I didn't play, but I watched matches the entire day. As others have noted, 4 is the magic toughness in this format. There are a lot of x/4's, and they are very effective at grinding out your opponent. Lobber Crew always did heavy lifting when it saw play, as it blocks and bleeds your opponent every turn. I saw 3-6 damage from each Lobber Crew with good frequency. In that vein, anything that can deal with x/4 blockers is also very good, and as you'll run into a lot of ground standoffs, anything that grinds out your opponent is also decent. Stab Wound is like Lobber Crew, but much faster.
There are not very many low-toughness creatures worth running in this format. Creature ping is very poor. Bears are also not very good, unless they are guildmages, because of the abundance of high-tougness creatures. Overall, the format is slow-ish and involves grinding opponents until the bombs start falling.
Faerie Impostor Nope. People were playing this for the flying and the bouncing. Many times it was a mistake... (I want to believe the things I saw happening were really surprising failures, and that this is good...)
I also want to give a shout out to Security Blockade. It's not going to win the game, but preventing 1 damage every turn can slow down an opposing fast start.
Ethereal Armor won me a bunch of games. I had 2, complemented by Martial Law and Righteous Authority, which, incidentally, are also really good. My enchanted creatures almost always had +2/+2 and first strike, the latter of which gains tons of value when you get to select which of your opponent's creatures are allowed to block.
Choosed Izzet during the PR and most of my rares supported my colors. Played an agressive Rub.
Agreeing that both Frostburn Weird and Stab Wound are insanely good in limited.
Frostburn Weird can act as good defender against a hyper-agressive openning especially against Rakdos, punishes slower decks while waiting for you to cast your 4 drop and can even trade with creatures with toughnes up to 4. And also a worst target for Stab wound!
Speaking of which, Stab Wound can act as a removal for creatures with toughness 2 or less; or neutered those 4/4 creatures. Splashed B just to accommodate 2 of this card in my deck.
Pulled also 2 Ash Zealot and those girls are crazy! A 2/2 hasty firststriker ie very relevant in limited.
Minotaur Aggressor won me a few games. Usually come from behind after all my creatures are dead blocking or after I've flashed Skyline Predator to prevent my opponent's big creature from connecting.
MISSED:
Hellhole Flailer did not include it in my deck (I have 1 in my pool) as I thought he was not a consistent 3 drop. Too late to noticed his sacrifice ability >_<
BAD:
I don't about you guys but somehow Viashino Racketeer did not work well for me during the PR. Run 2 of them and I usually ditched a land card (running 18 lands) to loot to only draw another land card T_T I did cast it to prevent Stealer of Secrets from connecting. Also forgot that his lotting is optional.
Tablet of the Guilds really helped me out in close matches, and it helped my opponents stay alive longer than they had any right to. Sometimes, it really helped turn the tide of the game. Don't underestimate it in limited.
Dramatic Rescue helped save my life quite a few times as well, albeit in a more immediate fashion than the Tablet.
Downsize actually ended up hosing me quite a few times in either regular or Overload mode. It shut me down when I swung for a lot with Azorius fliers, and I had some success neutralizing Rakdos alpha strikes with it as well. Not to be underestimated.
The MVP for me at the pre-release had to be Avenging Arrow. Yes, either my creatures or I had to take a hit in order to activate it, but it was well worth it to kill any creature to prevent them from hitting me ever again.
I don't know if these are surprises to anyone else, but since the format is new, they were surprising to me. I hope this helps someone, somewhere, do better in a limited match. It is a very fun format, and I look forward to many more matches in the future!
I am sure it is no secret that Stab wound is really good. It literally swung me like 4 games throughout my day. Also, corpsejack menace was central in my deck, since i ran a bunch of scavenge I was really totaling out the counters.
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Went junk colors. Korozda guildmage was obviously great. Particularly the intimidate ability when so many people picked izzet. Stonefare crocodile was also really strong. 3cc to Lifelink 3 power turned out to be a bargain, especially in a format with giant growth and other really good green pump.
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I was the only golgari in the top 4 in my prerelease out of 70. I got mana screwed two games in the final round (4 no land hands and 6 mulls between 2 friggin games) and lost, ending up 4th place.
I pulled a chromatic lantern, and had axebane guardian and some other fixing, so I was able to splase W and U with a golgari base. Worked very well. Golgari is MUCH more suited for control/stall rather than aggro. Most golgari decks I saw tried to splash for Rakdos and go aggro, and it didn;t seem to work at all.
Anyways, Good:
Deathrite Shaman - I pulled two. This. Dude. Wins. Games. Especially late or in a board stall. I would jam this in any golgari deck possible if you pull it.
Perilous Shadow - A pumpable x/4 is huge. Blocks almost anything for free and can kill almost anything and still survive, all for a 4 drop. I pulled 3 and ran 2.
Ogre Jailbreaker I would run this even without a gate. A 4 drop 4/4 defender is very relevant in this format. As many have said, 4 toughness creatures are huge. Most of my games, the opponent stalled out once my 4 drop x/4s started hitting the board, almost all aggro strategies seem to rely on 3 power creatures or less. And this kills annoying populated centaurs dead.
Azorious Keyrune A 2/2 flyer and mana fixing. Worked great to get in 2 most turns.
