Carnage Tyrant is - obviously - an unanswerable bomb. Twice the opponent scooped after I cast it and attacked once. The majority of the games was won by River's Rebuke, though.
Overperformers:
Ranging Raptors, hands down. I knew this was gonna be good, but they picked up one land (and fixed my mana) practically all the time, sometimes even twice. It even makes the opponent hesitant with attacking, knowing that they are helping me to ramp.
Raging Swordtooth wrecked face by the ping-all-for-1 ability more than often.
I was hesitant to play Conqueror's Galleon, but I found it to be amazing. The 2/10 butt is able to hold back even the biggest of dinosaurs, and three times, when the games became stalled, I was able to cast Rebuke, then attack and flip the Galleon to Foothold, leaving the opponent with the prospect to return and recast Rebuke every other, or even every turn. A scoop followed immediatelly.
Pounce, thanks to the instant speed, made so many combat phases very surprising to opponets
Overall, I liked the format a lot, though I pity everyone who loses to Tyrant in the following months. In the prize packs, I got Vraska - added to Tyrant and Growing Rites, finally some value after at least 4 prereleases. And I even got a cool trophy from our local organizer
I participated in three prereleases total. Went 2-2-1 with a W/G/r Dinosaur centric deck, 4-1 with a W/R aggro deck featuring all tribes but Merfolk, and 3-2 with a U/G/w build featuring lots of flyers (which chose to stay in the library along with the lands in several games, I lost the deciding game in the last two matches because of that, ).
Overall the only cards that really stood out to me were Imperial Aerosaur, which quickly turned games around, and Charging Monstrosaur, which everybody but me seems to have gotten in their pool, while I still don't have a single copy from my 26 boosters total . Seriously, this card feels so unfair to play against, it's easily the most bomby card I saw over the weekend. Carnage Tyrant? I'd rather have faced that than the Monstosaur, at least I could have answered it. Raging Swordtooth? Faced it several times, wasn't impressed, easily dealt with it every time.
Yeah, from what I have seen from the set, for me the Monstrosaur takes the cake as the most powerfulannoying frustrating card to play against.
I participated in three prereleases total. Went 2-2-1 with a W/G/r Dinosaur centric deck, 4-1 with a W/R aggro deck featuring all tribes but Merfolk, and 3-2 with a U/G/w build featuring lots of flyers (which chose to stay in the library along with the lands in several games, I lost the deciding game in the last two matches because of that, ).
Overall the only cards that really stood out to me were Imperial Aerosaur, which quickly turned games around, and Charging Monstrosaur, which everybody but me seems to have gotten in their pool, while I still don't have a single copy from my 26 boosters total . Seriously, this card feels so unfair to play against, it's easily the most bomby card I saw over the weekend. Carnage Tyrant? I'd rather have faced that than the Monstosaur, at least I could have answered it. Raging Swordtooth? Faced it several times, wasn't impressed, easily dealt with it every time.
Yeah, from what I have seen from the set, for me the Monstrosaur takes the cake as the most powerfulannoying frustrating card to play against.
Well, I faced Monstrosaur once, and it was sadly staring at the 2/10 ship.
As for Swordtooth, I was lucky to face two Vampire and one Merfolk based decks, where it usually ate 2-3 critters ETB, and usually at least one more by Pounce and still living to smash face. Not to mention my own enrage triggers. Yeah, against a dinosaur-based opponent it would not do much.
The only really hard match was the last one, where I faced BWu deck with at least 8 W+B removals, Hostage Taker, Legion's Landing, Imperial Aerosaur, Bellowing Aegisaur, Sanctum Seeker and other token producers. Thankfully, the decider went to me after he ran out of removal and the stall was decided by me finally drawing the Rebuke and flipping the Galleon in attack with 12 mana available.
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Well, none of my three pools had much to stonewall a 5/5 trampler. And while two of them had the Galleon, it only showed up in two games, in a single match and not against Dinosaurs. I usually was on the offensive, racing my opponent, or at least tried to. When you have a 2-3 turn clock, but your opponent suddenly gives you a 1 turn clock due to this T-Rex, that goes through unhindered once for lack of suitable blockers, you are pretty much screwed. Would probably have been a different story if I had had more removal, but two of my pools were very light on that. All I'm saying is, that the Monstrosaur is definitely a game changer, it was for against me at least.
Apart from the obvious rares and bombs (Regisaur Alpha is just plain old brutal), cards that worked out really well for me were the River Heralds' Boon (the 'put both counters on the same merfolk' mode came in handy more than just once!) and the Whiptails. Apparently, Dinosaur Spiders get an extra power, which allows them to snack on practically every flier in Ixalan.
Also, Vance's Blasting Cannons is absurd, both unflipped and flipped. I was spell-slingy enough to be able to flip it a couple times (love the Opt reprint, btw). Once the Bolts started flying, games tended to end quickly in my favour.
I walked home with a booty of prize boosters, netting me T-shirt Jace and Admiral Beckett Brass for all my Commander needs. Really looking forward to drafting this set and seeing all those tribal synergies even more in action.
I had a terrible first flight.. Opened 3 rare lands, played none of them. Built a pretty meh RW aggro deck based around Captivating crew and a mismash of creature types. The crew was basically my only win con, come out hard with lots of haste and bears then use the crew to push past the last bits.
Second flight I had all these powerful rares this time including jace and Waker of the Wilds.. but I had to play Temur with multiple cards with multiple colour pips in all colours. Thankfully Treatures really helped with that. I then died to my own pair of Rampaging Ferocidon :/ and just not having a way to deal with a Colossal Dreadmaw, two of my opponents beat me with it. Then the final one used Skittering Heartstopper to prevent my attacks then piled his small pirates into boats. I am pretty salty losing (1-3) with such a good pool.
I went 2-1 at my prerelease. I started WG dino's since I had what I thought were decent dino synergy. The tapper on attacks and a couple flyers including the one that taps opponents creatures on etb, but somehow my opponent seemed to be more proactive and I just couldn't race them so I pivioted to UG with a splash of red and black.
The Merfolk surprised me with how well they played. All the explore helps you churn through your deck and get them big enough to at least mount a decent defence against larger creatures, plus they have some good tricks. The 3/2 unblockable plus pick up one of your value merfolk to either explore again or add more counters on etb was really good. I also have to agree that River Herald's Boon is a blow out in the merfolk deck. So many 2 for 1's with that card.
In general it seems somewhat easy to splash for a 3rd/4th color bomb/removal due to treasure and explore.
Cards I was not overly impressed with.
Fleet Swallower: I did mill someone but it didn't get there very quickly and 6/6 is not as impressive as it would be in other sets. It's likely a mill 10 trade with there big creature or 2 creatures. Again not terrible but it is 7 mana to cast so I think you could do better.
Sword Point Diplomacy: I didn't expect it to be great but I like this kind of card but this just seems to mean you get to draw all your lands and opponent takes 3 damage. Not the worst but not worth going out of your way for.
