Both were not very good. Shallow, overly aggressive, very little room to work. In general, just take efficient removal and two drops and be done with it. In triple zen, Vampire Nighthawk was arguably the best limited card in the format, which should tell you all you need to know.
Similar to Gatecrash, although not quite as miserable, because there were more playable color combinations than the 4 that Gatecrash offered.
Yup, that pretty much says it all. The problem with Zendikar block is that so many of the mechanics favored attacking. Landfall basically says "Creatures are always better when it's your turn." They might as well not be able to block. It's not necessarily that games ended early but rather that there were so few ways to stabilize.
That's why Vampire Nighthawk was so good. The combination of Lifelink and Deathtouch meant it could actually help you stabilize -- at a minimum it kills something and gains 2 life -- and it's perfectly good on offense too when the situation calls for it.
Yup, that pretty much says it all. The problem with Zendikar block is that so many of the mechanics favored attacking. Landfall basically says "Creatures are always better when it's your turn." They might as well not be able to block. It's not necessarily that games ended early but rather that there were so few ways to stabilize.
That's why Vampire Nighthawk was so good. The combination of Lifelink and Deathtouch meant it could actually help you stabilize -- at a minimum it kills something and gains 2 life -- and it's perfectly good on offense too when the situation calls for it.
Also, common, efficiently costed creatures with evasion like Bladetusk Boar and Surrakar Marauder made it hard to do anything but race and hope you drew removal.
In contrast, I find full block Zendikar (Zen/Wwk/RoE) to be a very good format whenever it's on MTGO, and a solid use of ZEN and WWK packs. There are enough solid blockers in pack 3 that you can't just rely on Vampire Laceratoring everybody, and there are a lot of random neat synergies (landfall + Evolving Wilds at common, Perimeter Captain in the wall deck, Eldrazi Spawn allowing for giant multikickers as an Eldrazi substitute) that are pretty neat even for experienced players.
I do however agree with everyone that ZZZ/ZZW are awful draft formats due to speed and inability to block. They are, however, still better than Zendikar sealed if anyone was part of that GP season; deckbuilding in that format was a two step process.
1. Put all playable red and black cards in a pile, cut the worst ones, add 17 land and call it a day.
2a. If your deck now has less than 40 cards, sorry, you have no viable build for this pool; white, green and blue do not exist in Zendikar sealed. Drop and go play a side draft.
2b. If your deck now has 40 cards, count the number of Bog Tatters in your deck. Everybody who didn't follow step 1 is a free win, so Bog Tatters is always unblockable. If this number is larger than 1, enjoy your X-0. Otherwise, you're in the same boat as most of the other playable decks. Good luck!
I actually enjoyed ZZZ just for the pure focus of it. ZZW was less great, but in ZZZ, you always knew you needed to be the most aggro deck always, and it was just a matter of figuring out how to be the cheesiest deck at the table. Unlike a lot of terrible fast formats like Theros and Gatecrash, ZZZ let you actually draft decks that could realistically empty their hand early enough for every card you drew to matter (even though it did it by enabling a ridiculous number of 1-drops and by making mana flood a good thing), which is the most important thing to me. Formats where it's both fast and where drawing a slightly different-from-average number of lands generally means you lose are the suckiest formats around, but ZZZ wasn't like that, if you built cheesily enough.
as has been said, if you like aggro youll like zzz/zzw. i remember drafting 4 akoum battlesingers and just wrecking people with aggro allies.
basically, if you like turning creatures sideways its good. i do, some don't.
ZZW was a fun little draft format, although I imagine it got pretty boring pretty quickly when it originally came out. Landfall really was a brilliant mechanic, and I love that 18 land aggro decks were a thing. Being able win a game because you topdecked a land is very satisfying.
I think a good limited format must be deep enough that one can find himself/herself playing the set for the next 3months without any boredom.
The draw on Zen was huge because of other factors like Full Art lands, Priceless Treasures, awesome mythics/rares. The pull of a similarly fast format like Gatecrash wasn't as strong, and boredom sits in pretty quickly.
In contrast, I find full block Zendikar (Zen/Wwk/RoE) to be a very good format whenever it's on MTGO
Huh? Has this ever been on Modo? I must have missed that.
But yeah, I agree with the general consensus in this thread; the format was way too fast, and therefore not good. I did not have a great time with this particular draft format. And regarding the "the faster the limited format, the better it is" statement, I could not possibly disagree more. But this is just a question of opinion, I guess. But I will admit that I hope that your opinion is not the prevalent one, as fast draft formats are what scare me away from Limited from time to time...
The faster a format is the better it is, it is about driving fast which isnt always easy.