Paralyzing Grasp In any other set, I wouldn't run this. But hey man, it did its job fine.
Trostani's Judgment A 6 drop removal spell seems steep, but I cast this almost every game.
All star: Cyclonic Rift This card won me about 1/3 of my games. If you pull it, splash blue if you're not already running it. If you can avoid casting it for 2 and wait to use the overload, its back breaking. I would first pick this over every other card right now.
Let downs:
Slitherhead Meh. Waste of a card slot unless you're running Rakdos aggro.
Judge's Familiar I see the potential of this card in constructed, but in limited a 1/1 flyer even with its ability just isnt worth the card slot unless youre playing Izzet control or something.
Rubbleback Rhino A definite step down from primal huntbeast. That 1 more mana makes a big difference. Unless you have a lot of cheap scavenge stuff, hes not worth it.
That one surprises me. I mean... at worst it cycles and it's quite often an Instant speed Time Ebb for one mana less, plus you can use it to win tempo races. How did it fail to be good?
It was spectaCular for me all day long against golgari and when I got my azorious tempo beats. Please continue to think this is a bad card, everyone, and pass to me.
I had the bad fortune to choose UW and get almost nothing in my other five packs to support. Fortunately, Selesnya was right next door, and I pulled the Grove in one of my other packs.
Surprising:
Seller of songbirds was always welcome, and I frequently was happy to populate the token off a root born defenses. Suddenly, that four toughness attacker does look so tough.
Dramatic Rescuse was...dramatic. I can save my creature! I can bounce your creature! I gain two life in the face of your alpha strike! Control really loves this card in multiples.
Rest in Peace. So many people played golgari. So many people could not handle this. I ended up siding it in against every GB opponent and it wrecked. Wouldn't probably do that in draft, but maybe.
Yada Yada stab wound and launch party...
All enchantments. Not very many ways to handle then, unless you're playing bounce. Which I was.
3/3 centaur tokens.
That darn 1/4 regenerating wall was shutting me down all day. Very high pick if you're drafting to survive flyers.
Trostani's Judgement. I knew it was going to be good. Instant speed + populate makes it bonkers. It always felt very appropriately costed.
Inaction Injunction was surprisingly good at holding the fort until turn five/six, which is where I really needed to be. Much better than 'tap a creature, draw a card.'
Keening Apparition! There is a real need to kill enchantments, and this is something you'd main deck as a bear anyhow.
Instead of listing cards individually, I will provide a scenario that both showcase Rakdos' bread and butter, and also validates a Rakdos mid-late/board stall viability.
A snippet of game two of the first round of the playoffs:
Opponent at 12, Me at 7. He has 2 fliers, one of which is stab wounded to a 1/1, and 2-3 small ground dudes.
I have 2 Lobber Crew, Rix-Maadi Guildmage, 5 land, I'm holding one auger spree and one annihilating fire.
His turn, stabwound2, declares his attack and I Lobber 2 and auger spree an attacker. No tricks so no blocks.
EoT Lobber 2, Guildmage 1. Opponent at 5.
Untap, Lobber 2, Annihilating Fire.
A timely Rakdos win without ever sending a man into the redzone.
In every game I was happy to see Lobber Crew. Solidly my MVP in a deck with only the promo as a rare that went undefeated until playoffs.
The gates - I expected them to be too slow, too awkward but they were solid turn 1 or even later since I often had to splash to get 23 solid playables.
Gatecreeper vine - stalls Rakdos, chumps random haste guys, huge scavanged guys, fixes mana; sets up good turn 3-4-5 plays.
Selesnya Charm - Kills bombs, sneak attacks other guildmages or guttersnipes trying to sneak in damage. Swung 3 different games for me. I expected it to be good, but everything else was kind of disappointing in comparison.
Pyroconvergence - I thought it would be too slow or conditional to be useful. Turns out that locking down the enemy's guildmages and making Izzet Charm deal 4 is a big deal.
Counterspells - They're all rather high costed and/or too slow, but it turns out they're still cheaper than other effective removal.
Growing Ranks - I knew it was good, but it turns out to be stupid good compared to other populate effects that are... mana or card intensive. The inevitability of it is key in this format.
Worse than expected:
Centaur Healer- I expected this to be a great aggressively costed way to provide pressure. It turns out that everyone and their dog has an aggressively costed guy with 3 power, so he just trades...
Izzet Charm - turns out shocking isn't great when everything is a 3/3.
Pack Rat - Didn't see any rat shenanigans going on. I even had one, but was always looking to stabilize rather than build a rat army since turn 3 invariably meant some 3/x was hitting the board and the rat was losing the race.
Keening Apparition: Being a 2/2 for 2 alone is enough to be playable, but having on-board answers to the multitude of annoying-to-broken enchantments in this set is amazing. I played at least one game where my opponent had a hand full of enchantments that he just couldn't play because the tempo loss of tapping mana for something that was just going to get removed was too high
Swift Justice: The lifelink was incredibly relevant against most decks.
Azorius Charm: I have no idea why everyone is so down on this card, it did amazing work for me. Most of the time I was cycling, and when I wasn't cycling I was spinning their 6 drop dude. The tempo hit from spinning a huge dude cannot be ignored.
