I think the number of times it's at least a Dead Weight will outnumber the times it's a blank, if you know what you're doing. That being said, it can be much better than a Dead Weight given the right Dimir shell.
I really like the gruul deck where you aggressively pick spire tracers. I had 4 in a draft yesterday along with madcap skills, 9 blood rush creatures and forced adaptation is also a real card in it. very little creatures have reach in the set and you blow out your opponent with every attack when they block with a flyer. I had a turn 4 win on the draw with it... that was fun. tracer into madcap into double slaughter horn rush into ghor clan rampager blood rush for lethal.
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Bloodrushing to kill one blocker isn't exactly a blowout. At best you're trading up a little bit, and you can easily trade down that way too. Spire Tracer still seems good, though.
My only complaint about Devour Flesh is that it plays pretty poorly with One Thousand Lashes, I was in a bit of an awkward situation at the release draft because I had multiple copies of both cards but realized I could only realistically play one of them.
Having gone 4-1 with Esper, I can say it's exceptionally good against most decks. Just take every piece of removal you can find and slam it.
That said, it's awful against Boros. There is no margin for error, because short of the charms (Orzhov Charm isn't great against them, anyway) you will almost never be able to kill what you need to before turn 3 or 4, and even then, you aren't keeping up unless you have a perfect hand. They'll always have a weenie to sac to Devour Flesh, a burn spell or Act of Treason to take care of any early blockers, and are too fast for any Keyrune to muster a reasonable defense against. Get down on cards and you're dead. Don't hit your removal on-curve and you're dead. That bomb finisher against every other deck is a waste of space. I couldn't believe how frustrated I got playing against them; unlike Gruul and Dimir, which are both susceptible to bloodrush and cipher 2-for-1s that let you build up card advantage, Boros just keeps playing threat after threat and is almost impossible to keep below battalion.
The problem is that there is no Dead Weight or other similar cheap, conditional removal spell that you can play on turn one in this format, save for Mugging. Death's Approach is a fine card, but realistically you will never be casting it before turn 3.
Having gone 4-1 with Esper, I can say it's exceptionally good against most decks. Just take every piece of removal you can find and slam it.
That said, it's awful against Boros. There is no margin for error, because short of the charms (Orzhov Charm isn't great against them, anyway) you will almost never be able to kill what you need to before turn 3 or 4, and even then, you aren't keeping up unless you have a perfect hand. They'll always have a weenie to sac to Devour Flesh, a burn spell or Act of Treason to take care of any early blockers, and are too fast for any Keyrune to muster a reasonable defense against. Get down on cards and you're dead. Don't hit your removal on-curve and you're dead. That bomb finisher against every other deck is a waste of space. I couldn't believe how frustrated I got playing against them; unlike Gruul and Dimir, which are both susceptible to bloodrush and cipher 2-for-1s that let you build up card advantage, Boros just keeps playing threat after threat and is almost impossible to keep below battalion.
The problem is that there is no Dead Weight or other similar cheap, conditional removal spell that you can play on turn one in this format, save for Mugging. Death's Approach is a fine card, but realistically you will never be casting it before turn 3.
Did you have any bears or x/4 blockers? I would think that would go a long way toward helping until you can get enough mana for removal. It worked for me at the prerelease.
Did you have any bears or x/4 blockers? I would think that would go a long way toward helping until you can get enough mana for removal. It worked for me at the prerelease.
Keyrunes are not bear, they require mana to activate, and a 1/4 for 4 are not early blockers. If that was your ideas for hwo to clog up early assault, you were toast before the matches began.
I think the number of times it's at least a Dead Weight will outnumber the times it's a blank, if you know what you're doing. That being said, it can be much better than a Dead Weight given the right Dimir shell.
It's really nothing like dead weight. Because it can't really be be cast on early turns to kill a guildmage or bear+madcap if need be. It's harder to keep a hand like 4 land 5 drop 4 drop death's approach then if that hand had a dead weight.
It's more like Corpse Lunge but it's lower CC, not instant and isn't in a format with value in self milling. The latter two seem like a major drawback but the first part lowered CC could prove sweet in decks that have a lot of extort cards.