The faster a format is, the more dependent it is on your opening hand, for the simple reason that games will end before you draw as many cards. In limited, since we lack the tools to make aggro decks uber-consistent, this exacerbates the effects of mana flood/screw and makes games more coin-flippy. This is why Gatecrash and M12 and Theros are generally poorly-regarded. Zendikar dodged the issue partially by making 18 or 19 lands in decks the norm, minimizing the consistency issue, and by making a very deep pool of low drops so that you could reliably draft a curve that worked. It was still ludricrously fast, the fastest format ever printed in fact, but for the most part it lacked the clunkiness that makes fast formats so luck-based most of the rest of the time.
The faster a format is the better it is, it is about driving fast which isnt always easy.
Fast formats are about drawing well. Any newb can win in a fast format with a good opening hand. (The old advice for what to do in your first Sealed tournament is just play Red-Green Beatdown because it's never difficult to pilot.) Aggro requires no strategy, no planning, no finesse. It gets old real fast.
There's an awful big jump between "fast formats are more draw-dependent" and "Aggro requires no strategy". I am of the opinion that understanding how aggro plays is an important and difficult skill to develop, and a rewarding one, at that. Particularly from a deckbuilding perspective, figuring out how to maximize your consistency and streamline your curve is a much more interesting question when your deck depends on 2-drops to win. You also typically have to make more critical decisions with less info than you would with a control deck, which is also an important skill to develop.
That's not to say I don't prefer a good control deck, but I am certain that categorically ignoring opportunities to play aggro in limited is a great way to hurt your success level, which pretty clearly demonstrates a lack of skill compared to someone who is familiar with all their options.
I don't disagree that there are significant amounts of skill involved in fast games too. While there are fewer decisions to me made, each one is arguably more important. My issue with short games is simply that they are, in my entirely subjective opinion, less fun.
That's not to say I don't prefer a good control deck, but I am certain that categorically ignoring opportunities to play aggro in limited is a great way to hurt your success level, which pretty clearly demonstrates a lack of skill compared to someone who is familiar with all their options.
I definitely agree with this. Being able to recognize when a balls-out aggro strategy will be more successful than a mediocre midrange for a given pool is a valuable skill. I've had some success in sealed where gambling on an aggro deck paid off because my opponents were expecting a slower game.
That's not to say I don't prefer a good control deck, but I am certain that categorically ignoring opportunities to play aggro in limited is a great way to hurt your success level, which pretty clearly demonstrates a lack of skill compared to someone who is familiar with all their options.
I definitely agree with this. Being able to recognize when a balls-out aggro strategy will be more successful than a mediocre midrange for a given pool is a valuable skill. I've had some success in sealed where gambling on an aggro deck paid off because my opponents were expecting a slower game.
I agree with that. HOwever, formats like Zen and Gatecrash have dictated that you play an aggro deck, and have made two drops better than basically anything. This does take the skill out of things, as unlike having to make choices regardign aggression adn tempo, there are none to be made. You are simply always trying to be the aggressor, and tempo is basically everything.
I don't think Zen and Gatecrash really have much in common in terms of skill required. The fact that they were both fast doesn't mean they were at all alike in any other way. Gatecrash was a format defined by crazy amounts of reach and non-interactive cards. Removal was generally actively worse than 2-drops, not because the format was fast, but because mechanics like Battalion and Bloodrush incentivized stupid, mindless gameplay, and the "control" decks only cared about blocking while they drained the opponent's life with Exploit stuff. At no point did it ever really matter how good your creatures were, because you were always going to lose to cards that required minimal interaction to win with, and they were always going to do the exact same thing regardless of what your opponents did. Zendikar was a completely different beast. Stuff like landfall rewarded careful sequencing and timing removal spells to get the most traction in a race, and the drafting experience was significantly more synergy-dependent and less 1-dimensional. If you don't like either format, that's fine, I'm not a huge fan of fast formats in general either, but there's still a wide gap of quality that deserves to be acknowledged there.
They weren't very well liked formats. Too much of an emphasis on aggro and curving out. Not to say you couldn't draft control, but it wasn't nearly as reliable. And even a good control deck in the format tended to struggle against a good B/R aggro deck.
I never played full block Zendikar draft, didn't even know it was a thing. I strongly doubt it's as good as Rise x3 though.
I'm not yet convinced that ZWR was ever a thing, though toodumbtopost says it was; I've played Limited on Modo for many years at this point, and I've never seen it there. Though I guess I haven't logged on literally every weekend or anything, and sometimes they throw curveballs at us during Thanksgiving or Easter or whatever.
How does it stack up to some of the more beloved draft formats, like 3xROE, or 3xINN?
Similar to Gatecrash, although not quite as miserable, because there were more playable color combinations than the 4 that Gatecrash offered.
Yup, that pretty much says it all. The problem with Zendikar block is that so many of the mechanics favored attacking. Landfall basically says "Creatures are always better when it's your turn." They might as well not be able to block. It's not necessarily that games ended early but rather that there were so few ways to stabilize.
