1) About 8-9 times in paper draft/sealed.
2) Dutiful Attendant seemed slow at first, but setting up Exploit loops ended up being really fantastic at establishing control in the long game.
3) Reduce in Stature surprised me with how poor it was. Many of the mechanics in the set are good at punishing it.
4) Deadly Wanderings has been widely criticized, but I found that it's fantastic for helping UB Exploit overpower dragons in way they usually have trouble with.
5) One day I will be able to convince people at my LGS to stop playing Keeper of the Lens over their good morphs. One day.
6) Ux Skies. Just play a bunch of Ojutai's Summons, Ojutai Interceptor, and tempo spells. Flood the board, attack, profit.
7) Enemy color pairings. You really, really want to be in one of the dragon brood archetypes or hoarding fixing for your sweet dragon decks, lest you get grinded out or overwhelmed.
8) Black narrowly edges out Red for best, and White wasn't terribly kind to me.
9) Well-balanced, but shallow. It felt like Return to Ravnica in a lot of ways; the archetypes were well put together and rewarding to play, but they were also rigid and lacking in things to explore. Revisiting Fate Reforged was nice from a flavor standpoint but unnecessary from a gameplay standpoint. I feel like the designers achieved what they set out to do, but didn't create anything particularly magical in the process.
I love these threads. I actually didn't play this format enough to really comment as FKK and MM2015 are way more fun for me and they're both still up on MTGO, but I'll be reading with interest.
2) Sprinting Warbrute. I definitely didn't think he was a bad card, but now I realize he is wtfbbq. A 4 mana spell with buyback is kind of like Enter the Infinite. A lot of other dashers are good too.
3) Updraft Elemental. I am biased towards control so I have played my share of Horned Turtles in the past and sometimes they are what you need. He "loses the trade" with any morph because they both stare eachother down, but the morph will do something later. And he rarely finds a X/1 to kill because decks end up designed around Twin Bolt and Festering Goblin to some extent.
4) Around people I've met, Illusory Gains. People will think it's bad literally even just after I beat them with it. It's a bomb.
You do lose CA against dash with it, but you often don't lose any tempo, and the dash matchup is more about tempo anyway. You can side it out against dash and that's fine.
I've taken Illusory Gains out of a 4 card pack.
5) I think I've seen more than one person using Foul Tongued Invocation. Including the guy who threw two on the stack immediately after attacking such that I got to spot remove in response, lol.
6) Limited Spikes don't want to have favorites. Favoritism is a sign of weakness. Generally green and blue "look open" to me, so I end up playing UGx control. That's often a result of U being genuinely open and Green being a color I'm biased towards. I read an article saying that the way Fate Reforged hits you, it's nice to be in blue at that point and not so nice to be in green, so there's probably some perception issue there too.
7)Well, what were the five mechanics.. Dash, bolster, exploit, formidable, and UW just got unkeyworded "forgotten prowess" effects right? Dash was good. Bolster ended up being goodstuffy, as expected. Formidable was actually surprisingly decent. Forgotten prowess seemed bad and was bad. Exploit was the biggest surprise, it seemed like it would be a deck. But it gets gutted by dash drafters, and not many playable creatures with the mechanic, and a lack of cheap targets. That would be the biggest designer-intended archetype fail that suprised me.
8)Black was one of the dash colors, and it was the dash color most able to do stuff by itself too, so I guess black. Green sucks.
9)I think Dragons has above average play strategy choices, but below average draft strategy choices.
1) How much have you played with the format, roughly?
Looking at my MTGO history, I drafted it 33 times. Right now it is so cheap to draft on MTGO, and I like the format enough, that I will probably still draft it another 3 or 4 times before Origins.
2) Which common was better than you expected?
This is a hard question. If it was uncommon, I would say Deadly Wanderings, but common. Hmm..Glaring Aegis maybe? I had it played against me a few times and it had be surprisingly effective, so I played it a few times myself, and it was a card I had completely discounted and thought of as unplayable during spoilers season.
4) What's the most underappreciated card? Dragonloft Idol is more playable than people think it is. If you have two dragons and a monument in your deck, he is great.
6) What was your favorite archetype?
I have the most fun with the RG monsters deck.
7) Which archetype wasn't as good as you'd expected?
Green White rarely comes together as much as the other ones do. I figured with all the bolster synergy it would be incredible. That said, when it does come together it is really great, but I feel like it is easier to build all the other archetypes effectively than it is G/W.
8) Which colors were the best and worst?