Priest of the Wandering Sun: Just wanted to try it. It does gain you a bit of life if you have it and a dino in your opening hand so the fact it does't really block is mitigated. I had a sword tooth to get late game but 5 mana to search it up is quite a bit.
Dowsing Dagger: This was my promo and it is beautiful, but giving your opponent 2x 0/2's is annoying. By the time you can flip this it's almost better to keep the +2/+1 side as you obviously have some evasive threat that could get past all those plants. Only play if you have evasion and only flip if you really need to ramp or get that extra color.
I had a weekend of amusing pools and duplicate rares.
First pool had double tishana, voice of thunder, both from packs. Ran a ton of explore dudes (7?) and went 3-0 pretty easily. Tishana won literally every game, drawing 3 cards minimum and sometimes as many as 7.
Second pool was a solid BW vamp deck. Went 3-0.
Third pool was 2HG with double vanquisher's banner and double primal amulet. Vamp deck with banners did pretty well, the nearly-all-spells deck with the amulets was less impressive as we only flipped an amulet once, in a game that didn't count, and it only double-casted one spell before we just won anyway. Still, I had to try. Went 2-1.
Fourth pool was also 2hg, went dinos + pirates with gishath in dinos and tons of removal in pirates with the win-the-game treasure enchantment. Lost one game after a mull to 6 followed by no swamps in the top ~10 cards of my deck, so I only got to cast ~2 spells the whole game. Played another for-fun game after and annihilated them...oh well. Almost pulled off the win-the-game too, but gishath won faster.
Fifth pool was double admiral beckett brass, which was ok but my pool was desperately short on decent pirates, only one with evasion. I ran everything I could, but the fixing was also total trash (classic 6-6-6 mana base). Lucksacked one victory pretty hard - MVP was repeating barrage, which I cast in some games 4+ times. Managed to steal one permanent with brass, so achievement unlocked there (blinked the pirate he blocked with his only blocker, then stole the blocker). Went 3-1.
I finished a virtual 4-0,with an actual 2-2. The reasons are sad.
First, my deck. Upon opening my pool, I was sad at the level of rares I got. I had two playable rares among 7. Got plenty of crap, like the white 1-drop that gain you life by showing a dino, a dual land in unplayable colors, that stupid not-even-close-to-magpie blue looter that need to hit to loot, stuff like that.
Thankfully, my two playable were dozies: cannons and ripjaw raptor. I also had both the good (insane?) 5-drop dinos: charging monstrosaur and raging swordtooth. A few other R and G dino, but not enough so it was complemented with a few white spells. I had a lot of two and three drops, many with haste. Plus double the hasty, exploring red pirates, which is very good to curve out.
My first win was against UBw, which had mana trouble, but it did not matter much as I consistently curved out. My second against UG, which had bounce and freeze (and the combo with the unblockable merfolk which bounces the freezing merfolk), but my beef was fast enough and I had enough hasty dude to always win the damage race.
My first loss was against UBg. He won by stalling the ground a lot, bouncing and fatty blockers and... by using blight keeper repeatedly. He misread teh card and did not noticed (and neither did I) that he needed to sacrifice it... so he drained me twice, with the menace of activating it another time... I'd have won without the extra drains. We discovered his error at the end and he claimed he'd would have won anyway and I didn't want to fight for a single booster so let him have it (and have people making fun of him for "cheating").
My second loss was again RGw in the mirror. We raced and exchanged blows over three games. What happen in the end, and I only realized the day after, was that he cheated on his life total. After one attack on him he told me that I should have attacked with everything and won, but I pointed out to him he would not have died. In reality, I had forgotten to reduce his life two turn before. After I told him so he fiddled with his life pad (which was mostly hidden behind his deck box). After the game he reiterated that I should have just attacked with everything to win and again, confused, I told him that he'd survived and his back swing would kill me, and he said "oh right!, oh right!". Once again I did not pick up the clues. Only by going over the game the next day did I realized what he had done. I then remembered seeing a 11 crossed into a 14 on his life pad after the game.
So, two real wins, two false losses.
Oh well. I really need to crank up my game and make sure to read the card and write down life totals correctly.
Entered into 3 Prereleases pooling B/R/U Pirates in the first two and G/W/R Dino's in the third.
First Prerelease: I ended up going 2-0-1 splitting the final as it was midnight and i was exhausted. Most memorable moment though was surviving a 13 trample swing with Gishath combined with double strike active and him accelerating 8 dinos on the battlefield to swinging for lethal with a top deck One With the Wind on my Wanted Scoundrels.
Second Prerelease: Nothing surprising, I ended up going 1-2 with every round going to game 3. I just got flooded a bit in the two I lost and my opponent curved quite well. Most memorable moment was actually opening one of my packs and pulling a severely miscut Opt (Was able to move it for $20).
Third Prerelease: Had an absolute bonkers G/W/R Dino deck with 3 Hammerskulls. Just very control heavy with a strong top end to finish off. I ended up also going 2-0-1 splitting the finals as I was just done after playing Magic for nearly 20 hours within the past 24 hours.
Overall: 5-2-2 and cracked open a total of 31 Ixalan packs. The set is very tribal heavy and personally I felt it was not truly meant for sealed, but definitely going to be an exciting Draft format to be apart of! I also was able to make a ton of trades to nearly finish up my Standard RR deck and picked up some key staples in Modern.
The set is very tribal heavy and personally I felt it was not truly meant for sealed, but definitely going to be an exciting Draft format to be apart of! I also was able to make a ton of trades to nearly finish up my Standard RR deck and picked up some key staples in Modern.
While it is tribal I felt the tribes that share a color also share some synergy. Evasive blue merfolk help raid. Explore helps ramp out dinos as well as treasure. Lifegain also helps you hold off in white to drop some 7+ drops. The sealed format seems fine to me but if you don't have an overwhelming amout of one tribe you do have to look for those parallel synergies.
I also think this is a 16 land format even though you have high CMC costs. Treasure and Explore help you make your land drops or pay for those 7 drops. Also not too many mana syncs so having land 8+ is real diminishing utility.
First, my deck. Upon opening my pool, I was sad at the level of rares I got. I had two playable rares among 7. Got plenty of crap, like the white 1-drop that gain you life by showing a dino, a dual land in unplayable colors, that stupid not-even-close-to-magpie blue looter that need to hit to loot, stuff like that.
Those are totally fine rares. The dino searching 1-drop is pretty solid (2 life per turn counters 2 power hitting you in the face every turn, and tutor is a nice boost in the late game - it almost certainly should have been in your deck if you were committed to running white, though I'm not convinced you should have) and the "worse than a magpie" guy is quite strong, both as a goblin piker when necessary early, and a card filterer, inevitability-generator, and raid enabler late-game. It's even a pirate to boot(y). Sure, magpie is a solid card, but it's blockable, costs twice as much, and fails hard on the vanilla test. It also hasn't been printed in ten years.
There are plenty of much less playable rares in this set. Both of those cards are very playable in the decks that want them - B-level cards if ever there were any. Lsv gave priest a 3.5 and saboteur a 3.0, and I'm inclined to agree with him. Both quite good, though not at the level of raptor or blasting cannons. Your pool sounds quite strong.