Dramatic Rescue: I'll just echo what other players said about this card, in that it's just simply amazing. Ignore the fact that it costs WU and think about how awesome it is to bounce an expensive dude AND gain life, or save your win condition creature from removal AND gain life. This card did work.
Underperformed:
Hussar Patrol: I just never really got a chance to ambush anything with this. Most of the time I ended up flashing it in at the end of the turn, and all it usually helped do was clog up the ground until I could resolve some big fliers.
All in all, there were definitely more cards that did better than I thought they would than cards that underperformed. And that's a great thing in Limited.
[CARD]
Stab Wound
[/CARD] - Had help in multiple games from this card, love the versatility it offers.
[CARD]
Deathrite Shaman
[/CARD] - Guy was a bomb all day, removal is hard to come by and if they waste it on him then they won't have it for something bigger. I held off a 4-0 Rakdos deck with this guy in G2 for 10+ turns just turning all of his dead guys into life.
The red Guttersnipe card did a lot of damage, one UR player had two on the board and every misc spell he cast was burning me for 4, ouch.
The other unexpected surprise was Rogue's Passage I won multiple games getting the last damage through with this card in my Golgari deck. He worked well with multiple creatures, if you play it right when the opp is tapped out there is little risk of a blowout or if you want to force him to block a certain creature and keep another one alive by giving him unblockable, very versatile card. The best use though was the 3/4 Hexproof green guy, Scavenge on to him with whatever you can then make him unblockable = win.
It might sound dumb and obvious, but Rakdos, Lord of Riots absolutely broke open every game I ever got him into. It's not just being a 6/6 evasive trampler, but his "paincast" ability would flat out end games. All those undercasted unleashers became even more juicy to cast thanks to costing 6 less to cast most of the time.
Anyway, other notable mentions: Traitorous Instinct, the +2/+0 was often a back breaker.
Explosive Impact. Loved loved this card. Won me several matches. Awful for constructed, perfect for limited.
Sewer Shambler, while not an MVP or anything, really took me pretty far. So many folks playing Golgari or Radkos, and so many more splashing B for whatever toys they pulled, it would get in over and over again. Also made casting Radkos that much easier. Would usually get taken out by Electrickery. But also has a lenient Scavenge cost for a gift that keeps on giving.
Non-Rakdos stuff I was impressed by, Trostani's Judgement and Rootborn Defenses would always, always swing the board to Selesnya's favor. Grove of the Guardian was game over 99% of the time, unless you had lethal on the board before they could get that sixth mana source.
Underperformed: Scavenge, for the most part. I pulled two Zanikev Locusts and could never get them either in the yard or in play due to prohibitive costs. Scavenge overall seemed overcosted in general, with only a couple worthwhile cards in limited, and even fewer in constructed.
Frostburn Weird was surprisingly good. It drops early and holds the ground while your flyers do the work. The fact that it can pump its power when it gets through is a big bonus.
Electrickery didn't do much for me. As someone said above, not a lot of X/1s in this set.
This exactly mimics my experiences. I had two frostburn Weirds and I couldn't believe how good they actually were. There aren't many things other than centaurs that he can't kill and live, which says a lot. And centaurs he can just block ad infinitum. His value for draft went up hugely for me. An excellent body on the defense, and a strong attacker who can push through a lot more damage than people will expect.
Electrickery faced the exact same problems with me. I thought a one sided sort-of pyroclasm that I can use as hornet sting in a pinch would work out reasonably well. In actuality it only ever hits bird tokens, or plays like a mediocre combat trick. It really never should have been in my deck.
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Check out the thread for my cube if you have the time, and tell me how terrible it is.
Generals meant to be drafted first in a single pack of 6 cards.
And here is the actual cube, meant to be drafted in 4 regular sized packs. (60 card decks)
I'm jumping on the Stab Wound bandwagon. It's p1p1 material. Sticking it on unleashed dudes is hilarious.
Courser's Accord is great. Horncaller's Chant, not so much.
Rogue's Passage is very powerful, especially when it's letting 8/8's through.
I was not impressed with Gatecreeper Vine. I usually didn't need the fixing and it would only chump for one turn since most things in the format kill it.
Finished my prerelease in second (6-0) with a very unorthodox deck, which made for a very fun time personally. Only 26 players and three rounds though.
I chose Rakdos as my guild but opened only two removal spells and mediocre creatures, so gave up on winning with it. My deck in the end was a UGr defender deck that either ramped into big greens or milled for a win condition. So for my mvps...
Doorkeeper - opened 3 of these guys, milled people to death in two games with these, and an amazing blocker
Nivix Guildmage - The draw a card/discard a card was unbelievably useful for making sure I had the right cards at the right time
Axebane Guardian - had 3 of these as well, gave me the insane amounts of mana my deck required to function, and let me cycle my lands away earlier than usual with the izzit mage.
Tablet of the Guilds - Healed through any damage that got passed my walls. (Edit: misunderstanding)
Soulsworn Spirit - Puts the enemy on a clock, and my opponents found him a high priority for removal.
Finished my prerelease in second (6-0) with a very unorthodox deck, which made for a very fun time personally. Only 26 players and three rounds though.