I think that because Black had so much good removal at common and uncommon it was probably the best. The worst color might be blue, despite a few very good commons (the aforementioned Drowner). If it isn't in the Exploit deck, blue is usually not that great -- it just doesn't fit very well into any other deck.
9) Thoughts on the format as a whole?
I really enjoy the format. The allied-color archetypes might be a little overly heavy-handed at times, but sometimes it is nice to go enemy colors and then pick up 3x Harsh Sustenance in FRF.
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My MTG Youtube Channel (weekly draft videos!): Nizzahon Magic
1) How much have you played with the format, roughly?
30 drafts (72% win), 14 sealedw (63% win).
2) Which common was better than you expected?
I have to second Stampeding Elk Herd. Those guys are just so big, & are quite difficult to deal with.
3) Which common was worse than you expected? Mystic Meditation was decent for me at the prerelease, but unplayable ever since.
4) What's the most underappreciated card?
The sideboard cycle (other than the green one). I often got those pretty late.
5) What's the worst common that people still play? Reduce in Stature, though it is an acceptable answer to the aforementioned Elk Herd.
6) What was your favorite archetype?
U/B
7) Which archetype wasn't as good as you'd expected?
U/W
8) Which colors were the best and worst?
Best: red. Worst: green (mostly thanks to the last pack).
9) Thoughts on the format as a whole?
I didn't love this format, admittedly. It wasn't horrible, but no aspects of it really excited me in any way. I'm ready to move on!
1) How much have you played with the format, roughly?
Countless times. This is probably my most drafted format since NMS.
2) Which common was better than you expected?
Can I pick "Every red common?" Sprinting Warbrute has been mentioned, but I'll give a s/o to Sabretooth Outrider. I remember recoiling in disbelief when Caleb Durward called it red's best common on a stream during the release events (which: admittedly, Twin Bolt IS still better), but it's really not by as much as a Giant Cockroach with upside has any right to be. It's a Warrior, it's basically unblockable, and since your aggro decks in this format want to run 18 lands anyway he's eminently castable. Just an incredibly powerful common that really didn't look like much.
Also Defeat, which was a very good sideboard card but not one I loved in the maindeck.
4) What's the most underappreciated card?
The color-hoser sideboard cycle, especially Encase in Ice.
5) What's the worst common that people still play?
Servant of the Scale gets the nod for being bad from Day 1, but the one that fell furthest in my own personal evaluation is Center Soul. I keep playing against these W/x aggro decks running multiples copies of it, which is such a sub-par combat trick in a format full of colorless 2/2s for 3. (Again, I like it as a sideboard card, especially against other white decks with a ton of Divine Verdict-like effects.
6) What was your favorite archetype?
R/B and G/W, both of which came in the "Insanely fast interactive aggro" and "Random guys and tricks" varities, to varying success rates, but always reasonable. In addition, both relied pretty heavily on picking up good cards from pack 2 in a particular color, which made it easier to prioritize colors in pack 1, which was a pattern I enjoyed picking up.
7) Which archetype wasn't as good as you'd expected?
U/x, particularly the Dragonlord clans. I was almost never happy to be blue in this format, and the only real success I had was with the nominally weak U/G.
8) Which colors were the best and worst?
In Dragons, 1.Red/2.Black/3.Green/4.White/5.Blue (with some flexibility between green and white). In this context, I might rank Fate's colors 1.White/2.Red/3.Blue/4.Black/5.Green, with blue and red being flexible, so I guess the rough order of preference for format as a whole would be: 1. Red 2. White 3. Black 4. Blue 5. Green.
9) Thoughts on the format as a whole?
I really liked it. There was a bit of sameyness to gameplay, but I thought it was interesting gameplay, and I think training people to think 18 lands in a a mostly aggressive format was an interesting experience. Every color-combo had at least a puncher's chance and there were far fewer absurd unbeatables at all rarities than in Fate or Khans. Could have used a few more weirdo uncommons or hinky archtypes, but overall I am pleased.
1) How much have you played with the format, roughly?
A lot, far more than I can remember. Mostly due to being one of my most successful formats to date.
2) Which common was better than you expected?
Probably Sidisi's Faithful, as I thought that card would be a 13+ piece of mediocre, but its dual options are pretty useful. Glade Watcher is up there too. I thought it would be a solid green common, little realizing it was probably in the top 3.
3) Which common was worse than you expected? Sandstorm Charger. Was expecting to like it as much as I liked Glacial Stalker, which was a fair bit, but it ended up being pretty mediocre. And of course Zephyr Scribe
4) What's the most underappreciated card?