First, my deck. Upon opening my pool, I was sad at the level of rares I got. I had two playable rares among 7. Got plenty of crap, like the white 1-drop that gain you life by showing a dino, a dual land in unplayable colors, that stupid not-even-close-to-magpie blue looter that need to hit to loot, stuff like that.
Those are totally fine rares. The dino searching 1-drop is pretty solid (2 life per turn counters 2 power hitting you in the face every turn, and tutor is a nice boost in the late game - it almost certainly should have been in your deck if you were committed to running white, though I'm not convinced you should have) and the "worse than a magpie" guy is quite strong, both as a goblin piker when necessary early, and a card filterer, inevitability-generator, and raid enabler late-game. It's even a pirate to boot(y). Sure, magpie is a solid card, but it's blockable, costs twice as much, and fails hard on the vanilla test. It also hasn't been printed in ten years.
There are plenty of much less playable rares in this set. Both of those cards are very playable in the decks that want them - B-level cards if ever there were any. Lsv gave priest a 3.5 and saboteur a 3.0, and I'm inclined to agree with him. Both quite good, though not at the level of raptor or blasting cannons. Your pool sounds quite strong.
I played the dino searching priest in my pre-release where I ran a fast RW deck with ~10 dinos. It's extremely good if you can play it early. You basically can't lose a race if you play it turn one and have a dino in hand. I once had 36 life in one of my games because of it.
I really liked this deck and it did really well for me at the Pre-release. Going 4-1 and coming in 2nd overall.
Round 1 - Vs Naya Dinosaurs (2-0)
My first opponent was playing a Naya dinosaur deck with a rather too greedy mana base. So I managed to take advantage of their slight mana issues and get out some bigger threats then they could answer.
Round 2 - Vs BWu Vampires (2-1)
I lost the first game to my opponent hitting a very strong combo of Adanto Vanguard enchanted with Mark of the Vampire. So they kept gaining life to off set the activation cost of the Vanguard. I was able to stem the bleeding with Rampaging Ferocidon for a while to stop the life gain, but being unable to kill it cost me the game.
The other two games my dinos curved out while being backed up by removal to win.
Round 3 - Vs Grixis Pirates (2-1)
My opponent was running a low to the ground pirate deck, with all the evasive creatures they could to try and win quickly. They had Daring Saboteur and Ruin Raider for card advantage. Of course the Ruin Raider did do 5 damage to them in one game, which was enough to help me win that game.
Game three went my way when I curved a Merfolk Branchwalker with a +1/+1 counter on it from explore into a Savage Stomp to make it a 4/3 and kill their Daring Saboteur.
Round 4 - Vs Naya Dinosaurs (2-0)
A much stronger dinosaur deck then the one I faced in round 1, with a less greedy mana base.
The second game ended up being quite close. As I had my Rampaging Ferocidon on the field for several turns. So we were both being pinged when we played our creatures. But being cautious I avoided going too low, so my opponent's Unfriendly Fire they had in hand never had a chance to finish me off.
Round 5 - Vs Grixis Pirates (1-2)
I kept a rather slow hand game one, and when my opponent resolved a Vanquisher's Banner I had a feeling I was in trouble. Things got worse when a couple turns later they resolved a Hostage Taker to steal my Grazing Whiptail. What really hurt when this happened, was I had Burning Sun's Avatar in hand when they played the Hostage Taker. But the +1/+1 from the Banner meant I couldn't kill it with the Avatar.
Game two went my way. But game three, my opponent just curved 1 drop, into 2 drop, into 3 drop, into Hostage Taker. Just too much too quick I couldn't hope to win that game. I did however go out on my own terms. As my opponent hit me down to 4, so on my turn I untapped and cast Unfriendly Fire targeting myself.
Those are totally fine rares. The dino searching 1-drop is pretty solid (2 life per turn counters 2 power hitting you in the face every turn, and tutor is a nice boost in the late game - it almost certainly should have been in your deck if you were committed to running white, though I'm not convinced you should have) and the "worse than a magpie" guy is quite strong, both as a goblin piker when necessary early, and a card filterer, inevitability-generator, and raid enabler late-game. It's even a pirate to boot(y). Sure, magpie is a solid card, but it's blockable, costs twice as much, and fails hard on the vanilla test. It also hasn't been printed in ten years.
There are plenty of much less playable rares in this set. Both of those cards are very playable in the decks that want them - B-level cards if ever there were any. Lsv gave priest a 3.5 and saboteur a 3.0, and I'm inclined to agree with him. Both quite good, though not at the level of raptor or blasting cannons. Your pool sounds quite strong.
For my pool, it was bad because I don't want a white 1-drop when white is a splash and its ability requires double white.
I never heard of goblin piker as "quite strong". The looter is extremely blockable, much more than a flyer. (If your opponent can't block a 2/1 on turn 3, you're already winning.) Requiring 3 mana to make it unblockable is extremely bad mana investment until the very late stages. You will never drop him turn two and start looting, unless your hand or your opponent hand is very bad. I'd very much rather pay 4 for a flyer that draw cards. It has only 1 toughness, dying to everything. Multiple sets have free looters or looter than only require some mana. It's an okay 2-drop, it fills your curve, but it's an awfully weak card to be a rare. The concept of it being a 3 (i.e. pulling you into drafting the color) is overrated.
I lost to a Carnage Tyrant wearing Cobbled Wings...yup..it's a nigh invincible flying, hexproof, trample 7/6 dinosaur. 'Nough said. The fact that this is even possible in a sealed tourney means that the person with that deck will win every round unless he gets mana screwed and he did end up going 4-1 in tourney, the reason he lost the first round is because he wasn't playing a couple of creatures that he should've been and after he made that change he won the next 4 rounds.
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For my pool, it was bad because I don't want a white 1-drop when white is a splash and its ability requires double white.
I never heard of goblin piker as "quite strong". The looter is extremely blockable, much more than a flyer. (If your opponent can't block a 2/1 on turn 3, you're already winning.) Requiring 3 mana to make it unblockable is extremely bad mana investment until the very late stages. You will never drop him turn two and start looting, unless your hand or your opponent hand is very bad. I'd very much rather pay 4 for a flyer that draw cards. It has only 1 toughness, dying to everything. Multiple sets have free looters or looter than only require some mana. It's an okay 2-drop, it fills your curve, but it's an awfully weak card to be a rare. The concept of it being a 3 (i.e. pulling you into drafting the color) is overrated.
It's one thing to say "My rares didn't line up well with what the rest of my pool wanted to do", but you said the cleric was "crap". I don't take that to mean "doesn't line up perfectly with my colors" I take that to mean "not playable", which is (from my experience) quite inaccurate.