I chose Rakdos as my guild but opened only two removal spells and mediocre creatures, so gave up on winning with it. My deck in the end was a UGr defender deck that either ramped into big greens or milled for a win condition. So for my mvps...
Doorkeeper - opened 3 of these guys, milled people to death in two games with these, and an amazing blocker
Nivix Guildmage - The draw a card/discard a card was unbelievably useful for making sure I had the right cards at the right time
Axebane Guardian - had 3 of these as well, gave me the insane amounts of mana my deck required to function, and let me cycle my lands away earlier than usual with the izzit mage.
Tablet of the Guilds - Healed through any damage that got passed my walls, and my opponent always had either green or blue spells to play.
Soulsworn Spirit - Puts the enemy on a clock, and my opponents found him a high priority for removal.
I have a similar story, at today's pre-release as Selesnya I opened an extremely mediocre pool, my guild pack was really bad, and my non-guild packs had a grand total of like 3 decent Selesnya cards and their curve was really awkward. Then I noticed I had 3 Doorkeepers, 2 Hover Barriers and lots of solid Izzet stuff like 2 Izzet charms and staticaster so I made wall.dec which was straight U/R and it was pretty funny. Went 4-1 in matches.
Also, tablet only triggers of your own spells. Guess your opponents didn't realize?
I just went 5-0 and won the 3rd prerelease I played with rakdos.
It was the clear MVP, had 3 stab wounds in my deck.
Beating down with quick unleash creatures, then when they put bigger blockers in the field, stab wound them, and don't attack. Now they are taking 2-4 damage a turn and dont have any power to counterattack with.
I have a similar story, at today's pre-release as Selesnya I opened an extremely mediocre pool, my guild pack was really bad, and my non-guild packs had a grand total of like 3 decent Selesnya cards and their curve was really awkward. Then I noticed I had 3 Doorkeepers, 2 Hover Barriers and lots of solid Izzet stuff like 2 Izzet charms and staticaster so I made wall.dec which was straight U/R and it was pretty funny. Went 4-1 in matches.
Also, tablet only triggers of your own spells. Guess your opponents didn't realize?
Ah yeah, I did only use it on my own spells but someone told me after the tournament it was all spells, so I just assumed they were right without rereading it. Still helped a fair bit against an izzit burn deck. Was hilarious seeing my oppoenents reactions to my deck though, nobody knew what to do. Stab wound honestly would've wrecked me though, luckily no one played it on me.
Our local event was ~400 people, 2.5x the size of the last prerelease. Lucky they had enough product... no signups so guild choice was random.
I randomed an Azorius guild pack, got few good cards, opened basically mono-selesnya including Armada Wurm and Grove of the Guardian; populated 8/8 vigilance tokens and 5/5 armada wurm tokens to a 4-0, only losing due to stumbling on mana, and won another 3 matches played randomly/for fun. Turns out Armada wurm is PRETTY GOOD.
Overperformed: Azorius Charm - I thought this would be so-so. Turns out that pseudo-griptide for 2 is pretty good when there's a million tokens, +1/+1 counters and expensive dudes. Never wanted to cycle it.
Selesnya Charm - This card does everything. I knew it was good, but I didn't expect it to be the killing blow in most of my games. Hint: the 2/2 token is the wrong mode almost always. I expect to be first picking this a lot.
VoidWielder - this is much better than a man-o-war would be, which surprised me. It's the perfect stabilizing card for a control deck. 1/4 > 2/2 in this format. I had two, and I wish I'd had 4.
Trostani's Judgement - I played two of these and they were amazing, despite only 3 token makers. There's formats where this is near-unplayable. This is NOT that format. They also happen to curve perfectly with Grove of the Guardian to turn a stale board into a gross blowout. Exiling is was relevant surprisingly often.
High curves- Maybe because it was sealed, maybe because I had bounce/detain in early turns, but my 18 land curve of 2 5's, 3 6's, 1 7 (and guardian of the grove) got there in a big way.
Bant colors (or Azorious/Selesnya) - bounce/detain into big things. It wrecks populate-based decks because you get to turn all your bounce into actual removal. Also excellent vs the golgari guys after they drop 5-6 mana scavenging.
Underperformed: Essence Backlash - there are too many noncreature or cheap/small threats for this to be anything but a sideboard card vs certain decks. I was able to win 2 games with opponents who telegraphed this by stranding it in their hand while still making threats.
Archon of the Triumvirate - I don't think I ever actually got a trigger from this. It just wasn't reliable enough at what it does for its mana cost, so usually I'd just opt to spend that mana on other things that were more reliable. I mean it's obviously good, but i'd rather be casting Trostani's Judgement at that kind of cost. Not necessarily a first pick rare.
Runewing Echo the other guys. Card seems good based on old environments. Isn't good in this one. Ok 23rd card or w/e, but not good.
Izzet - We had a 400 person event and there were 0 izzet guild decks at the X-0 tables. I would have picked izzet, but choices were random (no signups), so I say this with nothing but love for the colors. If they really are weak, I expect to lose a lot of drafts finding out.
I guess my deck wound up being so good I was lucky not to have many underperformers, but I was impressed by how slow/fun the format was. You need certain things to not auto-lose to the rakdos decks, but as long as you get those pieces, go big.