I still cannot believe Sight beyond sight fairly regularly wheels. Cards premium card advantage and is an easy 3-6th pick.
5) What's the worst common that people still play?
Uhh... not much really. I guess I see the odd Servant of the Scale here and there but for the most part the unplayable commons are never played.
6) What was your favorite archetype?
Exploit was a lot of fun, but I really liked an ol fashioned BG good stuff as well.
7) Which archetype wasn't as good as you'd expected?
I was expecting the GW counters deck to be more of a thing, but its really hard to pull off well
8) Which colors were the best and worst?
Black was best, White was worst
9) Thoughts on the format as a whole?
It was pretty good I must say, I had some very fun matches over the course of it.
1) How much have you played with the format, roughly?
20-30 drafts I think? And a fair amount of Team Sealed.
2) Which common was better than you expected?
Custodian of the Trove, Palace Familiar (which I didn't mind first-picking at the end - and my decks weren't even focussed on exploit usually)
3) Which common was worse than you expected?
Ojutai Interceptor, Guardian Shield-Bearer, Lightwalker
4) What's the most underappreciated card?
Monastery Loremaster, Enhanced Awareness
Edit: I forgot Rakshasa's Disdain! By far the most underrated card in the format. I even got it last pick once.
5) What's the worst common that people still play?
Dromoka Warrior. Every card that couldn't beat Palace Familiar was unplayable in the format, because of the large amount of similar cards that punished them.
6) What was your favorite archetype?
UB/UR control. After about 5-10 drafts I learned to ignore all green and white cards and only draft Grixis control decks. Things went much better after that point.
7) Which archetype wasn't as good as you'd expected?
GW counters. Honestly Exploit and Bolster were the only things that really looked like "archetypes" (GR is just a good-creatures-deck, RB a good-cards-deck, and UW not-a-deck) and bolster or counter-based decks were really rare. So Exploit was the only synergy-based deck that actually worked.
8) Which colors were the best and worst?
Black > blue > red >> green >> white.
9) Thoughts on the format as a whole?
Pretty unexciting. I had some fun with Grixis control, but there wasn't much variation because everything else was boring and sucked. It wasn't terrible but I won't miss it.
You really just need to embrace the rage. I keep a small colony of hamsters next to my computer and every time I lose a match to mana screw I throw one against the wall.
Not gonna fill it all out this time, but I wanted to say that overall I give this sealed format an A. Best I've played in a few years. This is what I want to continue seeing in terms of removal quality, color balance, and aggressiveness of commons/uncommons to keep bomb rares in check.
1) How much have you played with the format, roughly?
A lot. Probably 30+ drafts. At least 10+ sealed events.
2) Which common was better than you expected?
Going to say Sprinting Warbrute. I thought it looked decent, but it's a complete house.
3) Which common was worse than you expected?
Maybe Center Soul? Yes, it occasionally "gets" you, but usually it's kind of meh.
4) What's the most under-appreciated card? Dromoka Dunecaster. This little guy gets no respect. He especially gets no respect in agressive decks, where I find he's quite good.
7) Which archetype wasn't as good as you'd expected?
U/W is just completely mediocre.
8) Which colors were the best and worst?
R/B/G/W/U. Something like that. G and W are close.
9) Thoughts on the format as a whole?
Probably my least favorite ever. Everything was too samey. There were only 5 decks, the allied pairs. And each of those decks more or less did one thing. And one of those decks wasn't even that good (the U/W one, so you didn't even see it much). It just got boring. Am I playing the R/B aggro/dash guy? The G/W bolster guy? The U/B control/exploit guy? Or the R/G smash-your-face guy? That was it. Yes, there was splashing for a third color, and occasionally you could do something fun (Personally tried to force Assault Formation almost every time I saw the card, and that happens to work best in an off color pair G/U). But for the most part you were just dealing with the same old same old.
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Ambush Krotiq makes me laugh so much. I keep rereading the card and it keeps not having Flash. In what sense is this an ambush again? I just have visions of this huge Krotiq poorly concealed in some bushes, feeling slightly sad that his carefully planned ambushes never seem to work.
3) Which common was worse than you expected?
Maybe Center Soul? Yes, it occasionally "gets" you, but usually it's kind of meh.
It is interesting how much better Feat of Resistance was compared to Center Soul. I suppose much of it has to do with winning morph fights and turning on +1/+1 counter abilities.