Having played with the looter, I can personally attest that it is a solid card. Not enough to lock me into blue by any stretch, but I'd never cut it from a blue deck and I'd be very happy to pick one up if I was already in blue, at virtually any point in the draft. Magpie performs one role quite well - card advantage if your opponent has no flyers - but he's not good at other roles. saboteur fills a lot of roles decently - he trades early when you're behind, he loots early when you or your opponent stumble on playing a creature on-curve, he's often threatening enough to hold back 2 blockers early-game to avoid a free attack after removal, and then in the late-game, since you're pitching lands anyway he's practically a free draw a decent percentage of the time, and a guaranteed hit. Plus he hits twice as hard, and as a pirate he can hold the cutlass easily on-curve to become a 4-turn optionally-unblockable clock.
I'm not saying he's better than magpie - the two cards fulfill very different roles and are from very different sets. But he's definitely no slouch, and nothing to complain about. Which is really the reason I commented - it's very vexing to see someone complain about their luck when their luck was totally satisfactory. Having 2/7 rares fit your colors (and at least one being close) is pretty average, and being that good is far above average.
My pool was good on the back of the ripjaw and the two great uncommon dinos. (It was unfortunately quite a bit removal-light.)
Both the priest of the wakening sun and the daring saboteur are not rares that entice you to play their colors. This is not a first pick in a draft where you can pick other card to match. I was talking about my pre-release seal pool.
You won't play white and you won't play dinosaurs due to the priest. You will play the priest if you end-up playing white and have playable dinosaurs. Otherwise, it won't make the cut in your deck. As such, it is a bad rare to open in sealed. It's a card on the level of commune with dinosaurs: you play it if the rest of your pool commands it, not because it's an exciting card, not because it a dominating card. I think I'd prefer the commune over the priest because it smooths out your early game. Similarly, I found drover of the mighty to be one amazing card that will be format-defining. I can assure you I'd pick drover over priest every single time in draft. A rare that is lower pick than a uncommon is a crap rare in my book.
It's the same thing about the saboteur. It's a 2/1 for 2, which is a fine card, but not a compelling rare. (Its 1-toughness is a real liability though.) Everything you said confirms my opinion and what I stated. Saying it can block early is pretty damning praise. That's not what I look for in my rares. It's okay if your opponent stumbles and for some reason can't block a 2/1 on turn 3, but again, I I don't think that's a good rare to open in seal.
Edit: on re-reading my post, sure, I should have said "my two good rares" instead of "my two playable rares", if that is what struck you.
My pool was good on the back of the ripjaw and the two great uncommon dinos. (It was unfortunately quite a bit removal-light.)
Both the priest of the wakening sun and the daring saboteur are not rares that entice you to play their colors. This is not a first pick in a draft where you can pick other card to match. I was talking about my pre-release seal pool.
You won't play white and you won't play dinosaurs due to the priest. You will play the priest if you end-up playing white and have playable dinosaurs. Otherwise, it won't make the cut in your deck. As such, it is a bad rare to open in sealed. It's a card on the level of commune with dinosaurs: you play it if the rest of your pool commands it, not because it's an exciting card, not because it a dominating card. I think I'd prefer the commune over the priest because it smooths out your early game. Similarly, I found drover of the mighty to be one amazing card that will be format-defining. I can assure you I'd pick drover over priest every single time in draft. A rare that is lower pick than a uncommon is a crap rare in my book.
It's the same thing about the saboteur. It's a 2/1 for 2, which is a fine card, but not a compelling rare. (Its 1-toughness is a real liability though.) Everything you said confirms my opinion and what I stated. Saying it can block early is pretty damning praise. That's not what I look for in my rares. It's okay if your opponent stumbles and for some reason can't block a 2/1 on turn 3, but again, I I don't think that's a good rare to open in seal.
Edit: on re-reading my post, sure, I should have said "my two good rares" instead of "my two playable rares", if that is what struck you.
Let's run down the list of blue rares, just for fun.
jace: not a great planeswalker, but I'd say he's arguably better than saboteur, certainly not by a ton. LR rated him the same as saboteur and I agree, but for the sake of argument we'll say he's better.
overflowing insight: slow and expensive, worse than saboteur.
search for azcanta: very similar to saboteur, could go either way tbh. Less mana intensive but less powerful and flexible.
fleet swallower: slow and expensive, worse than saboteur.
spell swindle: better in sealed than elsewhere, but too easy to play around. worse than saboteur.
kopala, warden of waves: much worse than saboteur. Probably nearly unplayable. I got to crack a ton of these guys, of course but you'll notice I'm not whinging about it, because opening some number of bad rares is an expected part of the game.
entrancing melody: slow but powerful. Better than saboteur.
herald of secret streams: potentially good but requires build-around AND being the beatdown. Worse than saboteur.
river's rebuke: my experience was that it was very powerful and better than saboteur, though I'm not 100% on that as there are definitely bad cases.
arcane adaptation: almost useless, worse than saboteur.
dreamcaller siren: without pirates, probably worse than saboteur, with them, better. We'll say better since there are a lot of pirates.
daring saboteur: about the same as saboteur
tallies:
better: 4
worse: 6
same: 2
So it looks like your "crap" rare was still in the top 50% of rares in its color.
Basically your post sounds like you're complaining about the quality of your rares, when even your weaker rares are better than average.
Here's your first paragraph, reworded for accuracy:
First, my deck. Upon opening my pool, I was sad that my rares were merely quite good instead of absurdly good. I only had two bomb rares among 7. Got plenty of merely strong rares, like the white 1-drop that gains you tons of life just for having a dino, a dual land in colors I will claim were unplayable without providing evidence, and that very playable and solid looting pirate that plays well with both the mechanics and tribes of the set, etc. And the fact that I didn't mention what the last two rares are, while giving examples of "bad" rares which are still quite strong, should in no way cause you to assume that the other two rares were also probably quite good and that I'm complaining about absolutely nothing.
That may seem a little harsh, but that's how these sorts of complaints sound to me. Save the complaints for when you open a legitimately bad pool, rather than whenever your luck is anything short of perfect.
I totally get what you are saying and it makes sense to an extent, but saying that a bad rare is not bad because there are worse is not that great of a defense for it.
I totally get what you are saying and it makes sense to an extent, but saying that a bad rare is not bad because there are worse is not that great of a defense for it.
If a set had zero playable rares, and you opened zero playable rares, would it make sense to complain about it?
I mean you can complain about the set in general, if you'd rather have high powered rares (who doesn't love fate reforged amiright? /sarcasm) but complaining about your specific pool when your pulls are above average is pretty ridiculous.
I do think both those rares are pretty solid, though not bombs. Hardly a tragedy. I wish more rares were on that level, and fewer regisaur alphas, vraskas, and hostage takers.
My pool was good on the back of the ripjaw and the two great uncommon dinos. (It was unfortunately quite a bit removal-light.)
Both the priest of the wakening sun and the daring saboteur are not rares that entice you to play their colors. This is not a first pick in a draft where you can pick other card to match. I was talking about my pre-release seal pool.
