I'm just starting to come back into magic. My gut feeling would be even though that demon is a bomb-diggity and that foil in the lower right hand corner is really good, there's a ton of black in this pack. Do you cut a white/green/blue card and stay away from black or take one of those bombs even though someone close to you will be fighting you hardcore?
Personally I want to take the White uncommon or the Theorist.
Thoughts? Figure this is good practice cause I'm going to my first FNM tonight for the new set in like 3+ years. Wish me luck and let's have a good discussion!
Why not take Eliminate the Competition? I can totally see that card blowing out opponents over and over again as you sacrifice your weakest creatures to kill their best. And it's much more splashable than Demon of Dark Schemes, which, if you take, is going to be a dead pick unless black is open, or you force it and then have a poor deck that is just waiting to draw its huge bomb. And I've been through three rounds without ever drawing my bomb enough times to know that that is a very risky proposition.
Eliminate the Competition is one of the best board wipers I have ever seen in fact. So much better than a wrath effect because you don't have to hold creatures in your hand to make most effective use of it.
Why not take Eliminate the Competition? I can totally see that card blowing out opponents over and over again as you sacrifice your weakest creatures to kill their best. And it's much more splashable than Demon of Dark Schemes, which, if you take, is going to be a dead pick unless black is open, or you force it and then have a poor deck that is just waiting to draw its huge bomb. And I've been through three rounds without ever drawing my bomb enough times to know that that is a very risky proposition.
Eliminate the Competition is one of the best board wipers I have ever seen in fact. So much better than a wrath effect because you don't have to hold creatures in your hand to make most effective use of it.
Eliminate the Competition is only good if you have as many or more creatures than them (and you lose your board too). Ideally you'd have to have at least one more creature than them so you can do something. Also it only destroys in a format with tricks that grant indestructible.
Why not take Eliminate the Competition? I can totally see that card blowing out opponents over and over again as you sacrifice your weakest creatures to kill their best. And it's much more splashable than Demon of Dark Schemes, which, if you take, is going to be a dead pick unless black is open, or you force it and then have a poor deck that is just waiting to draw its huge bomb. And I've been through three rounds without ever drawing my bomb enough times to know that that is a very risky proposition.
Eliminate the Competition is one of the best board wipers I have ever seen in fact. So much better than a wrath effect because you don't have to hold creatures in your hand to make most effective use of it.
Eliminate the competition is decent but not thrilling. It's a niche card that pays off token generating decks, and can be very strong in some situations while horrible in others - i.e. against other token/aggro decks, or after you've already had to throw a bunch of your tokens under enemy attacks to stay alive. On top of that, because the sac is part of the cost and not the effect, this card is EXTREMELY painful to have countered or (god forbid) retargeted with the rare counterspell. At one of the 2HG prereleases, we sometimes ended up only choosing 1 target for this because the risk of them having a counterspell was too huge. Luckily the non-rare counterspells are pretty awful this set, but it's early and scrubs will play anything.
The demon is just the stone nuts. It's a big fat body in the air, it wrecks wide boards, it generates and consumes energy, and gives you a really powerful engine late-game. You don't need any particular build except that you'd better be reasonably heavy in black (at least 7 sources, ideally 10). Much less niche, much less conditional, EASY first pick.
And I'd take essence extraction over eliminate the competition. It's not as potentially powerful, but it's way more reliable. If I take it, and I'm playing black, guaranteed I'm running it. competition is a 50/50 probably.
The Demon is a bomb among bombs and the easy pick here (and in pretty much any pack for that matter). It is up there as one of the very best cards in the set in limited. Powerful finisher that also helps stabilize or take over the game in multiple other ways.
And fwiw worrying about what you are passing, in terms of color strength, should be a virtual nonfactor in your decision making. It is fine as a tie-breaker if you have two cards that are a true toss up, but that's it.
If there would have been a bad rare in that slow, Essence Extraction is better than Eliminate the Competition. The white uncommon dude I'm not sure. Ye, three bodies is nice, but you're paying 4 mana for what basically amounts to a non-evasive 4/3. I'm not sure if I want to first-pick that and obviously never over the "haha look I win the game now" demon.
Heck a 5/5 flyer for 6 mana without card text is super powerful in limited, let alone one that piles advantage upon advantage on top of being a 4-turn clock.
The Augmenter is strong IMO. Yeah, in a vacuum looking at raw P/T:Cost ratio he looks pretty average, but in practice a couple of things add up to make him first pickable:
1. There are TONS of synergies in the set that he interacts with: blink/bounce your own stuff, +1/+1 counters, artifacts matter, and go-wide swarm decks. Most decks will care about a couple of those things and have other cards that play very well with this.
2. Flexibility - Being a 4/3 or 3 different dudes is a significant upgrade on just one or the other, even if it doesn't read as being more powerful.
If there would have been a bad rare in that slow, Essence Extraction is better than Eliminate the Competition. The white uncommon dude I'm not sure. Ye, three bodies is nice, but you're paying 4 mana for what basically amounts to a non-evasive 4/3. I'm not sure if I want to first-pick that and obviously never over the "haha look I win the game now" demon.
Heck a 5/5 flyer for 6 mana without card text is super powerful in limited, let alone one that piles advantage upon advantage on top of being a 4-turn clock.
The Augmenter is strong IMO. Yeah, in a vacuum looking at raw P/T:Cost ratio he looks pretty average, but in practice a couple of things add up to make him first pickable:
1. There are TONS of synergies in the set that he interacts with: blink/bounce your own stuff, +1/+1 counters, artifacts matter, and go-wide swarm decks. Most decks will care about a couple of those things and have other cards that play very well with this.
