one lightning ng bolts. The combo of the elemental lord and spitebellows was Awesome. Get in for seven damage then kill a creature. Had the 7/2 persist and skarg phoenix if the game went long. Elementals seems really realy strong.
Although if you are th Only red player at an eight man draft, your deck will probably be insane.
Had a 32 players draft this saturday. I'm not really a good drafter, so I studied all the archetypes carefully and it really paid off. I first-picked a Noble Hierarch in pack 1 (value pick, I must admit) and went with some pieces for GW convoke with the rest of pack 1. My late picks were mostly leftovers, as G and W were coming harder to get by. My pool was 60-70% W at this point, with cards like Spectral Procession, Raise the Alarm, Fortify and Skyhunter Skirmisher.
Pack 2, I first-picked Fulminator Mage (again, for value) and noticed that not much GW stuff was passed to me. However, red was really opened. I was passed 2 Boros Swiftblade, a Viashino Slaughtermaster, a bunch of equips and a Brute Force. I decided to switch to Boros.
Pack #3 really rewarded me for going Boros, as I first picked a Nobilis of War.
I went 4-0-1, and finished second (my best limited result ever), splitting 20 boosters with the first position (we tied). He wanted to keep his pack sealed, but I was eager to open mine as they will probably be the only MM15 product I'll be able to afford. Among those 10 boosters, I pulled a Clique, a Goyf, a Splinter Twin and a Wilt-Leaf Liege. Couldn't be more happy!
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"De potentia juvenis somniabat, nunc de Mundo somniat..."
I'm building a sealed pool, and I have 3 Mechanists. I'm definitely considering these guys, as they're obviously strong in multiples. How many other (non-mechanist) artifacts would you think the minimum number is, considering how many may be out of your deck by turn 4?
Would you lean towards the same number +1 if your pool had only 2 Mechanists?
For reference in this particular pool I had 6 other playable artifacts, and if the Mechanists were out at least one of those other artifacts would've been borderline enough to cut & one of them was a Citadel added purely for Mechanist value.
Well, it's a question of how much of a card you think Mechanist is worth without the trigger. Obviously a 4-mana 2/2 is below the curve for this format, although not by a ton, so the trigger needs to have some nontrivial added value for it be valuable in your deck, but exactly how much is a difficult question.
You can baseline it without doing any real statistics to get a sense of the situation by figuring expected value. With 6 other artifacts in your deck and 3 of these, imagine you cast one on turn 4 with 30 cards left in the deck - then you have an EV of .6 artifacts (8 other artifacts*3/40 cards of your deck that you see). There's a flaw in thinking that you'll hit 2/3 of the time, though, in that the EV accounts for times when you'll hit multiples and the trigger ignores extra hits, so that pushes the value down some. So it's maybe closer to being worth half a card.
Would I run a 2/2 flier for 4 that draws half a card? In a normal environment, yeah, definitely. In MM2? Probably still yes, but I can envision a pool where it certainly wouldn't be a given.
For what it's worth, the more precise calculation is approximately 1-(26/34)^3) ~= .55 chance to hit.
Another thing to consider is that Mechanist will hit a nonland when it hits (Citadel excepted), and "draw a card" only hits a nonland ~ 60% of the time itself. So in the late game, as the utility of land diminishes relative to nonland, mechanists ability gets closer to cantripping in power.
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I primarily play limited, so most of my spoiler season comments view cards through that lens.
So, just finished my first draft online, and I very easily went 3-0 (6-0) with a 5CC green deck. I knew that for the first couple days online this deck would be wide open and far and away the best deck because people just don't know how good the cards are yet, and I was rewarded with a 7th pick Savage Twister and an 8th pick Profane Command pack 3.