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Slingin' cardboard out of Yokohama, Japan. (if you're local and play EDH or want to test competitive, drop me a line!)
I feel like a lot of people already started talking about it, but Pack Rats. Dear god... Whenever it resolved I had the game in the bag. Perfect compliment to a Rakdos deck or Golgari. Almost every time I played it, the original got stab-wounded, but it was too late.
Anyway, I went 3-1-1 on the back of that card.
Hellhole Flailer - Again, what a card. This guy is a house. They either used removal on him or the game ended. Arrest was his biggest enemy.
Thrill-kill Assassin - It was a bit disappointing. I mean, I'm glad that my two drop was scary enough to force removal, but it just kept getting stabbed. 0/1 with death touch? Uhhh, no thanks.
Judge's Familiar - I got so many dirty looks for playing this puppy. People were like, "Why? That seems so bad in a Grixis deck!" Then I would slam it down turn one and next turn I would cast Deviant Glee.
Deviant Glee - There's something about this format that makes this aura playable. I dunno. It just did work.
Skymark Roc - I played against this several times. It always seemed to underperform, especially in a world where x/4 defenders were fundamental to the gameplay. 3 power and 3 toughness was just a huge liability. Not bad, just not as degenerate as I thought it would be.
I'm still not passing a final judgement on the set. I want to draft it a bunch first. Still, it seems fun. Maybe not as good as Innistrad, but still wonderful.
Your white/green/blue/whatever creature gets +1 to the attack. Then they get first strike, so you lull your opponent into attacking or blocking. Then you get the icing on the cake - lifelink. For how much mana? A measly W
That card saved me once or twice, and it brought some groans out.
There are not very many low-toughness creatures worth running in this format. Creature ping is very poor. Bears are also not very good, unless they are guildmages, because of the abundance of high-tougness creatures. Overall, the format is slow-ish and involves grinding opponents until the bombs start falling.
Underrated:
Overrated:
Patch me back to my mind
I had good success with it. Not only did it get Lyev Skyknight to detain multiple times but it also got rid of annoying Paralyzing Grasps and Stab Wounds.
I also want to give a shout out to Security Blockade. It's not going to win the game, but preventing 1 damage every turn can slow down an opposing fast start.
WTF?! Sure, let's just rakdos' undercosted high powered explosive start unblockable too.
Best guild mage from what I saw
Last Updated 02/07/24
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Choosed Izzet during the PR and most of my rares supported my colors. Played an agressive Rub.
Agreeing that both Frostburn Weird and Stab Wound are insanely good in limited.
Frostburn Weird can act as good defender against a hyper-agressive openning especially against Rakdos, punishes slower decks while waiting for you to cast your 4 drop and can even trade with creatures with toughnes up to 4. And also a worst target for Stab wound!
Speaking of which, Stab Wound can act as a removal for creatures with toughness 2 or less; or neutered those 4/4 creatures. Splashed B just to accommodate 2 of this card in my deck.
Pulled also 2 Ash Zealot and those girls are crazy! A 2/2 hasty firststriker ie very relevant in limited.
Minotaur Aggressor won me a few games. Usually come from behind after all my creatures are dead blocking or after I've flashed Skyline Predator to prevent my opponent's big creature from connecting.
MISSED:
Hellhole Flailer did not include it in my deck (I have 1 in my pool) as I thought he was not a consistent 3 drop. Too late to noticed his sacrifice ability >_<
BAD:
I don't about you guys but somehow Viashino Racketeer did not work well for me during the PR. Run 2 of them and I usually ditched a land card (running 18 lands) to loot to only draw another land card T_T I did cast it to prevent Stealer of Secrets from connecting. Also forgot that his lotting is optional.
Dramatic Rescue helped save my life quite a few times as well, albeit in a more immediate fashion than the Tablet.
Downsize actually ended up hosing me quite a few times in either regular or Overload mode. It shut me down when I swung for a lot with Azorius fliers, and I had some success neutralizing Rakdos alpha strikes with it as well. Not to be underestimated.
The MVP for me at the pre-release had to be Avenging Arrow. Yes, either my creatures or I had to take a hit in order to activate it, but it was well worth it to kill any creature to prevent them from hitting me ever again.
I don't know if these are surprises to anyone else, but since the format is new, they were surprising to me. I hope this helps someone, somewhere, do better in a limited match. It is a very fun format, and I look forward to many more matches in the future!
Thanks to Heroes of the Plane Studios for the amazing sig!
Korozda guildmage was obviously great. Particularly the intimidate ability when so many people picked izzet.
Stonefare crocodile was also really strong. 3cc to Lifelink 3 power turned out to be a bargain, especially in a format with giant growth and other really good green pump.
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GUPrime Speaker ZeganaGU
GGG Vorinclex, Voice of Hunger GGG
GWB Teneb, the Harvester GWB
I pulled a chromatic lantern, and had axebane guardian and some other fixing, so I was able to splase W and U with a golgari base. Worked very well. Golgari is MUCH more suited for control/stall rather than aggro. Most golgari decks I saw tried to splash for Rakdos and go aggro, and it didn;t seem to work at all.
Anyways, Good:
Deathrite Shaman - I pulled two. This. Dude. Wins. Games. Especially late or in a board stall. I would jam this in any golgari deck possible if you pull it.