"I have no idea what it's like not to be a straight white male, and the experiences of others are irrelevant." -Conservative Motto
Calling someone a Commie is flaming and must be stopped, but turning the word Conservative into a loaded pejorative and using it over and over again is perfectly acceptable.
Simic wants to curve out, otherwise it's just ok to bad. That combined with the fact that they lack removal makes me think they are the weakest to draft.
Boros is hella good, just be sure you pick up the 2-drops so you can battalion swing turns 4-5, depending on if you have haste.
It's really nothing like dead weight. Because it can't really be be cast on early turns to kill a guildmage or bear+madcap if need be. It's harder to keep a hand like 4 land 5 drop 4 drop death's approach then if that hand had a dead weight.
It's more like Corpse Lunge but it's lower CC, not instant and isn't in a format with value in self milling. The latter two seem like a major drawback but the first part lowered CC could prove sweet in decks that have a lot of extort cards.
Note that I said "if you play it right." If you're playing it with no other removal and no good combat trades in the early game and no mill, you really are doing it wrong. It can be a straight dead weight mid game, except it has the advantage of getting better as the game goes on. Is it good t1 or t2? Not usually. But for the Dimir and Orzhov strategies, they have ways to mitigate that early damage or other removal cards to take care of it. Again, if you're doing it right, the number of times it's strictly worse than Dead Weight should be minimal. Just don't view it in a vaccuum.
Note that I said "if you play it right." If you're playing it with no other removal and no good combat trades in the early game and no mill, you really are doing it wrong. It can be a straight dead weight mid game, except it has the advantage of getting better as the game goes on. Is it good t1 or t2? Not usually. But for the Dimir and Orzhov strategies, they have ways to mitigate that early damage or other removal cards to take care of it. Again, if you're doing it right, the number of times it's strictly worse than Dead Weight should be minimal. Just don't view it in a vaccuum.
But, back to my original point. I'm not saying the card is bad. I'm saying playing against the card you don't see the times when a player is holding it wishing he could kill that madcap bear or whatever. So it's hard to gauge how good it is by playing against it.
I'm thinking we need to invent a drinking around "doing it write/wrong" people, myself included say it way to much.
"I have no idea what it's like not to be a straight white male, and the experiences of others are irrelevant." -Conservative Motto
Calling someone a Commie is flaming and must be stopped, but turning the word Conservative into a loaded pejorative and using it over and over again is perfectly acceptable.
I remember a draft on release where I got demolished by a Boros Deck that had two assemble the legions....
That card is so silly it hurts.
I cut that card from my sealed and never looked back. I didn't want the games to get far enough in where it would matter. "Play guys, Kill you" is my favorite strategy by far for boros.
I suppose If I had two I'd consider slowing down, but only for fun.
I extorted him to keep the game going until I got to mill him out with Undercity Informer. I actually won several matches like that despite only having that, a Grisly Spectacle and a Ballustrade Spy as far as mill went in my Orzhov deck.
That kind of second type of inevitability for my Orzhov deck is something I probably will look to have in the future. Grinding any time I would lose a creature to a removal spell or to combat is strong enough that your opponent may want to kill this guy rather than an otherwise stronger creature.
I cut that card from my sealed and never looked back. I didn't want the games to get far enough in where it would matter. "Play guys, Kill you" is my favorite strategy by far for boros.
I suppose If I had two I'd consider slowing down, but only for fun.
Nah, that can't be right at all. The thing is, even if your primary plan is to be as aggressive as possible, there are definitely a nonzero number of games where things just don't play out the way you want them to. In a draft, I somewhat understand cutting a card like this (even though I would never, ever do it), because you only have to win six out of a possible nine games. It's certainly possible that in a number as small as nine games, you'll never have a situation where your "plan A" of aggression doesn't work and you need to grind out a victory some other way.
However, if we're talking about a high level sealed such as a GP or even a PTQ, we're now talking about having to win perhaps 7-8 matches or more. That means we might play three or even four times as many games in the course of a day than we ever would in a draft. That creates a pretty large sample size of games, and the chance of hitting multiple games throughout the day that don't go as planned is much higher. For this reason, you should always play cards in your sealed that are extremely powerful, even if they don't fit your deck's "plan." Playing stock archetypes is going to be much more effective in draft and even there I find it to be significantly worse than being creative in your deckbuilding.