Speaking of savage twister, yes that card has always been ridiculous, but it's even more ridiculous in this format. It pretty much invalidates about half of the archetypes, as they mostly want to dump tons of stupid dorks on the table (G/W, U/R, B/W, U/W, G/B). I would not be happy playing any of those archetypes, knowing there is an uncommon that absolutely massacres what I'm trying to do. Trying to get cute with Court Homuncules or Token Swarms is a bad place to be against Savage Twister.
savage twister is quite savage indeed, but only one deck in the format really wants it (since ub can't splash it). it's also that deck's only true answer for those opposing swarms, so the whole thing is actually pretty balanced from a gameplay standpoint.
savage twister is quite savage indeed, but only one deck in the format really wants it (since ub can't splash it). it's also that deck's only true answer for those opposing swarms, so the whole thing is actually pretty balanced from a gameplay standpoint.
Every green deck wants savage twister and should try to splash it if they can.
savage twister is quite savage indeed, but only one deck in the format really wants it (since ub can't splash it).
You say that...
This deck seemed pretty absurd, and I did go 3-0 with ease. Though I assume this was an easy one mostly due to most players being new to the format still, so I got passed everything I needed. Maindeck Smash to Smithereens was very nice.
For the record, I tanked a while over whether to run Æthersnipe or the second Scuttling Death. Not sure what was right. Could even have cut Necroskitter; I did board it out every game (for more Shatter-effects).
So, the double strike deck. Who in the hell thought this was a good idea? It's not that strong, but it has completely unbeatable draws. Which has got to be the worst possible thing for a limited format.
savage twister is quite savage indeed, but only one deck in the format really wants it (since ub can't splash it). it's also that deck's only true answer for those opposing swarms, so the whole thing is actually pretty balanced from a gameplay standpoint.
Every green deck wants savage twister and should try to splash it if they can.
you're still impressed by how good the twister is in the domain deck. gw wants to create an army of tokens and pump it to kill the opponent, gb wants to create an army of tokens and sacrifice it to bloodthrone vampire or other outlets, and gu wants a critical mass of creatures with graft and some proliferate to make them grow big. all of these decks want an early board presence and none are interested in a sweeper.
@sene: i am counting that as a domain deck gone wrong it just seems a little impractical without rampant growths, but good for you if it worked!
savage twister is quite savage indeed, but only one deck in the format really wants it (since ub can't splash it). it's also that deck's only true answer for those opposing swarms, so the whole thing is actually pretty balanced from a gameplay standpoint.
Every green deck wants savage twister and should try to splash it if they can.
you're still impressed by how good the twister is in the domain deck. gw wants to create an army of tokens and pump it to kill the opponent, gb wants to create an army of tokens and sacrifice it to bloodthrone vampire or other outlets, and gu wants a critical mass of creatures with graft and some proliferate to make them grow big. all of these decks want an early board presence and none are interested in a sweeper.
@sene: i am counting that as a domain deck gone wrong it just seems a little impractical without rampant growths, but good for you if it worked!
It's not difficult to set Twister up as a blow out regardless of what deck your in. Yes, it's better in a control deck, but it's still great in any deck that can cast it.
if drafted and built correctly, the decks in this format are too synergistic to want to splash a card that goes against their main game plan. sure, you can try to set it up, but you should really just focus on your deck's synergies instead and leave the twister to the professionals domain players.
if drafted and built correctly, the decks in this format are too synergistic to want to splash a card that goes against their main game plan. sure, you can try to set it up, but you should really just focus on your deck's synergies instead and leave the twister to the professionals domain players.
Since the last time I posted, I just won an 8-4 with a G/W tokens deck... splashing Twister. Twister was awesome every time I drew it.
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2 Monlit Strider
3 Thief of Hope
2 Bloodthrone Vampire
1 Kami of Ancient Law
2 Plagued Rusalka
1 Ghost council of Orzhova
1 Restless Apparition
1 Midnight Banshee
1 Ghostly Changeling
2 Bone Splinters
2 Nameless Inversion
1 Devouring Need
1 Raise the Alarm
1 Dismember
Took Restless Apparition over Reassembling Skeleton as my P2P1, that was a tough one (Dismember being numero uno)
My loss was in the first round where I failed to hit my plains and got run over by GW tokens big stuff convoke
Had to grind out wins in the next two matchs Nameless Inversion with Soulshift is pretty dirty, especially with Thief of Hope
Fun draft but not worth 35$. I got a Blinkmoth Nexus in my draft pool, won a pack that had a Surgical Extraction, then bought 3 for 40 and traded in a bunch of money cards fro Dragons of Tarkir for another 3 and got Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobyte, Fulminator Mage and Remand as my money cards out of those 6 packs. You never expect money with packs but when they cost this much it's hard to justify the cost. The draft environment doesn't make me want to spend that much on it either: maybe I ought to draft it a few more times to find out if I'm right you say? Ah! But that would require spending almost 100 dollars on drafting (3 drafts) and I don't want to spend a hundred dollars to find out if my initial impression was misplaced; I usually spend that much money on things I'm sure are worth it.