Perilous Shadow - A pumpable x/4 is huge. Blocks almost anything for free and can kill almost anything and still survive, all for a 4 drop. I pulled 3 and ran 2.
Ogre Jailbreaker I would run this even without a gate. A 4 drop 4/4 defender is very relevant in this format. As many have said, 4 toughness creatures are huge. Most of my games, the opponent stalled out once my 4 drop x/4s started hitting the board, almost all aggro strategies seem to rely on 3 power creatures or less. And this kills annoying populated centaurs dead.
Azorious Keyrune A 2/2 flyer and mana fixing. Worked great to get in 2 most turns.
Paralyzing Grasp In any other set, I wouldn't run this. But hey man, it did its job fine.
Trostani's Judgment A 6 drop removal spell seems steep, but I cast this almost every game.
All star: Cyclonic Rift This card won me about 1/3 of my games. If you pull it, splash blue if you're not already running it. If you can avoid casting it for 2 and wait to use the overload, its back breaking. I would first pick this over every other card right now.
Let downs:
Slitherhead Meh. Waste of a card slot unless you're running Rakdos aggro.
Judge's Familiar I see the potential of this card in constructed, but in limited a 1/1 flyer even with its ability just isnt worth the card slot unless youre playing Izzet control or something.
Rubbleback Rhino A definite step down from primal huntbeast. That 1 more mana makes a big difference. Unless you have a lot of cheap scavenge stuff, hes not worth it.
Standard:
RW Boros devotion/Purphoros combo
RGB Jund Midrange
Modern:
WB Martyr.proc
It was spectaCular for me all day long against golgari and when I got my azorious tempo beats. Please continue to think this is a bad card, everyone, and pass to me.
I had the bad fortune to choose UW and get almost nothing in my other five packs to support. Fortunately, Selesnya was right next door, and I pulled the Grove in one of my other packs.
Surprising:
Seller of songbirds was always welcome, and I frequently was happy to populate the token off a root born defenses. Suddenly, that four toughness attacker does look so tough.
Dramatic Rescuse was...dramatic. I can save my creature! I can bounce your creature! I gain two life in the face of your alpha strike! Control really loves this card in multiples.
Rest in Peace. So many people played golgari. So many people could not handle this. I ended up siding it in against every GB opponent and it wrecked. Wouldn't probably do that in draft, but maybe.
Yada Yada stab wound and launch party...
All enchantments. Not very many ways to handle then, unless you're playing bounce. Which I was.
3/3 centaur tokens.
That darn 1/4 regenerating wall was shutting me down all day. Very high pick if you're drafting to survive flyers.
Trostani's Judgement. I knew it was going to be good. Instant speed + populate makes it bonkers. It always felt very appropriately costed.
Inaction Injunction was surprisingly good at holding the fort until turn five/six, which is where I really needed to be. Much better than 'tap a creature, draw a card.'
Keening Apparition! There is a real need to kill enchantments, and this is something you'd main deck as a bear anyhow.
That mox land is amazing.
I LOVE THIS SET!
~M
A snippet of game two of the first round of the playoffs:
Opponent at 12, Me at 7. He has 2 fliers, one of which is stab wounded to a 1/1, and 2-3 small ground dudes.
I have 2 Lobber Crew, Rix-Maadi Guildmage, 5 land, I'm holding one auger spree and one annihilating fire.
His turn, stabwound2, declares his attack and I Lobber 2 and auger spree an attacker. No tricks so no blocks.
EoT Lobber 2, Guildmage 1. Opponent at 5.
Untap, Lobber 2, Annihilating Fire.
A timely Rakdos win without ever sending a man into the redzone.
In every game I was happy to see Lobber Crew. Solidly my MVP in a deck with only the promo as a rare that went undefeated until playoffs.
The gates - I expected them to be too slow, too awkward but they were solid turn 1 or even later since I often had to splash to get 23 solid playables.
Gatecreeper vine - stalls Rakdos, chumps random haste guys, huge scavanged guys, fixes mana; sets up good turn 3-4-5 plays.
Selesnya Charm - Kills bombs, sneak attacks other guildmages or guttersnipes trying to sneak in damage. Swung 3 different games for me. I expected it to be good, but everything else was kind of disappointing in comparison.
Pyroconvergence - I thought it would be too slow or conditional to be useful. Turns out that locking down the enemy's guildmages and making Izzet Charm deal 4 is a big deal.
Counterspells - They're all rather high costed and/or too slow, but it turns out they're still cheaper than other effective removal.
stab wound - see above.
Growing Ranks - I knew it was good, but it turns out to be stupid good compared to other populate effects that are... mana or card intensive. The inevitability of it is key in this format.
Worse than expected:
Centaur Healer- I expected this to be a great aggressively costed way to provide pressure. It turns out that everyone and their dog has an aggressively costed guy with 3 power, so he just trades...
Izzet Charm - turns out shocking isn't great when everything is a 3/3.
Arrest and Paralyzing Grasp - seems like great removal in a light format, but Golgari Charm, Sundering Growth, Traitorous Blood (for grasp) and even the occasional Keening Apparition made me not at all comfortable having their bomb sitting under enchantment.