Nah, that can't be right at all. The thing is, even if your primary plan is to be as aggressive as possible, there are definitely a nonzero number of games where things just don't play out the way you want them to. In a draft, I somewhat understand cutting a card like this (even though I would never, ever do it), because you only have to win six out of a possible nine games. It's certainly possible that in a number as small as nine games, you'll never have a situation where your "plan A" of aggression doesn't work and you need to grind out a victory some other way.
However, if we're talking about a high level sealed such as a GP or even a PTQ, we're now talking about having to win perhaps 7-8 matches or more. That means we might play three or even four times as many games in the course of a day than we ever would in a draft. That creates a pretty large sample size of games, and the chance of hitting multiple games throughout the day that don't go as planned is much higher. For this reason, you should always play cards in your sealed that are extremely powerful, even if they don't fit your deck's "plan." Playing stock archetypes is going to be much more effective in draft and even there I find it to be significantly worse than being creative in your deckbuilding.
Nah man, I would never play a card that provides inevitability in the form of a constantly growing stream of attackers and chumps. That would be the wrong play for sealed, an environment with some of the highest variance limited games MTG has to offer.
I've only drafted GTC once. Went Simic, won against Boros first round, lost to Boros second round, then beat a BUG deck (mainly Dimir) third round. I first-picked Stolen Identity, but I only ran it as a sideboard card. It saved me against an Aurelia. Then I continued to copy my Drakewing Krasises.
The funniest thing that happened with my third round opponent, was that he milled me for three twice with that cypher spell, then encoded both of them on his unblockable rogue and milled me for six again. Then I untapped and killed it lol.
Orzhov was what ended up winning our pod. The Boros player I lost to (who went 2-1) lost to the Orzhov player. It was tempting to go Orzhov with all of the removal that was being passed to me, but I decided to stick to my colors.
In the drafts I've done so far, I feel like a high percentage of packs in this format are blanks, definitely more than RTR. Either there are no good cards in your colors, or there is but not in your deck. For example, you might be drafting Boros and get a pack where the only decent card in white or red is Basilica Guards or something, but you really don't want to play that. Seems to happen quite a bit.
Feels like I often have to 2nd pick something very meh like a bear.
Also being on the play is such a massive advantage, more so than usual. Boros mirror is stupidly swingy.
I don't think this format is very good, but at least it's got adequate removal and no stupid rares like pack rat or mizzium mortars below mythic. Closest are Firemane Avenger and Clan Defiance.
I have come to the conclusion Boros blows every other guild out of the water in terms of quality and consistency. Granted some guilds have bigger bombs but the amount of absurdly strong common and uncommon cards available to the guild is nuts. Add in the fact that they can splash into some Orzhov and you have a recipe for success.I also think dimir is criminally underrated seeing as its synergy with simic can be outstanding. I have gone 8-0 in a draft recently with Boros. 3-1 and 2-2 with Dimir in sealed events.
I think this Boros thing will be really good in draft, but just like Rakdos was in the early days of the RTR format (people were talking about forcing it all day and going infinite on MTGO, no chance for anything else in their mind.) its hopefully not poised to stay.
GTC limited really starts in earnest today, so we'll see how things flesh out, but I'm willing to bet you're correct. I read an article on pure MTGO a little while ago that near the end of triple RTR when all was said and done, Golgari generally had the overall highest win % in RTR draft. The limited meta shifts around, and it takes a while for players to really understand how to utilize each guild (let alone which strategy to use for each guild), and what to draft to further that. The aggro guilds are always is the first to be figure out, and it takes awhile for the rest. I know that after about halfway through RTR I was very happy to be in golgari almost every time, and I only felt good about being rakdos if along with my aggro curve I had some lobber crews and a Rix Maadi or two.
The aggro guilds are always is the first to be figure out, and it takes awhile for the rest.
That sounds like Constructed, not Limited.