I'll likely draft one more time but that will be that.
Good money at the store today: foil Dark Confidant, foil and regular Tarmogoyfs in three pods (each pod had one player with the sweet money pull).
This is completely correct. The other archetypes have more commons because they overlap with one another. No one not in spirits is taking baku or thief. Also, while nameless inversion is good in any black deck, they will not value it as highly as you will. Meaning you can get them early out the pack and wheel a thief and baku p2 and p3. Elementals has 7 core commons that no one else wants. Same thing happens as happens in elementals. You can take the contested cards early and wheel smokebraiders. This allows you to go huge with igniter and flamekin. Your, just looking at the number of cards and forgetting no one else wants your cards, so you can get by with less of them. Also remember even if they would take "your" cards they won't value them the same way you will. This means you will get cards that are extremely powerful but only for you, way before they would just get picked out a pack to fill a curve.
Again no one moves into it with out a clear signal. If you see pillory 5th pick w/b spirits is open and move in. If the enablers don't get opened that would suck, but that is also unlikely. No one else is taking your cards so any that are open fall into your lap. They are too narrow for other decks to take. You make it seem like getting 4 or more of a common is hard, that is just not true. Also this is not kamigawa draft, no one else is in arcane and spirits at the table.
It is entirely possible for W/B to be wide open and you not to see any of the common enablers. If you get a late passed Baku and Thief of Hope in Pack 1, it isn't at all unreasonable for not a single other one to come your way. When there are only two common enablers, it isn't at all unlikely that they just don't show up in packs. Hell, this happened to me today where I picked up a 13th pick Baku and 14th pick Thief at the end of pack 1, and didn't see either of the enablers come around in packs 2 and 3 beyond that. Couple that with the rest of the spirits being nigh-on unplayably bad without a good number of those two.
Equally, most of the arcane spells are just plain bad. Otherworldly Journey has its uses. Grasp is sideboard material. And that sums up the Arcane spells that are worth considering. And if you don't get the enablers, Arcane just doesn't matter at all. It's a tacked on line of text with no meaning at that point, so there isn't any point in even worrying about them.
The fact that you fully admit that the reason these cards table is due to poor representation in the format means that you have to agree that the archetype is shallow. There are so few cards that matter, that the "marque" cards table simply because there isn't much to gain from them. And god forbid you get clear signals it's open in Pack 1, only to have middling crap in pack 2. Practically everything you would have taken later in the pack is utterly worthless in other decks/archetypes. The only reason to go into B/W aside from spirits is a ton of Raise the Alarms and Bone Splinters with a side of Pillory. Everything else you try to do will just be underwhelming compared to what else is happening.
The point is that Spirits is downright shallow. The grind them out strategy simply doesn't work when the removal in the colors is either a premium for other decks (Bone Splinters, Arrest, Nameless Inversion, Dismember), or mehtacular (Grim affliction). It also doesn't grind them out when your deck consists of wildly inefficient creatures who are only particularly good in the context of two specific cards that you may not see a good enough number to matter. And the cards you *really* want to see (Dismember and Spectral Procession) will just never get passed to you, ever, and don't have anything to do with the archetype to begin with.
The fact that the only "key" cards to the archetype are two that typically table indicates pretty clearly that the archetype is about as shallow as it can get.
The fact that there are so few cards to the archetype that nobody cares to fight over them is a pretty big indicator that it is a shallow archetype. I dislike shallow archetypes. Every deck that is built in them effectively turns out the same, and there are few if any meaningful choices you can make. Equally, the lack of crossover is a huge problem as it can lead to a ruined draft through no particular fault of your own. Spirits is a cross your fingers and pray archetype, even if you received clear signals it was open early on. There aren't nearly enough spirits that are good on their own to make it work without a very large number of the enablers.
and the risk you just described (archetype seeming open, than drying up in packs 2 & 3) can be applied to every archetype there is.