Pack Rat - Didn't see any rat shenanigans going on. I even had one, but was always looking to stabilize rather than build a rat army since turn 3 invariably meant some 3/x was hitting the board and the rat was losing the race.
Keening Apparition: Being a 2/2 for 2 alone is enough to be playable, but having on-board answers to the multitude of annoying-to-broken enchantments in this set is amazing. I played at least one game where my opponent had a hand full of enchantments that he just couldn't play because the tempo loss of tapping mana for something that was just going to get removed was too high
Swift Justice: The lifelink was incredibly relevant against most decks.
Azorius Charm: I have no idea why everyone is so down on this card, it did amazing work for me. Most of the time I was cycling, and when I wasn't cycling I was spinning their 6 drop dude. The tempo hit from spinning a huge dude cannot be ignored.
Dramatic Rescue: I'll just echo what other players said about this card, in that it's just simply amazing. Ignore the fact that it costs WU and think about how awesome it is to bounce an expensive dude AND gain life, or save your win condition creature from removal AND gain life. This card did work.
Underperformed:
Hussar Patrol: I just never really got a chance to ambush anything with this. Most of the time I ended up flashing it in at the end of the turn, and all it usually helped do was clog up the ground until I could resolve some big fliers.
All in all, there were definitely more cards that did better than I thought they would than cards that underperformed. And that's a great thing in Limited.
guttersnipe was the man in all my games! My fav of the night was balustersquall overloaded pre-combat, into tratorous instinct a skymark roc bouce a guy then swing for game!
Believe it or not auger spree is a GREAT removal spell! Gets around all those x/4's out there and kills trestle troll dead!
Stab Wound
[/CARD] - Had help in multiple games from this card, love the versatility it offers.
[CARD]
Deathrite Shaman
[/CARD] - Guy was a bomb all day, removal is hard to come by and if they waste it on him then they won't have it for something bigger. I held off a 4-0 Rakdos deck with this guy in G2 for 10+ turns just turning all of his dead guys into life.
The red Guttersnipe card did a lot of damage, one UR player had two on the board and every misc spell he cast was burning me for 4, ouch.
The other unexpected surprise was Rogue's Passage I won multiple games getting the last damage through with this card in my Golgari deck. He worked well with multiple creatures, if you play it right when the opp is tapped out there is little risk of a blowout or if you want to force him to block a certain creature and keep another one alive by giving him unblockable, very versatile card. The best use though was the 3/4 Hexproof green guy, Scavenge on to him with whatever you can then make him unblockable = win.
Anyway, other notable mentions: Traitorous Instinct, the +2/+0 was often a back breaker.
Stab Wound, as others have said.
Explosive Impact. Loved loved this card. Won me several matches. Awful for constructed, perfect for limited.
Sewer Shambler, while not an MVP or anything, really took me pretty far. So many folks playing Golgari or Radkos, and so many more splashing B for whatever toys they pulled, it would get in over and over again. Also made casting Radkos that much easier. Would usually get taken out by Electrickery. But also has a lenient Scavenge cost for a gift that keeps on giving.
Non-Rakdos stuff I was impressed by, Trostani's Judgement and Rootborn Defenses would always, always swing the board to Selesnya's favor. Grove of the Guardian was game over 99% of the time, unless you had lethal on the board before they could get that sixth mana source.
Underperformed: Scavenge, for the most part. I pulled two Zanikev Locusts and could never get them either in the yard or in play due to prohibitive costs. Scavenge overall seemed overcosted in general, with only a couple worthwhile cards in limited, and even fewer in constructed.
This exactly mimics my experiences. I had two frostburn Weirds and I couldn't believe how good they actually were. There aren't many things other than centaurs that he can't kill and live, which says a lot. And centaurs he can just block ad infinitum. His value for draft went up hugely for me. An excellent body on the defense, and a strong attacker who can push through a lot more damage than people will expect.
Electrickery faced the exact same problems with me. I thought a one sided sort-of pyroclasm that I can use as hornet sting in a pinch would work out reasonably well. In actuality it only ever hits bird tokens, or plays like a mediocre combat trick. It really never should have been in my deck.
Generals meant to be drafted first in a single pack of 6 cards.
And here is the actual cube, meant to be drafted in 4 regular sized packs. (60 card decks)
Courser's Accord is great. Horncaller's Chant, not so much.
Rogue's Passage is very powerful, especially when it's letting 8/8's through.
I was not impressed with Gatecreeper Vine. I usually didn't need the fixing and it would only chump for one turn since most things in the format kill it.
I chose Rakdos as my guild but opened only two removal spells and mediocre creatures, so gave up on winning with it. My deck in the end was a UGr defender deck that either ramped into big greens or milled for a win condition. So for my mvps...
Doorkeeper - opened 3 of these guys, milled people to death in two games with these, and an amazing blocker
Nivix Guildmage - The draw a card/discard a card was unbelievably useful for making sure I had the right cards at the right time
Axebane Guardian - had 3 of these as well, gave me the insane amounts of mana my deck required to function, and let me cycle my lands away earlier than usual with the izzit mage.
Tablet of the Guilds - Healed through any damage that got passed my walls. (Edit: misunderstanding)
Soulsworn Spirit - Puts the enemy on a clock, and my opponents found him a high priority for removal.