You won't play white and you won't play dinosaurs due to the priest. You will play the priest if you end-up playing white and have playable dinosaurs. Otherwise, it won't make the cut in your deck. As such, it is a bad rare to open in sealed. It's a card on the level of commune with dinosaurs: you play it if the rest of your pool commands it, not because it's an exciting card, not because it a dominating card. I think I'd prefer the commune over the priest because it smooths out your early game. Similarly, I found drover of the mighty to be one amazing card that will be format-defining. I can assure you I'd pick drover over priest every single time in draft. A rare that is lower pick than a uncommon is a crap rare in my book.
It's the same thing about the saboteur. It's a 2/1 for 2, which is a fine card, but not a compelling rare. (Its 1-toughness is a real liability though.) Everything you said confirms my opinion and what I stated. Saying it can block early is pretty damning praise. That's not what I look for in my rares. It's okay if your opponent stumbles and for some reason can't block a 2/1 on turn 3, but again, I I don't think that's a good rare to open in seal.
Edit: on re-reading my post, sure, I should have said "my two good rares" instead of "my two playable rares", if that is what struck you.
Honestly, many of the rares give the Mythics in this set a run for their money. I think Drover of the mighty is the strongest 2 mana birds of paradise creature we've gotten in a while when paired with dinosaurs.
Oh yeah, my "pre-release" deck ended up being U/G merfolk. Had to do some filler with Ravenous Daggertooth and topped off with Ripjaw Raptor. Shaper Apprentice and One with the Wind carried my hopes and dreams in it. Well, that and my singleton Elaborate Firecannon. My pool did not have very good removal in any color at all. I got stuck with a single Pounce, Run Aground, and Watertrap weaver. Love the weaver, by the way. If there is a constructed merfolk deck I totally see a few copies alongside Kopala, Warden of Waves. Also, that was my foil promo... odd coincidence...
1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
Not a great deck by any means, but I discovered something awesome.
Fathom Fleet Firebrand is amazing. This guy carried my deck in every game. It deals tons of damage and easily trades up with some mana investment. In the games where I followed up with Turn 3 Headstrong Brute, I simply crushed the opponent in a few turns. These two pirates really make Red shine.
Rummaging Goblin was so much better than I thought. Definitely worth running one in your Red decks.
Blossom Dryad was my most disappointing card. It's ability just wasn't useful for my low-curve deck and its stats were lackluster. Unless you have a really high curve, definitely pass.
Another surprisingly powerful card was Shapers' Sanctuary. 1 mana is a worthy investment for this card. Not only did it draw me 1-3 cards in games I played it, it also worked really well against Territorial Hammerskull. Since it's not a "may" the opponent would be forced to target my creatures and draw me cards. Opponents just didn't know how to play around this thing with their removal in general. A real gem of a rare.
Forgot the name of the Dino but it's a 2/3 with vigilance and an ability where you pay 1W and tap him to deal damage equal to its toughness to target creature that blocked it or is blocked by it. This creature has been a workhorse in sealed.
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For the second time in a row, I got a busted pool. After the crazy RG with Samut the legend and 5/7 on color rares in HoD, this time I got:
River's Rebuke as promo, Dreamcaller Siren, Growing Rites of Itlimoc, Carnage Tyrant, Revel in Riches, Mavren Fein and Conqueror's Galleon.
The deck I played:
1 Kumena's Speaker
1 Shaper's Apprentice
1 Deeproot Warrior
1 Siren Lookout
1 Ranging Raptors
1 Storm Fleet Spy
1 Ravenous Daggertooth
1 Tishana's Wayfinder
1 Thrash of Raptors
1 Jade Guardian
1 Dreamcaller Siren
1 Air Elemental
1 Spike-Tailed Ceratops
1 Raging Swordtooth
1 Carnage Tyrant
1 Siren's Ruse
1 Sure Strike
2 Pounce
1 Crash the Ramparts
1 Conqueror's Galleon
1 Run Aground
1 Pirate's Prize
1 River's Rebuke
8 Forest
7 Island
2 Mountain
I did 5-0.
Carnage Tyrant is - obviously - an unanswerable bomb. Twice the opponent scooped after I cast it and attacked once. The majority of the games was won by River's Rebuke, though.
Overperformers:
Ranging Raptors, hands down. I knew this was gonna be good, but they picked up one land (and fixed my mana) practically all the time, sometimes even twice. It even makes the opponent hesitant with attacking, knowing that they are helping me to ramp.
Raging Swordtooth wrecked face by the ping-all-for-1 ability more than often.
I was hesitant to play Conqueror's Galleon, but I found it to be amazing. The 2/10 butt is able to hold back even the biggest of dinosaurs, and three times, when the games became stalled, I was able to cast Rebuke, then attack and flip the Galleon to Foothold, leaving the opponent with the prospect to return and recast Rebuke every other, or even every turn. A scoop followed immediatelly.
Pounce, thanks to the instant speed, made so many combat phases very surprising to opponets
Siren's Ruse + Dreamcaller Siren was also nice.
Underperformers: Nothing I played, really.
Overall, I liked the format a lot, though I pity everyone who loses to Tyrant in the following months. In the prize packs, I got Vraska - added to Tyrant and Growing Rites, finally some value after at least 4 prereleases. And I even got a cool trophy from our local organizer
So, how did you do?
Let this great clan rest in peace (2001-2011)
Overall the only cards that really stood out to me were Imperial Aerosaur, which quickly turned games around, and Charging Monstrosaur, which everybody but me seems to have gotten in their pool, while I still don't have a single copy from my 26 boosters total . Seriously, this card feels so unfair to play against, it's easily the most bomby card I saw over the weekend. Carnage Tyrant? I'd rather have faced that than the Monstosaur, at least I could have answered it. Raging Swordtooth? Faced it several times, wasn't impressed, easily dealt with it every time.
Yeah, from what I have seen from the set, for me the Monstrosaur takes the cake as the most
powerfulannoyingfrustrating card to play against.Former Rules Advisor
"Everything's better with pirates." - Lodge
(The Gamers: Dorkness Rising)
"Any sufficiently analyzed magic is indistinguishable from science."
(Girl Genius - Fairy Tale Theater Break - Cinderella, end of volume 8)
Well, I faced Monstrosaur once, and it was sadly staring at the 2/10 ship.
As for Swordtooth, I was lucky to face two Vampire and one Merfolk based decks, where it usually ate 2-3 critters ETB, and usually at least one more by Pounce and still living to smash face. Not to mention my own enrage triggers. Yeah, against a dinosaur-based opponent it would not do much.
The only really hard match was the last one, where I faced BWu deck with at least 8 W+B removals, Hostage Taker, Legion's Landing, Imperial Aerosaur, Bellowing Aegisaur, Sanctum Seeker and other token producers. Thankfully, the decider went to me after he ran out of removal and the stall was decided by me finally drawing the Rebuke and flipping the Galleon in attack with 12 mana available.
Let this great clan rest in peace (2001-2011)
foragainst me at least.Former Rules Advisor
"Everything's better with pirates." - Lodge
(The Gamers: Dorkness Rising)
"Any sufficiently analyzed magic is indistinguishable from science."