2. Flexibility - Being a 4/3 or 3 different dudes is a significant upgrade on just one or the other, even if it doesn't read as being more powerful.
Agreed. One other thing to note is that getting two servos matters a ton for many of these synergies, and is enough to push this card to the next level. I don't think I would take it over the best P1P1 commons (Welding Sparks), (Renegade Freighter) but it's good enough that I'd consider taking it around the next tier of commons such as Tidy Conclusion and Revoke Privileges.
While signaling to your opponent is always something you should think about, you shouldn't let it decide your P1P1. It's good to use as a tiebreaker between two equally powerful cards, but don't use it to talk yourself out of drafting a mythic bomb.
Also, keep in mind that you get to send more signals to your neighbor for the rest of the pack. Maybe they take Eliminate the Competition second pick, but if you don't pass them another good black card for the rest of the pack, you probably force them off black.
Actually, I'd say that signalling to your opponent is *rarely* something you should think about. The average player would improve their drafting if they gave zero consideration to the cards they were passing when they made their picks. This is especially true in triple _ formats, where there isn't a pack quality difference that might make you value pack 2 more than packs 1 and 3.
The Demon's the windmill slam pick here. Maybe you play it, maybe you don't, maybe the player to your left moves out of black, maybe not, but regardless taking the demon is the best set up for a good deck.
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I'm just starting to come back into magic. My gut feeling would be even though that demon is a bomb-diggity and that foil in the lower right hand corner is really good, there's a ton of black in this pack. Do you cut a white/green/blue card and stay away from black or take one of those bombs even though someone close to you will be fighting you hardcore?
Personally I want to take the White uncommon or the Theorist.
Thoughts? Figure this is good practice cause I'm going to my first FNM tonight for the new set in like 3+ years. Wish me luck and let's have a good discussion!
JAMMIT DIM! I'm a DOCTOR not a DECKBUILDER!
Eliminate the Competition is one of the best board wipers I have ever seen in fact. So much better than a wrath effect because you don't have to hold creatures in your hand to make most effective use of it.
Eliminate the Competition is only good if you have as many or more creatures than them (and you lose your board too). Ideally you'd have to have at least one more creature than them so you can do something. Also it only destroys in a format with tricks that grant indestructible.
The demon's better.
The demon is just the stone nuts. It's a big fat body in the air, it wrecks wide boards, it generates and consumes energy, and gives you a really powerful engine late-game. You don't need any particular build except that you'd better be reasonably heavy in black (at least 7 sources, ideally 10). Much less niche, much less conditional, EASY first pick.
And I'd take essence extraction over eliminate the competition. It's not as potentially powerful, but it's way more reliable. If I take it, and I'm playing black, guaranteed I'm running it. competition is a 50/50 probably.
EDH Primers
Phelddagrif - Zirilan
EDH
Thrasios+Bruse - Pang - Sasaya - Wydwen - Feather - Rona - Toshiro - Sylvia+Khorvath - Geth - QMarchesa - Firesong - Athreos - Arixmethes - Isperia - Etali - Silas+Sidar - Saskia - Virtus+Gorm - Kynaios - Naban - Aryel - Mizzix - Kazuul - Tymna+Kraum - Sidar+Tymna - Ayli - Gwendlyn - Phelddagrif 4 - Liliana - Kaervek - Phelddagrif 3 - Mairsil - Scarab - Child - Phenax - Shirei - Thada - Depala - Circu - Kytheon - GrenzoHR - Phelddagrif - Reyhan+Kraum - Toshiro - Varolz - Nin - Ojutai - Tasigur - Zedruu - Uril - Edric - Wort - Zurgo - Nahiri - Grenzo - Kozilek - Yisan - Ink-Treader - Yisan - Brago - Sidisi - Toshiro - Alexi - Sygg - Brimaz - Sek'Kuar - Marchesa - Vish Kal - Iroas - Phelddagrif - Ephara - Derevi - Glissa - Wanderer - Saffi - Melek - Xiahou Dun - Lazav - Lin Sivvi - Zirilan - Glissa
PDH - Drake - Graverobber - Izzet GM - Tallowisp - Symbiote Brawl - Feather - Ugin - Jace - Scarab - Angrath - Vraska - Kumena Oathbreaker - Wrenn&6
And fwiw worrying about what you are passing, in terms of color strength, should be a virtual nonfactor in your decision making. It is fine as a tie-breaker if you have two cards that are a true toss up, but that's it.
The Augmenter is strong IMO. Yeah, in a vacuum looking at raw P/T:Cost ratio he looks pretty average, but in practice a couple of things add up to make him first pickable:
1. There are TONS of synergies in the set that he interacts with: blink/bounce your own stuff, +1/+1 counters, artifacts matter, and go-wide swarm decks. Most decks will care about a couple of those things and have other cards that play very well with this.
2. Flexibility - Being a 4/3 or 3 different dudes is a significant upgrade on just one or the other, even if it doesn't read as being more powerful.
Agreed. One other thing to note is that getting two servos matters a ton for many of these synergies, and is enough to push this card to the next level. I don't think I would take it over the best P1P1 commons (Welding Sparks), (Renegade Freighter) but it's good enough that I'd consider taking it around the next tier of commons such as Tidy Conclusion and Revoke Privileges.
Also, keep in mind that you get to send more signals to your neighbor for the rest of the pack. Maybe they take Eliminate the Competition second pick, but if you don't pass them another good black card for the rest of the pack, you probably force them off black.
The Demon's the windmill slam pick here. Maybe you play it, maybe you don't, maybe the player to your left moves out of black, maybe not, but regardless taking the demon is the best set up for a good deck.