There are 101 commons in this set. You open 240 commons at an 8 man table. This means you should see 4-5 of thief or waxmane per draft. That is more than enough to allow your draft to work. Moreover you are taking arrest nameless inversion as second to first pick cards. No one will rate them that highly, they have other needs. Your talking about getting unlucky but that doesn't line up with the math. I am playing a card game not chess. You need to play to probabilities. Also no one takes otherworldly journey as high as you would as well. That becomes an easy second pick for you and if you cut the cards right in pack one, those other cards you want wheel back to you. Also dismember and procession are not the payoff cards. Relentless Apparition and Pillory are your payoff cards. No one else can play them. You really need to look at the math. Deciding what deck to draft on your feeling is just plain wrong.
I'm not suggesting that they're hard to get. I'm just saying that if you don't get multiple copies of that one specific card you're not really playing "Spirits," you're playing B/W mediocre/overcosted creatures that happen to share a type. Regardless of whether the deck is good with/without Thief of Hope, or who else wants to pick the pieces, that seems like a poorly executed archetype to me - there should be more than one good card to make you want to play that deck.
That's not really how it works. You have about an 8% chance that any given pack will not have a given common (11/101 commons). Assuming equal distribution, there is about an 8% chance that you will not see any specific common in a given draft (.9^24). So, basically, on average, about 1/10 drafts will not even have a single Thief or Baku present.
Equally, even if true, 4-5 copies of cards that are absolutely necessary for the archetype to work isn't nearly enough. At some point, somebody may well pick one of those up late in the draft as the rest of the pack is pretty bad (Which I noticed is a very common occurence in MM15 draft; there is a ton of chaffe that nobody wants; you might as well pick a hedge bet later on on the off chance the archetype is open). If that happens even twice, you are completely screwed out of your archetype.
Having a mere two cards for you archetype to even function is shallow design. The rest of the spirits are down-right terrible without a critical mass of these two, and preferable 3-4 of each. The archetype simply cannot function at all without them. When nearly 1/10 drafts will have one of the two relevant cards not present at all, it just can work.
The fact they are common doesn't stop the archetype from being shallow. The archetype does one thing, and only one thing, there are few cards that even matter, and there isn't much variance in what you *can* do with it one draft from next. It's a parasitic and shallow archetype without any real depth, requiring too much finger-crossing to be consistent.
I am personally in some doubt about the assertion that all the spirits besides Baku and Thief suck without them; I remember they mostly looked bad the first time around, too, but people wised up and made them work just fine. It's hard to beat a deck that is functionally immune to attrition and willing to play defensively. Regardless, I think we can all agree that Spirits is an archetype that can support probably about 1 drafter at the table, and that you therefore need to be cautious about committing very hard very early.
For sealed I made a B/R Bloodthirst deck and went 2nd place with it.
For draft I made a Soulshifters deck because nobody grabbed any of the cards. I got 3rd. Its actually very powerful. I literally cast the same Nameless Inversion 5 times in one game. The card advantage is real.
All Is Dust was going around at my table. I was gobsmacked. I didn't get to play it but no way was I passing it on. Imagine that in a heavy artifact deck, what a beating. It was sideboard tech against color creature swarms and came in against UG but I didn't draw it.
Although if you are th Only red player at an eight man draft, your deck will probably be insane.
Edit: I crushed everyone.
Pack 2, I first-picked Fulminator Mage (again, for value) and noticed that not much GW stuff was passed to me. However, red was really opened. I was passed 2 Boros Swiftblade, a Viashino Slaughtermaster, a bunch of equips and a Brute Force. I decided to switch to Boros.
Pack #3 really rewarded me for going Boros, as I first picked a Nobilis of War.