1) How much have you played with the format, roughly?
20+ drafts, 6+ sealeds, with two full days of competitive side events at one of the GPs.
2) Which common was better than you expected?
Atarka Efreet. I originally didn't think much of the card, but it ended up being one of the best three drops in the format. 6 power is absolutely huge for trading up and face damage, and the 1 damage ping hit a surprisingly large number of relevant things in the format.
3) Which common was worse than you expected?
Defeat. I thought the card would be playable in almost all decks, but it always ended just ended up being a sideboard card vs 2/4s.
4) What's the most underappreciated card?
Custodian of the Trove is a surprisingly good in the control decks that want it, such as the G/B fight deck, the U/B deck that have almost no good early high toughness blockers, or the fringe 4cc goodstuff decks that just wanted an early defensive drop that it could reliably cast. I felt like it should have been hatedrafted higher than it should have been, since i routinely saw it at 14th pick. Magmatic Chasm has also won many games for me when playing 2HG.
5) What's the worst common that people still play?
Gravepurge - it just took so much work for it to do anything, and yet I've had many people say that it was fine due to their dreams of value.
6) What was your favorite archetype?
The G/B fight with big butts deck. Nothing made me happier than wheeling extremely late Grim Contest, and grinding the opponent out with 2/4s into big dumb guys.
7) Which archetype wasn't as good as you'd expected?
All white archetypes, which I felt like just took a lot of work and/or bomb rares to work properly in this format.
8) Which colors were the best and worst?
White was by far the worst, while red and black were the best due to their depth.
9) Thoughts on the format as a whole?
7/10 as a whole. The set structure of this block was definitely one of the best in recent history. For sealed, the deckbuilding process in this format was far more interesting due to being guaranteed 2 dual lands in the FRF packs, which opened up a lot more potential splashes when deckbuilding. This lead to many pools that took a ton of effort to think about and build. The FRF pack being drafted last and the tension between allied colors in the DTK packs and enemy colors in the FRF packs also made the drafting process more interesting as well. I would have liked to see more fringe archetypes in the format though, since most color combinations only had one viable deck. The actual gameplay was average in terms of complexity and fun, and was especially hindered by the dumb FRF rares that just instantly won you the game (I'm looking at you, Citadel Siege).
1. I drafted the format 7 times (I'll draft it 2 more times this week) and played sealed once (not counting the prerelease).
2. Butcher's Glee seemed like it would be strong, but it turned out to be absurd. It seemed like it was the best black common after Flatten. It killed creatures, stopped removal spells, and made races impossible to lose. It was a Swiss Army Knife that was almost always good and could often be unbeatable (I once got to attack with Atarka Efreet and Temur Battle Rage to deal 15 damage through a blocker and gain 15 life on the turn before I was going to die).
3. Reduce in Stature, while obviously not as good as Pacifism, seemed like it would be at least reasonably playable. Instead it turned out that it was just terrible in a format where the 2 best archetypes were ones that sacrificed their own creatures and had many creatures that were immune to sorcery-speed removal.
4. Vial of Dragonfire was very underrated. While it certainly wasn't a great card, it was a perfectly serviceable removal spell that I often picked for RG and even sometimes BR decks.
5. Outside of bad players, I have seen a lot of Dromoka Dunecasters, which I am not a fan of. Outside of one time I played against someone with an Assault Formation deck that made the Dunecasters 1 mana 2/2s, it just seemed slow and easy to completely overwhelm.
6. Red/Green Midrange was my favorite archetype. It got all of the strong red removal along with big green creatures, which let it overpower most opponents that aren't on fast aggro.
7. WR, UR, WB, WU, and WG were all underwhelming. I knew that UG and BG would be bad, but I thought that the other color combinations would be stronger. I just kept first-picking red or black cards and then I always ended up playing BR or RG. I never felt much of an incentive to go into any other colors.
8. Red was by far the best color. It had strong midrange and aggressive creatures and many strong removal spells. It was followed by black, which had strong removal spells but worse creatures than red. Green was in the middle, because it had strong creatures and some good removal but was very mediocre in Fate Reforged. Blue was next, since it seemed to rely too much on exploit synergies to be good when not paired with black and didn't have much interaction. White was by far the worst. It just didn't seem to be good at much of anything. It had Pacifism, but after that its best removal spell in Dragons is 5 mana and situational. Its creatures were also pretty bad at forcing through stalled board-states.
9. As this was my first Limited format, I don't have much to base this on, but I'd give it a 6/10. It was fun, but it felt like there were only a few good archetypes and it got boring really quickly.