I have a similar story, at today's pre-release as Selesnya I opened an extremely mediocre pool, my guild pack was really bad, and my non-guild packs had a grand total of like 3 decent Selesnya cards and their curve was really awkward. Then I noticed I had 3 Doorkeepers, 2 Hover Barriers and lots of solid Izzet stuff like 2 Izzet charms and staticaster so I made wall.dec which was straight U/R and it was pretty funny. Went 4-1 in matches.
Also, tablet only triggers of your own spells. Guess your opponents didn't realize?
I just went 5-0 and won the 3rd prerelease I played with rakdos.
It was the clear MVP, had 3 stab wounds in my deck.
Beating down with quick unleash creatures, then when they put bigger blockers in the field, stab wound them, and don't attack. Now they are taking 2-4 damage a turn and dont have any power to counterattack with.
Last Updated 02/07/24
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Ah yeah, I did only use it on my own spells but someone told me after the tournament it was all spells, so I just assumed they were right without rereading it. Still helped a fair bit against an izzit burn deck. Was hilarious seeing my oppoenents reactions to my deck though, nobody knew what to do. Stab wound honestly would've wrecked me though, luckily no one played it on me.
I randomed an Azorius guild pack, got few good cards, opened basically mono-selesnya including Armada Wurm and Grove of the Guardian; populated 8/8 vigilance tokens and 5/5 armada wurm tokens to a 4-0, only losing due to stumbling on mana, and won another 3 matches played randomly/for fun. Turns out Armada wurm is PRETTY GOOD.
Overperformed:
Azorius Charm - I thought this would be so-so. Turns out that pseudo-griptide for 2 is pretty good when there's a million tokens, +1/+1 counters and expensive dudes. Never wanted to cycle it.
Selesnya Charm - This card does everything. I knew it was good, but I didn't expect it to be the killing blow in most of my games. Hint: the 2/2 token is the wrong mode almost always. I expect to be first picking this a lot.
VoidWielder - this is much better than a man-o-war would be, which surprised me. It's the perfect stabilizing card for a control deck. 1/4 > 2/2 in this format. I had two, and I wish I'd had 4.
Trostani's Judgement - I played two of these and they were amazing, despite only 3 token makers. There's formats where this is near-unplayable. This is NOT that format. They also happen to curve perfectly with Grove of the Guardian to turn a stale board into a gross blowout. Exiling is was relevant surprisingly often.
High curves- Maybe because it was sealed, maybe because I had bounce/detain in early turns, but my 18 land curve of 2 5's, 3 6's, 1 7 (and guardian of the grove) got there in a big way.
Bant colors (or Azorious/Selesnya) - bounce/detain into big things. It wrecks populate-based decks because you get to turn all your bounce into actual removal. Also excellent vs the golgari guys after they drop 5-6 mana scavenging.
Underperformed:
Essence Backlash - there are too many noncreature or cheap/small threats for this to be anything but a sideboard card vs certain decks. I was able to win 2 games with opponents who telegraphed this by stranding it in their hand while still making threats.
Archon of the Triumvirate - I don't think I ever actually got a trigger from this. It just wasn't reliable enough at what it does for its mana cost, so usually I'd just opt to spend that mana on other things that were more reliable. I mean it's obviously good, but i'd rather be casting Trostani's Judgement at that kind of cost. Not necessarily a first pick rare.
Runewing Echo the other guys. Card seems good based on old environments. Isn't good in this one. Ok 23rd card or w/e, but not good.
Izzet - We had a 400 person event and there were 0 izzet guild decks at the X-0 tables. I would have picked izzet, but choices were random (no signups), so I say this with nothing but love for the colors. If they really are weak, I expect to lose a lot of drafts finding out.
I guess my deck wound up being so good I was lucky not to have many underperformers, but I was impressed by how slow/fun the format was. You need certain things to not auto-lose to the rakdos decks, but as long as you get those pieces, go big.
Anyway, I went 3-1-1 on the back of that card.
Hellhole Flailer - Again, what a card. This guy is a house. They either used removal on him or the game ended. Arrest was his biggest enemy.
Thrill-kill Assassin - It was a bit disappointing. I mean, I'm glad that my two drop was scary enough to force removal, but it just kept getting stabbed. 0/1 with death touch? Uhhh, no thanks.
Judge's Familiar - I got so many dirty looks for playing this puppy. People were like, "Why? That seems so bad in a Grixis deck!" Then I would slam it down turn one and next turn I would cast Deviant Glee.
Deviant Glee - There's something about this format that makes this aura playable. I dunno. It just did work.
Skymark Roc - I played against this several times. It always seemed to underperform, especially in a world where x/4 defenders were fundamental to the gameplay. 3 power and 3 toughness was just a huge liability. Not bad, just not as degenerate as I thought it would be.
I'm still not passing a final judgement on the set. I want to draft it a bunch first. Still, it seems fun. Maybe not as good as Innistrad, but still wonderful.
Your white/green/blue/whatever creature gets +1 to the attack. Then they get first strike, so you lull your opponent into attacking or blocking. Then you get the icing on the cake - lifelink. For how much mana? A measly W
That card saved me once or twice, and it brought some groans out.