(Girl Genius - Fairy Tale Theater Break - Cinderella, end of volume 8)
This is what I played:
1 Ixalli's Keeper
1 Deeproot Warrior
1 Shaper Apprentice
1 Watertrap Weaver
1 Vineshaper Mystic
1 Jade Guardian
2 Grazing Whiptail
1 Prosperous Pirates
1 Regisaur Alpha
1 Wind Strider
1 Verdant Sun's Avatar
1 Thundering Spineback
1 Tishana, Voice of Thunder
1 Perilous Voyage
1 River Heralds' Boon
1 New Horizons
1 Depths of Desire
1 Cancel
1 Run Aground
1 Vance's Blasting Cannons
2 Mountain
7 Forest
7 Island
Apart from the obvious rares and bombs (Regisaur Alpha is just plain old brutal), cards that worked out really well for me were the River Heralds' Boon (the 'put both counters on the same merfolk' mode came in handy more than just once!) and the Whiptails. Apparently, Dinosaur Spiders get an extra power, which allows them to snack on practically every flier in Ixalan.
Also, Vance's Blasting Cannons is absurd, both unflipped and flipped. I was spell-slingy enough to be able to flip it a couple times (love the Opt reprint, btw). Once the Bolts started flying, games tended to end quickly in my favour.
I walked home with a booty of prize boosters, netting me T-shirt Jace and Admiral Beckett Brass for all my Commander needs. Really looking forward to drafting this set and seeing all those tribal synergies even more in action.
Second flight I had all these powerful rares this time including jace and Waker of the Wilds.. but I had to play Temur with multiple cards with multiple colour pips in all colours. Thankfully Treatures really helped with that. I then died to my own pair of Rampaging Ferocidon :/ and just not having a way to deal with a Colossal Dreadmaw, two of my opponents beat me with it. Then the final one used Skittering Heartstopper to prevent my attacks then piled his small pirates into boats. I am pretty salty losing (1-3) with such a good pool.
I basically never used any tribal synergies.
Pioneer:UR Pheonix
Modern:U Mono U Tron
EDH
GB Glissa, the traitor: Army of Cans
UW Dragonlord Ojutai: Dragonlord NOjutai
UWGDerevi, Empyrial Tactician "you cannot fight the storm"
R Zirilan of the claw. The solution to every problem is dragons
UB Etrata, the Silencer Cloning assassination
Peasant cube: Cards I own
The Merfolk surprised me with how well they played. All the explore helps you churn through your deck and get them big enough to at least mount a decent defence against larger creatures, plus they have some good tricks. The 3/2 unblockable plus pick up one of your value merfolk to either explore again or add more counters on etb was really good. I also have to agree that River Herald's Boon is a blow out in the merfolk deck. So many 2 for 1's with that card.
In general it seems somewhat easy to splash for a 3rd/4th color bomb/removal due to treasure and explore.
Cards I was not overly impressed with.
Fleet Swallower: I did mill someone but it didn't get there very quickly and 6/6 is not as impressive as it would be in other sets. It's likely a mill 10 trade with there big creature or 2 creatures. Again not terrible but it is 7 mana to cast so I think you could do better.
Sword Point Diplomacy: I didn't expect it to be great but I like this kind of card but this just seems to mean you get to draw all your lands and opponent takes 3 damage. Not the worst but not worth going out of your way for.
Priest of the Wandering Sun: Just wanted to try it. It does gain you a bit of life if you have it and a dino in your opening hand so the fact it does't really block is mitigated. I had a sword tooth to get late game but 5 mana to search it up is quite a bit.
Dowsing Dagger: This was my promo and it is beautiful, but giving your opponent 2x 0/2's is annoying. By the time you can flip this it's almost better to keep the +2/+1 side as you obviously have some evasive threat that could get past all those plants. Only play if you have evasion and only flip if you really need to ramp or get that extra color.
First pool had double tishana, voice of thunder, both from packs. Ran a ton of explore dudes (7?) and went 3-0 pretty easily. Tishana won literally every game, drawing 3 cards minimum and sometimes as many as 7.
Second pool was a solid BW vamp deck. Went 3-0.
Third pool was 2HG with double vanquisher's banner and double primal amulet. Vamp deck with banners did pretty well, the nearly-all-spells deck with the amulets was less impressive as we only flipped an amulet once, in a game that didn't count, and it only double-casted one spell before we just won anyway. Still, I had to try. Went 2-1.
Fourth pool was also 2hg, went dinos + pirates with gishath in dinos and tons of removal in pirates with the win-the-game treasure enchantment. Lost one game after a mull to 6 followed by no swamps in the top ~10 cards of my deck, so I only got to cast ~2 spells the whole game. Played another for-fun game after and annihilated them...oh well. Almost pulled off the win-the-game too, but gishath won faster.
Fifth pool was double admiral beckett brass, which was ok but my pool was desperately short on decent pirates, only one with evasion. I ran everything I could, but the fixing was also total trash (classic 6-6-6 mana base). Lucksacked one victory pretty hard - MVP was repeating barrage, which I cast in some games 4+ times. Managed to steal one permanent with brass, so achievement unlocked there (blinked the pirate he blocked with his only blocker, then stole the blocker). Went 3-1.
Overall record: 14-3.
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
First, my deck. Upon opening my pool, I was sad at the level of rares I got. I had two playable rares among 7. Got plenty of crap, like the white 1-drop that gain you life by showing a dino, a dual land in unplayable colors, that stupid not-even-close-to-magpie blue looter that need to hit to loot, stuff like that.
Thankfully, my two playable were dozies: cannons and ripjaw raptor. I also had both the good (insane?) 5-drop dinos: charging monstrosaur and raging swordtooth. A few other R and G dino, but not enough so it was complemented with a few white spells. I had a lot of two and three drops, many with haste. Plus double the hasty, exploring red pirates, which is very good to curve out.
1 drover of the mighty
1 fathom fleet firebrand
1 nest robber
2 tilonalli's knight
1 ravenous daggertooth
1 ripjaw raptor
1 hijack
1 jade guardian
1 thrash of raptors
2 brazen buccaneers
1 pterodon knight
1 spike-tailed ceratops
1 charging monstrosaur
1 raging swordtooth
1 shining aerosaur
1 thundering spineback
1 legion's judgment
1 rallying roar
My first win was against UBw, which had mana trouble, but it did not matter much as I consistently curved out. My second against UG, which had bounce and freeze (and the combo with the unblockable merfolk which bounces the freezing merfolk), but my beef was fast enough and I had enough hasty dude to always win the damage race.
My first loss was against UBg. He won by stalling the ground a lot, bouncing and fatty blockers and... by using blight keeper repeatedly. He misread teh card and did not noticed (and neither did I) that he needed to sacrifice it... so he drained me twice, with the menace of activating it another time... I'd have won without the extra drains. We discovered his error at the end and he claimed he'd would have won anyway and I didn't want to fight for a single booster so let him have it (and have people making fun of him for "cheating").