My deck looked like this:
9 Plains
7 Mountain
1 Boros Garrison
Creatures (13)
2 Boros Swiftblade
2 Sunspear Shikari
1 Viashino Slaughtermaster
1 Kami of Ancient Law
1 Raise the Alarm
1 Skyhunter Skirmisher
1 Spectral Procession
1 Inner-Flame Igniter
1 Blood Ogre
1 Blinding Souleater
1 Hikori, Twilight Guardian
1 Nobilis of War
2 Flayer Husk
1 Brute Force
1 Copper Carapace
1 Sunlance
1 Wayfarer's Bauble
1 Kitesail
1 Arrest
1 Fortify
I went 4-0-1, and finished second (my best limited result ever), splitting 20 boosters with the first position (we tied). He wanted to keep his pack sealed, but I was eager to open mine as they will probably be the only MM15 product I'll be able to afford. Among those 10 boosters, I pulled a Clique, a Goyf, a Splinter Twin and a Wilt-Leaf Liege. Couldn't be more happy!
I'm building a sealed pool, and I have 3 Mechanists. I'm definitely considering these guys, as they're obviously strong in multiples. How many other (non-mechanist) artifacts would you think the minimum number is, considering how many may be out of your deck by turn 4?
Would you lean towards the same number +1 if your pool had only 2 Mechanists?
For reference in this particular pool I had 6 other playable artifacts, and if the Mechanists were out at least one of those other artifacts would've been borderline enough to cut & one of them was a Citadel added purely for Mechanist value.
You can baseline it without doing any real statistics to get a sense of the situation by figuring expected value. With 6 other artifacts in your deck and 3 of these, imagine you cast one on turn 4 with 30 cards left in the deck - then you have an EV of .6 artifacts (8 other artifacts*3/40 cards of your deck that you see). There's a flaw in thinking that you'll hit 2/3 of the time, though, in that the EV accounts for times when you'll hit multiples and the trigger ignores extra hits, so that pushes the value down some. So it's maybe closer to being worth half a card.
Would I run a 2/2 flier for 4 that draws half a card? In a normal environment, yeah, definitely. In MM2? Probably still yes, but I can envision a pool where it certainly wouldn't be a given.
Another thing to consider is that Mechanist will hit a nonland when it hits (Citadel excepted), and "draw a card" only hits a nonland ~ 60% of the time itself. So in the late game, as the utility of land diminishes relative to nonland, mechanists ability gets closer to cantripping in power.
Interested in Custom Card Creation.
My Cube:Cardinal Custom Cube
A custom version of a third modern masters: MM2019
(filter->rarity to see in set rarity).
Speaking of savage twister, yes that card has always been ridiculous, but it's even more ridiculous in this format. It pretty much invalidates about half of the archetypes, as they mostly want to dump tons of stupid dorks on the table (G/W, U/R, B/W, U/W, G/B). I would not be happy playing any of those archetypes, knowing there is an uncommon that absolutely massacres what I'm trying to do. Trying to get cute with Court Homuncules or Token Swarms is a bad place to be against Savage Twister.
Every green deck wants savage twister and should try to splash it if they can.
This deck seemed pretty absurd, and I did go 3-0 with ease. Though I assume this was an easy one mostly due to most players being new to the format still, so I got passed everything I needed. Maindeck Smash to Smithereens was very nice.
For the record, I tanked a while over whether to run Æthersnipe or the second Scuttling Death. Not sure what was right. Could even have cut Necroskitter; I did board it out every game (for more Shatter-effects).
you're still impressed by how good the twister is in the domain deck. gw wants to create an army of tokens and pump it to kill the opponent, gb wants to create an army of tokens and sacrifice it to bloodthrone vampire or other outlets, and gu wants a critical mass of creatures with graft and some proliferate to make them grow big. all of these decks want an early board presence and none are interested in a sweeper.
@sene: i am counting that as a domain deck gone wrong it just seems a little impractical without rampant growths, but good for you if it worked!
It's not difficult to set Twister up as a blow out regardless of what deck your in. Yes, it's better in a control deck, but it's still great in any deck that can cast it.
professionalsdomain players.Since the last time I posted, I just won an 8-4 with a G/W tokens deck... splashing Twister. Twister was awesome every time I drew it.