That's why Vampire Nighthawk was so good. The combination of Lifelink and Deathtouch meant it could actually help you stabilize -- at a minimum it kills something and gains 2 life -- and it's perfectly good on offense too when the situation calls for it.
Also, common, efficiently costed creatures with evasion like Bladetusk Boar and Surrakar Marauder made it hard to do anything but race and hope you drew removal.
I do however agree with everyone that ZZZ/ZZW are awful draft formats due to speed and inability to block. They are, however, still better than Zendikar sealed if anyone was part of that GP season; deckbuilding in that format was a two step process.
1. Put all playable red and black cards in a pile, cut the worst ones, add 17 land and call it a day.
2a. If your deck now has less than 40 cards, sorry, you have no viable build for this pool; white, green and blue do not exist in Zendikar sealed. Drop and go play a side draft.
2b. If your deck now has 40 cards, count the number of Bog Tatters in your deck. Everybody who didn't follow step 1 is a free win, so Bog Tatters is always unblockable. If this number is larger than 1, enjoy your X-0. Otherwise, you're in the same boat as most of the other playable decks. Good luck!
[The above is mildly facetious, but only mildly.]
basically, if you like turning creatures sideways its good. i do, some don't.
The draw on Zen was huge because of other factors like Full Art lands, Priceless Treasures, awesome mythics/rares. The pull of a similarly fast format like Gatecrash wasn't as strong, and boredom sits in pretty quickly.
UR Melek, Izzet ParagonUR, B Shirei, Shizo's CaretakerB, R Jaya Ballard, Task MageR,RW Tajic, Blade of the LegionRW, UB Lazav, Dimir MastermindUB, UB Circu, Dimir LobotomistUB, RWU Zedruu the GreatheartedRWU, GUBThe MimeoplasmGUB, UGExperiment Kraj UG, WDarien, King of KjeldorW, BMarrow-GnawerB, WBGKarador, Ghost ChieftainWBG, UTeferi, Temporal ArchmageU, GWUDerevi, Empyrial TacticianGWU, RDaretti, Scrap SavantR, UTalrand, Sky SummonerU, GEzuri, Renegade LeaderG, WUBRGReaper KingWUBRG, RGXenagos, God of RevelsRG, CKozilek, Butcher of TruthC, WUBRGGeneral TazriWUBRG, GTitania, Protector of ArgothG
ZZW was plainly a good format.
Last 5 years has ZZW up there with Innistradx3 and Innx2+Wolves and SoMx3.
The faster a format is the better it is, it is about driving fast which isnt always easy.
But yeah, I agree with the general consensus in this thread; the format was way too fast, and therefore not good. I did not have a great time with this particular draft format. And regarding the "the faster the limited format, the better it is" statement, I could not possibly disagree more. But this is just a question of opinion, I guess. But I will admit that I hope that your opinion is not the prevalent one, as fast draft formats are what scare me away from Limited from time to time...
The faster a format is, the more dependent it is on your opening hand, for the simple reason that games will end before you draw as many cards. In limited, since we lack the tools to make aggro decks uber-consistent, this exacerbates the effects of mana flood/screw and makes games more coin-flippy. This is why Gatecrash and M12 and Theros are generally poorly-regarded. Zendikar dodged the issue partially by making 18 or 19 lands in decks the norm, minimizing the consistency issue, and by making a very deep pool of low drops so that you could reliably draft a curve that worked. It was still ludricrously fast, the fastest format ever printed in fact, but for the most part it lacked the clunkiness that makes fast formats so luck-based most of the rest of the time.
It's been on Modo at least twice, yeah, but not in at least a year I think.
Fast formats are about drawing well. Any newb can win in a fast format with a good opening hand. (The old advice for what to do in your first Sealed tournament is just play Red-Green Beatdown because it's never difficult to pilot.) Aggro requires no strategy, no planning, no finesse. It gets old real fast.
That's not to say I don't prefer a good control deck, but I am certain that categorically ignoring opportunities to play aggro in limited is a great way to hurt your success level, which pretty clearly demonstrates a lack of skill compared to someone who is familiar with all their options.
I definitely agree with this. Being able to recognize when a balls-out aggro strategy will be more successful than a mediocre midrange for a given pool is a valuable skill. I've had some success in sealed where gambling on an aggro deck paid off because my opponents were expecting a slower game.
I agree with that. HOwever, formats like Zen and Gatecrash have dictated that you play an aggro deck, and have made two drops better than basically anything. This does take the skill out of things, as unlike having to make choices regardign aggression adn tempo, there are none to be made. You are simply always trying to be the aggressor, and tempo is basically everything.
Full Block ZWR was not as good as RRR right?
I never played full block Zendikar draft, didn't even know it was a thing. I strongly doubt it's as good as Rise x3 though.
I like aggro being an option in draft, and even a very strong one, but when it is the only option - /vomit.