My second loss was again RGw in the mirror. We raced and exchanged blows over three games. What happen in the end, and I only realized the day after, was that he cheated on his life total. After one attack on him he told me that I should have attacked with everything and won, but I pointed out to him he would not have died. In reality, I had forgotten to reduce his life two turn before. After I told him so he fiddled with his life pad (which was mostly hidden behind his deck box). After the game he reiterated that I should have just attacked with everything to win and again, confused, I told him that he'd survived and his back swing would kill me, and he said "oh right!, oh right!". Once again I did not pick up the clues. Only by going over the game the next day did I realized what he had done. I then remembered seeing a 11 crossed into a 14 on his life pad after the game.
So, two real wins, two false losses.
Oh well. I really need to crank up my game and make sure to read the card and write down life totals correctly.
First Prerelease: I ended up going 2-0-1 splitting the final as it was midnight and i was exhausted. Most memorable moment though was surviving a 13 trample swing with Gishath combined with double strike active and him accelerating 8 dinos on the battlefield to swinging for lethal with a top deck One With the Wind on my Wanted Scoundrels.
Second Prerelease: Nothing surprising, I ended up going 1-2 with every round going to game 3. I just got flooded a bit in the two I lost and my opponent curved quite well. Most memorable moment was actually opening one of my packs and pulling a severely miscut Opt (Was able to move it for $20).
Third Prerelease: Had an absolute bonkers G/W/R Dino deck with 3 Hammerskulls. Just very control heavy with a strong top end to finish off. I ended up also going 2-0-1 splitting the finals as I was just done after playing Magic for nearly 20 hours within the past 24 hours.
Overall: 5-2-2 and cracked open a total of 31 Ixalan packs. The set is very tribal heavy and personally I felt it was not truly meant for sealed, but definitely going to be an exciting Draft format to be apart of! I also was able to make a ton of trades to nearly finish up my Standard RR deck and picked up some key staples in Modern.
BB8-RackBB
Pauper:
UUDelverlUU
While it is tribal I felt the tribes that share a color also share some synergy. Evasive blue merfolk help raid. Explore helps ramp out dinos as well as treasure. Lifegain also helps you hold off in white to drop some 7+ drops. The sealed format seems fine to me but if you don't have an overwhelming amout of one tribe you do have to look for those parallel synergies.
I also think this is a 16 land format even though you have high CMC costs. Treasure and Explore help you make your land drops or pay for those 7 drops. Also not too many mana syncs so having land 8+ is real diminishing utility.
There are plenty of much less playable rares in this set. Both of those cards are very playable in the decks that want them - B-level cards if ever there were any. Lsv gave priest a 3.5 and saboteur a 3.0, and I'm inclined to agree with him. Both quite good, though not at the level of raptor or blasting cannons. Your pool sounds quite strong.
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
I played the dino searching priest in my pre-release where I ran a fast RW deck with ~10 dinos. It's extremely good if you can play it early. You basically can't lose a race if you play it turn one and have a dino in hand. I once had 36 life in one of my games because of it.
More generally, a dino deck can be so fast. Good drops all along the 2 to 6cc range. If you can curve out, you can put insane pressure on the opponent. I once won on turn 5 curving out with Adanto Vanguard, Frenzied Raptor, Thrash of Raptors and Charging Monstrosaur.
1 Deeproot Warrior
1 Ixalli's Keeper
1 Merfolk Branchwalker
1 Raptor Hatchling
1 Deathgorge Scavenger
1 Frenzied Raptor
2 Headstrong Brute
1 Rampaging Ferocidon
1 Ranging Raptors
1 Brazen Buccaneers
1 Grazing Whiptail
1 Thrash of Raptors
1 Charging Monstrosaur
1 Snapping Sailback
1 Storm Fleet Pyromancer
1 Burning Sun's Avatar
1 Pounce
1 Sure Strike
1 Crash the Ramparts
1 New Horizons
1 Savage Stomp
1 Unfriendly Fire
Lands
9 Mountain
8 Forest
I really liked this deck and it did really well for me at the Pre-release. Going 4-1 and coming in 2nd overall.
Round 1 - Vs Naya Dinosaurs (2-0)
My first opponent was playing a Naya dinosaur deck with a rather too greedy mana base. So I managed to take advantage of their slight mana issues and get out some bigger threats then they could answer.
Round 2 - Vs BWu Vampires (2-1)
I lost the first game to my opponent hitting a very strong combo of Adanto Vanguard enchanted with Mark of the Vampire. So they kept gaining life to off set the activation cost of the Vanguard. I was able to stem the bleeding with Rampaging Ferocidon for a while to stop the life gain, but being unable to kill it cost me the game.
The other two games my dinos curved out while being backed up by removal to win.
Round 3 - Vs Grixis Pirates (2-1)
My opponent was running a low to the ground pirate deck, with all the evasive creatures they could to try and win quickly. They had Daring Saboteur and Ruin Raider for card advantage. Of course the Ruin Raider did do 5 damage to them in one game, which was enough to help me win that game.
Game three went my way when I curved a Merfolk Branchwalker with a +1/+1 counter on it from explore into a Savage Stomp to make it a 4/3 and kill their Daring Saboteur.
Round 4 - Vs Naya Dinosaurs (2-0)
A much stronger dinosaur deck then the one I faced in round 1, with a less greedy mana base.
The second game ended up being quite close. As I had my Rampaging Ferocidon on the field for several turns. So we were both being pinged when we played our creatures. But being cautious I avoided going too low, so my opponent's Unfriendly Fire they had in hand never had a chance to finish me off.
Round 5 - Vs Grixis Pirates (1-2)
I kept a rather slow hand game one, and when my opponent resolved a Vanquisher's Banner I had a feeling I was in trouble. Things got worse when a couple turns later they resolved a Hostage Taker to steal my Grazing Whiptail. What really hurt when this happened, was I had Burning Sun's Avatar in hand when they played the Hostage Taker. But the +1/+1 from the Banner meant I couldn't kill it with the Avatar.
Game two went my way. But game three, my opponent just curved 1 drop, into 2 drop, into 3 drop, into Hostage Taker. Just too much too quick I couldn't hope to win that game. I did however go out on my own terms. As my opponent hit me down to 4, so on my turn I untapped and cast Unfriendly Fire targeting myself.
Overall quite a good day.
For my pool, it was bad because I don't want a white 1-drop when white is a splash and its ability requires double white.
I never heard of goblin piker as "quite strong". The looter is extremely blockable, much more than a flyer. (If your opponent can't block a 2/1 on turn 3, you're already winning.) Requiring 3 mana to make it unblockable is extremely bad mana investment until the very late stages. You will never drop him turn two and start looting, unless your hand or your opponent hand is very bad. I'd very much rather pay 4 for a flyer that draw cards. It has only 1 toughness, dying to everything. Multiple sets have free looters or looter than only require some mana. It's an okay 2-drop, it fills your curve, but it's an awfully weak card to be a rare. The concept of it being a 3 (i.e. pulling you into drafting the color) is overrated.