1) How much have you played with the format, roughly?
2) Which common was better than you expected?
3) Which common was worse than you expected?
4) What's the most underappreciated card?
5) What's the worst common that people still play?
6) What was your favorite archetype?
7) Which archetype wasn't as good as you'd expected?
8) Which colors were the best and worst?
9) Thoughts on the format as a whole?
[b]2) Which common was better than you expected?[/b]
[b]3) Which common was worse than you expected?[/b]
[b]4) What's the most underappreciated card?[/b]
[b]5) What's the worst common that people still play?[/b]
[b]6) What was your favorite archetype?[/b]
[b]7) Which archetype wasn't as good as you'd expected?[/b]
[b]8) Which colors were the best and worst?[/b]
[b]9) Thoughts on the format as a whole?[/b]
2) Dutiful Attendant seemed slow at first, but setting up Exploit loops ended up being really fantastic at establishing control in the long game.
3) Reduce in Stature surprised me with how poor it was. Many of the mechanics in the set are good at punishing it.
4) Deadly Wanderings has been widely criticized, but I found that it's fantastic for helping UB Exploit overpower dragons in way they usually have trouble with.
5) One day I will be able to convince people at my LGS to stop playing Keeper of the Lens over their good morphs. One day.
6) Ux Skies. Just play a bunch of Ojutai's Summons, Ojutai Interceptor, and tempo spells. Flood the board, attack, profit.
7) Enemy color pairings. You really, really want to be in one of the dragon brood archetypes or hoarding fixing for your sweet dragon decks, lest you get grinded out or overwhelmed.
8) Black narrowly edges out Red for best, and White wasn't terribly kind to me.
9) Well-balanced, but shallow. It felt like Return to Ravnica in a lot of ways; the archetypes were well put together and rewarding to play, but they were also rigid and lacking in things to explore. Revisiting Fate Reforged was nice from a flavor standpoint but unnecessary from a gameplay standpoint. I feel like the designers achieved what they set out to do, but didn't create anything particularly magical in the process.
Cubetutor Link
2) Sprinting Warbrute. I definitely didn't think he was a bad card, but now I realize he is wtfbbq. A 4 mana spell with buyback is kind of like Enter the Infinite. A lot of other dashers are good too.
3) Updraft Elemental. I am biased towards control so I have played my share of Horned Turtles in the past and sometimes they are what you need. He "loses the trade" with any morph because they both stare eachother down, but the morph will do something later. And he rarely finds a X/1 to kill because decks end up designed around Twin Bolt and Festering Goblin to some extent.
4) Around people I've met, Illusory Gains. People will think it's bad literally even just after I beat them with it. It's a bomb.
You do lose CA against dash with it, but you often don't lose any tempo, and the dash matchup is more about tempo anyway. You can side it out against dash and that's fine.
I've taken Illusory Gains out of a 4 card pack.
5) I think I've seen more than one person using Foul Tongued Invocation. Including the guy who threw two on the stack immediately after attacking such that I got to spot remove in response, lol.
6) Limited Spikes don't want to have favorites. Favoritism is a sign of weakness. Generally green and blue "look open" to me, so I end up playing UGx control. That's often a result of U being genuinely open and Green being a color I'm biased towards. I read an article saying that the way Fate Reforged hits you, it's nice to be in blue at that point and not so nice to be in green, so there's probably some perception issue there too.
7)Well, what were the five mechanics.. Dash, bolster, exploit, formidable, and UW just got unkeyworded "forgotten prowess" effects right? Dash was good. Bolster ended up being goodstuffy, as expected. Formidable was actually surprisingly decent. Forgotten prowess seemed bad and was bad. Exploit was the biggest surprise, it seemed like it would be a deck. But it gets gutted by dash drafters, and not many playable creatures with the mechanic, and a lack of cheap targets. That would be the biggest designer-intended archetype fail that suprised me.
8)Black was one of the dash colors, and it was the dash color most able to do stuff by itself too, so I guess black. Green sucks.
9)I think Dragons has above average play strategy choices, but below average draft strategy choices.
1) How much have you played with the format, roughly?
Looking at my MTGO history, I drafted it 33 times. Right now it is so cheap to draft on MTGO, and I like the format enough, that I will probably still draft it another 3 or 4 times before Origins.
2) Which common was better than you expected?