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Having played with the looter, I can personally attest that it is a solid card. Not enough to lock me into blue by any stretch, but I'd never cut it from a blue deck and I'd be very happy to pick one up if I was already in blue, at virtually any point in the draft. Magpie performs one role quite well - card advantage if your opponent has no flyers - but he's not good at other roles. saboteur fills a lot of roles decently - he trades early when you're behind, he loots early when you or your opponent stumble on playing a creature on-curve, he's often threatening enough to hold back 2 blockers early-game to avoid a free attack after removal, and then in the late-game, since you're pitching lands anyway he's practically a free draw a decent percentage of the time, and a guaranteed hit. Plus he hits twice as hard, and as a pirate he can hold the cutlass easily on-curve to become a 4-turn optionally-unblockable clock.
I'm not saying he's better than magpie - the two cards fulfill very different roles and are from very different sets. But he's definitely no slouch, and nothing to complain about. Which is really the reason I commented - it's very vexing to see someone complain about their luck when their luck was totally satisfactory. Having 2/7 rares fit your colors (and at least one being close) is pretty average, and being that good is far above average.
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
Both the priest of the wakening sun and the daring saboteur are not rares that entice you to play their colors. This is not a first pick in a draft where you can pick other card to match. I was talking about my pre-release seal pool.
You won't play white and you won't play dinosaurs due to the priest. You will play the priest if you end-up playing white and have playable dinosaurs. Otherwise, it won't make the cut in your deck. As such, it is a bad rare to open in sealed. It's a card on the level of commune with dinosaurs: you play it if the rest of your pool commands it, not because it's an exciting card, not because it a dominating card. I think I'd prefer the commune over the priest because it smooths out your early game. Similarly, I found drover of the mighty to be one amazing card that will be format-defining. I can assure you I'd pick drover over priest every single time in draft. A rare that is lower pick than a uncommon is a crap rare in my book.
It's the same thing about the saboteur. It's a 2/1 for 2, which is a fine card, but not a compelling rare. (Its 1-toughness is a real liability though.) Everything you said confirms my opinion and what I stated. Saying it can block early is pretty damning praise. That's not what I look for in my rares. It's okay if your opponent stumbles and for some reason can't block a 2/1 on turn 3, but again, I I don't think that's a good rare to open in seal.
Edit: on re-reading my post, sure, I should have said "my two good rares" instead of "my two playable rares", if that is what struck you.
jace: not a great planeswalker, but I'd say he's arguably better than saboteur, certainly not by a ton. LR rated him the same as saboteur and I agree, but for the sake of argument we'll say he's better.
overflowing insight: slow and expensive, worse than saboteur.
search for azcanta: very similar to saboteur, could go either way tbh. Less mana intensive but less powerful and flexible.
fleet swallower: slow and expensive, worse than saboteur.
spell swindle: better in sealed than elsewhere, but too easy to play around. worse than saboteur.
kopala, warden of waves: much worse than saboteur. Probably nearly unplayable. I got to crack a ton of these guys, of course but you'll notice I'm not whinging about it, because opening some number of bad rares is an expected part of the game.
entrancing melody: slow but powerful. Better than saboteur.
herald of secret streams: potentially good but requires build-around AND being the beatdown. Worse than saboteur.
river's rebuke: my experience was that it was very powerful and better than saboteur, though I'm not 100% on that as there are definitely bad cases.
arcane adaptation: almost useless, worse than saboteur.
dreamcaller siren: without pirates, probably worse than saboteur, with them, better. We'll say better since there are a lot of pirates.
daring saboteur: about the same as saboteur
tallies:
better: 4
worse: 6
same: 2
So it looks like your "crap" rare was still in the top 50% of rares in its color.
Basically your post sounds like you're complaining about the quality of your rares, when even your weaker rares are better than average.
Here's your first paragraph, reworded for accuracy:
That may seem a little harsh, but that's how these sorts of complaints sound to me. Save the complaints for when you open a legitimately bad pool, rather than whenever your luck is anything short of perfect.
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
I totally get what you are saying and it makes sense to an extent, but saying that a bad rare is not bad because there are worse is not that great of a defense for it.
BWTokens
GCollected Stompany
BWGUSeance Insanity
URUR Bloo
I mean you can complain about the set in general, if you'd rather have high powered rares (who doesn't love fate reforged amiright? /sarcasm) but complaining about your specific pool when your pulls are above average is pretty ridiculous.
I do think both those rares are pretty solid, though not bombs. Hardly a tragedy. I wish more rares were on that level, and fewer regisaur alphas, vraskas, and hostage takers.
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
Honestly, many of the rares give the Mythics in this set a run for their money. I think Drover of the mighty is the strongest 2 mana birds of paradise creature we've gotten in a while when paired with dinosaurs.
Oh yeah, my "pre-release" deck ended up being U/G merfolk. Had to do some filler with Ravenous Daggertooth and topped off with Ripjaw Raptor. Shaper Apprentice and One with the Wind carried my hopes and dreams in it. Well, that and my singleton Elaborate Firecannon. My pool did not have very good removal in any color at all. I got stuck with a single Pounce, Run Aground, and Watertrap weaver. Love the weaver, by the way. If there is a constructed merfolk deck I totally see a few copies alongside Kopala, Warden of Waves. Also, that was my foil promo... odd coincidence...
1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
2 Headstrong Brute
2 Frenzied Raptor
1 Tilonalli's Knight
1 Firecannon Blast
1 Nest Robber
1 Rummaging Goblin
1 Storm Fleet Pyromancer
1 Sun-Crowned Hunters
1 Blossom Dryad
2 Unfriendly Fire
1 Crash the Ramparts
1 Deathgorge Scavenger
1 Jade Guardian
1 Pounce
1 Shapers' Sanctuary
1 Colossal Dreadmaw
1 Raging Swordtooth
10 Mountain
7 Forest
Not a great deck by any means, but I discovered something awesome.
Fathom Fleet Firebrand is amazing. This guy carried my deck in every game. It deals tons of damage and easily trades up with some mana investment. In the games where I followed up with Turn 3 Headstrong Brute, I simply crushed the opponent in a few turns. These two pirates really make Red shine.
Rummaging Goblin was so much better than I thought. Definitely worth running one in your Red decks.
Blossom Dryad was my most disappointing card. It's ability just wasn't useful for my low-curve deck and its stats were lackluster. Unless you have a really high curve, definitely pass.
Another surprisingly powerful card was Shapers' Sanctuary. 1 mana is a worthy investment for this card. Not only did it draw me 1-3 cards in games I played it, it also worked really well against Territorial Hammerskull. Since it's not a "may" the opponent would be forced to target my creatures and draw me cards. Opponents just didn't know how to play around this thing with their removal in general. A real gem of a rare.
UGTurboFogGU
BRSacrificial AggroBR
16The Paper Pauper Battle Bag16
EDH
BRRakdos, Lord of PingersBR
GTitania, Protector of ArgothG
UB Ramses OverdarkUB
Sig by Ace5301 of Ace of Spades Studio