This is a hard question. If it was uncommon, I would say Deadly Wanderings, but common. Hmm..Glaring Aegis maybe? I had it played against me a few times and it had be surprisingly effective, so I played it a few times myself, and it was a card I had completely discounted and thought of as unplayable during spoilers season.
3) Which common was worse than you expected?
Zephyr Mage, Dromoka Dunecaster
4) What's the most underappreciated card?
Dragonloft Idol is more playable than people think it is. If you have two dragons and a monument in your deck, he is great.
5) What's the worst common that people still play?
Dromoka Dunecaster
6) What was your favorite archetype?
I have the most fun with the RG monsters deck.
7) Which archetype wasn't as good as you'd expected?
Green White rarely comes together as much as the other ones do. I figured with all the bolster synergy it would be incredible. That said, when it does come together it is really great, but I feel like it is easier to build all the other archetypes effectively than it is G/W.
8) Which colors were the best and worst?
I think that because Black had so much good removal at common and uncommon it was probably the best. The worst color might be blue, despite a few very good commons (the aforementioned Drowner). If it isn't in the Exploit deck, blue is usually not that great -- it just doesn't fit very well into any other deck.
9) Thoughts on the format as a whole?
I really enjoy the format. The allied-color archetypes might be a little overly heavy-handed at times, but sometimes it is nice to go enemy colors and then pick up 3x Harsh Sustenance in FRF.
30 drafts (72% win), 14 sealedw (63% win).
2) Which common was better than you expected?
I have to second Stampeding Elk Herd. Those guys are just so big, & are quite difficult to deal with.
3) Which common was worse than you expected?
Mystic Meditation was decent for me at the prerelease, but unplayable ever since.
4) What's the most underappreciated card?
The sideboard cycle (other than the green one). I often got those pretty late.
5) What's the worst common that people still play?
Reduce in Stature, though it is an acceptable answer to the aforementioned Elk Herd.
6) What was your favorite archetype?
U/B
7) Which archetype wasn't as good as you'd expected?
U/W
8) Which colors were the best and worst?
Best: red. Worst: green (mostly thanks to the last pack).
9) Thoughts on the format as a whole?
I didn't love this format, admittedly. It wasn't horrible, but no aspects of it really excited me in any way. I'm ready to move on!
Countless times. This is probably my most drafted format since NMS.
2) Which common was better than you expected?
Can I pick "Every red common?" Sprinting Warbrute has been mentioned, but I'll give a s/o to Sabretooth Outrider. I remember recoiling in disbelief when Caleb Durward called it red's best common on a stream during the release events (which: admittedly, Twin Bolt IS still better), but it's really not by as much as a Giant Cockroach with upside has any right to be. It's a Warrior, it's basically unblockable, and since your aggro decks in this format want to run 18 lands anyway he's eminently castable. Just an incredibly powerful common that really didn't look like much.
3) Which common was worse than you expected?
Zephyr Scribe .
Also Defeat, which was a very good sideboard card but not one I loved in the maindeck.
4) What's the most underappreciated card?
The color-hoser sideboard cycle, especially Encase in Ice.
5) What's the worst common that people still play?
Servant of the Scale gets the nod for being bad from Day 1, but the one that fell furthest in my own personal evaluation is Center Soul. I keep playing against these W/x aggro decks running multiples copies of it, which is such a sub-par combat trick in a format full of colorless 2/2s for 3. (Again, I like it as a sideboard card, especially against other white decks with a ton of Divine Verdict-like effects.
6) What was your favorite archetype?
R/B and G/W, both of which came in the "Insanely fast interactive aggro" and "Random guys and tricks" varities, to varying success rates, but always reasonable. In addition, both relied pretty heavily on picking up good cards from pack 2 in a particular color, which made it easier to prioritize colors in pack 1, which was a pattern I enjoyed picking up.
7) Which archetype wasn't as good as you'd expected?
U/x, particularly the Dragonlord clans. I was almost never happy to be blue in this format, and the only real success I had was with the nominally weak U/G.
8) Which colors were the best and worst?
In Dragons, 1.Red/2.Black/3.Green/4.White/5.Blue (with some flexibility between green and white). In this context, I might rank Fate's colors 1.White/2.Red/3.Blue/4.Black/5.Green, with blue and red being flexible, so I guess the rough order of preference for format as a whole would be: 1. Red 2. White 3. Black 4. Blue 5. Green.
9) Thoughts on the format as a whole?
I really liked it. There was a bit of sameyness to gameplay, but I thought it was interesting gameplay, and I think training people to think 18 lands in a a mostly aggressive format was an interesting experience. Every color-combo had at least a puncher's chance and there were far fewer absurd unbeatables at all rarities than in Fate or Khans. Could have used a few more weirdo uncommons or hinky archtypes, but overall I am pleased.
A lot, far more than I can remember. Mostly due to being one of my most successful formats to date.
2) Which common was better than you expected?
Probably Sidisi's Faithful, as I thought that card would be a 13+ piece of mediocre, but its dual options are pretty useful. Glade Watcher is up there too. I thought it would be a solid green common, little realizing it was probably in the top 3.
3) Which common was worse than you expected?
Sandstorm Charger. Was expecting to like it as much as I liked Glacial Stalker, which was a fair bit, but it ended up being pretty mediocre. And of course Zephyr Scribe
4) What's the most underappreciated card?
I still cannot believe Sight beyond sight fairly regularly wheels. Cards premium card advantage and is an easy 3-6th pick.
5) What's the worst common that people still play?
Uhh... not much really. I guess I see the odd Servant of the Scale here and there but for the most part the unplayable commons are never played.
6) What was your favorite archetype?
Exploit was a lot of fun, but I really liked an ol fashioned BG good stuff as well.
7) Which archetype wasn't as good as you'd expected?
I was expecting the GW counters deck to be more of a thing, but its really hard to pull off well
8) Which colors were the best and worst?
Black was best, White was worst
9) Thoughts on the format as a whole?
It was pretty good I must say, I had some very fun matches over the course of it.
20-30 drafts I think? And a fair amount of Team Sealed.
2) Which common was better than you expected?
Custodian of the Trove, Palace Familiar (which I didn't mind first-picking at the end - and my decks weren't even focussed on exploit usually)
3) Which common was worse than you expected?
Ojutai Interceptor, Guardian Shield-Bearer, Lightwalker
4) What's the most underappreciated card?
Monastery Loremaster, Enhanced Awareness
Edit: I forgot Rakshasa's Disdain! By far the most underrated card in the format. I even got it last pick once.
5) What's the worst common that people still play?
Dromoka Warrior. Every card that couldn't beat Palace Familiar was unplayable in the format, because of the large amount of similar cards that punished them.
6) What was your favorite archetype?
UB/UR control. After about 5-10 drafts I learned to ignore all green and white cards and only draft Grixis control decks. Things went much better after that point.
7) Which archetype wasn't as good as you'd expected?
GW counters. Honestly Exploit and Bolster were the only things that really looked like "archetypes" (GR is just a good-creatures-deck, RB a good-cards-deck, and UW not-a-deck) and bolster or counter-based decks were really rare. So Exploit was the only synergy-based deck that actually worked.
8) Which colors were the best and worst?
Black > blue > red >> green >> white.
9) Thoughts on the format as a whole?
Pretty unexciting. I had some fun with Grixis control, but there wasn't much variation because everything else was boring and sucked. It wasn't terrible but I won't miss it.
A lot. Probably 30+ drafts. At least 10+ sealed events.
2) Which common was better than you expected?
Going to say Sprinting Warbrute. I thought it looked decent, but it's a complete house.
3) Which common was worse than you expected?
Maybe Center Soul? Yes, it occasionally "gets" you, but usually it's kind of meh.
4) What's the most under-appreciated card?
Dromoka Dunecaster. This little guy gets no respect. He especially gets no respect in agressive decks, where I find he's quite good.
5) What's the worst common that people still play?
Kolaghan Stormsinger or Servant of the Scale. Just really low impact guys.
6) What was your favorite archetype?
G/W Bolster.
7) Which archetype wasn't as good as you'd expected?
U/W is just completely mediocre.
8) Which colors were the best and worst?
R/B/G/W/U. Something like that. G and W are close.
9) Thoughts on the format as a whole?
Probably my least favorite ever. Everything was too samey. There were only 5 decks, the allied pairs. And each of those decks more or less did one thing. And one of those decks wasn't even that good (the U/W one, so you didn't even see it much). It just got boring. Am I playing the R/B aggro/dash guy? The G/W bolster guy? The U/B control/exploit guy? Or the R/G smash-your-face guy? That was it. Yes, there was splashing for a third color, and occasionally you could do something fun (Personally tried to force Assault Formation almost every time I saw the card, and that happens to work best in an off color pair G/U). But for the most part you were just dealing with the same old same old.
It is interesting how much better Feat of Resistance was compared to Center Soul. I suppose much of it has to do with winning morph fights and turning on +1/+1 counter abilities.
20+ drafts, 6+ sealeds, with two full days of competitive side events at one of the GPs.
2) Which common was better than you expected?
Atarka Efreet. I originally didn't think much of the card, but it ended up being one of the best three drops in the format. 6 power is absolutely huge for trading up and face damage, and the 1 damage ping hit a surprisingly large number of relevant things in the format.
3) Which common was worse than you expected?
Defeat. I thought the card would be playable in almost all decks, but it always ended just ended up being a sideboard card vs 2/4s.
4) What's the most underappreciated card?
Custodian of the Trove is a surprisingly good in the control decks that want it, such as the G/B fight deck, the U/B deck that have almost no good early high toughness blockers, or the fringe 4cc goodstuff decks that just wanted an early defensive drop that it could reliably cast. I felt like it should have been hatedrafted higher than it should have been, since i routinely saw it at 14th pick. Magmatic Chasm has also won many games for me when playing 2HG.
5) What's the worst common that people still play?
Gravepurge - it just took so much work for it to do anything, and yet I've had many people say that it was fine due to their dreams of value.
6) What was your favorite archetype?
The G/B fight with big butts deck. Nothing made me happier than wheeling extremely late Grim Contest, and grinding the opponent out with 2/4s into big dumb guys.
7) Which archetype wasn't as good as you'd expected?
All white archetypes, which I felt like just took a lot of work and/or bomb rares to work properly in this format.
8) Which colors were the best and worst?
White was by far the worst, while red and black were the best due to their depth.
9) Thoughts on the format as a whole?
7/10 as a whole. The set structure of this block was definitely one of the best in recent history. For sealed, the deckbuilding process in this format was far more interesting due to being guaranteed 2 dual lands in the FRF packs, which opened up a lot more potential splashes when deckbuilding. This lead to many pools that took a ton of effort to think about and build. The FRF pack being drafted last and the tension between allied colors in the DTK packs and enemy colors in the FRF packs also made the drafting process more interesting as well. I would have liked to see more fringe archetypes in the format though, since most color combinations only had one viable deck. The actual gameplay was average in terms of complexity and fun, and was especially hindered by the dumb FRF rares that just instantly won you the game (I'm looking at you, Citadel Siege).
2. Butcher's Glee seemed like it would be strong, but it turned out to be absurd. It seemed like it was the best black common after Flatten. It killed creatures, stopped removal spells, and made races impossible to lose. It was a Swiss Army Knife that was almost always good and could often be unbeatable (I once got to attack with Atarka Efreet and Temur Battle Rage to deal 15 damage through a blocker and gain 15 life on the turn before I was going to die).
3. Reduce in Stature, while obviously not as good as Pacifism, seemed like it would be at least reasonably playable. Instead it turned out that it was just terrible in a format where the 2 best archetypes were ones that sacrificed their own creatures and had many creatures that were immune to sorcery-speed removal.
4. Vial of Dragonfire was very underrated. While it certainly wasn't a great card, it was a perfectly serviceable removal spell that I often picked for RG and even sometimes BR decks.
5. Outside of bad players, I have seen a lot of Dromoka Dunecasters, which I am not a fan of. Outside of one time I played against someone with an Assault Formation deck that made the Dunecasters 1 mana 2/2s, it just seemed slow and easy to completely overwhelm.
6. Red/Green Midrange was my favorite archetype. It got all of the strong red removal along with big green creatures, which let it overpower most opponents that aren't on fast aggro.
7. WR, UR, WB, WU, and WG were all underwhelming. I knew that UG and BG would be bad, but I thought that the other color combinations would be stronger. I just kept first-picking red or black cards and then I always ended up playing BR or RG. I never felt much of an incentive to go into any other colors.
8. Red was by far the best color. It had strong midrange and aggressive creatures and many strong removal spells. It was followed by black, which had strong removal spells but worse creatures than red. Green was in the middle, because it had strong creatures and some good removal but was very mediocre in Fate Reforged. Blue was next, since it seemed to rely too much on exploit synergies to be good when not paired with black and didn't have much interaction. White was by far the worst. It just didn't seem to be good at much of anything. It had Pacifism, but after that its best removal spell in Dragons is 5 mana and situational. Its creatures were also pretty bad at forcing through stalled board-states.
9. As this was my first Limited format, I don't have much to base this on, but I'd give it a 6/10. It was fun, but it felt like there were only a few good archetypes and it got boring really quickly.
Storm Crow is strictly worse than Seacoast Drake.