The archetypes people find early in Limited are the ones which have strong, easy-to-play-correctly Commons in them. Dimir Mill in Ravnica, City of Guilds, Merfolk in Lorwyn and U/B self-mill in Innistrad were all discovered early because the cards make them obvious. They're all control decks.
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<Limited Clan>
GTC limited really starts in earnest today, so we'll see how things flesh out, but I'm willing to bet you're correct. I read an article on pure MTGO a little while ago that near the end of triple RTR when all was said and done, Golgari generally had the overall highest win % in RTR draft.
DOn't have any idea where they get their 'stats' but Golgari was still the worst guild at the end of RTR.
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I went 3-1 at the pre-release (should've gone 4-0) with a more controlley Orzhov splashing for blue because I opened Consuming Aberration.
Had the extort guys, Alms Beast, Merciless Eviction, 2x Devour Flesh, Grisly Spectacle, Balustrade Spy, 2x Gift of Orzhova... the deck was a house.
Bloodrushing to kill one blocker isn't exactly a blowout. At best you're trading up a little bit, and you can easily trade down that way too. Spire Tracer still seems good, though.
That said, it's awful against Boros. There is no margin for error, because short of the charms (Orzhov Charm isn't great against them, anyway) you will almost never be able to kill what you need to before turn 3 or 4, and even then, you aren't keeping up unless you have a perfect hand. They'll always have a weenie to sac to Devour Flesh, a burn spell or Act of Treason to take care of any early blockers, and are too fast for any Keyrune to muster a reasonable defense against. Get down on cards and you're dead. Don't hit your removal on-curve and you're dead. That bomb finisher against every other deck is a waste of space. I couldn't believe how frustrated I got playing against them; unlike Gruul and Dimir, which are both susceptible to bloodrush and cipher 2-for-1s that let you build up card advantage, Boros just keeps playing threat after threat and is almost impossible to keep below battalion.
The problem is that there is no Dead Weight or other similar cheap, conditional removal spell that you can play on turn one in this format, save for Mugging. Death's Approach is a fine card, but realistically you will never be casting it before turn 3.
Cubetutor Link
Did you have any bears or x/4 blockers? I would think that would go a long way toward helping until you can get enough mana for removal. It worked for me at the prerelease.
Standard:
RW Boros devotion/Purphoros combo
RGB Jund Midrange
Modern:
WB Martyr.proc
I had a good few (Clinging Anemones, Basilica Guards, and Orzhov Keyrune) and they helped against Gruul. If they Bloodrushed against it, it was still just a 1-for-1 most of the time. Not so much against Boros, where they had a TON of 2 toughness guys and ways to get around them: Truefire Paladin, Wojek Halberdiers, Skyknight Legionnaire, Firefist Striker, Sunhome Guildmage, Madcap Skills, Mugging, Martial Glory, Arrows of Justice, Cinder Elemental... for something that doesn't stop battalion, Boros has a ton of answers for it.
Cubetutor Link
It's really nothing like dead weight. Because it can't really be be cast on early turns to kill a guildmage or bear+madcap if need be. It's harder to keep a hand like 4 land 5 drop 4 drop death's approach then if that hand had a dead weight.
It's more like Corpse Lunge but it's lower CC, not instant and isn't in a format with value in self milling. The latter two seem like a major drawback but the first part lowered CC could prove sweet in decks that have a lot of extort cards.
Flame infraction. - Blinking Spirit
Calling someone a Commie is flaming and must be stopped, but turning the word Conservative into a loaded pejorative and using it over and over again is perfectly acceptable.
Boros is hella good, just be sure you pick up the 2-drops so you can battalion swing turns 4-5, depending on if you have haste.
Note that I said "if you play it right." If you're playing it with no other removal and no good combat trades in the early game and no mill, you really are doing it wrong. It can be a straight dead weight mid game, except it has the advantage of getting better as the game goes on. Is it good t1 or t2? Not usually. But for the Dimir and Orzhov strategies, they have ways to mitigate that early damage or other removal cards to take care of it. Again, if you're doing it right, the number of times it's strictly worse than Dead Weight should be minimal. Just don't view it in a vaccuum.
That card is so silly it hurts.
But, back to my original point. I'm not saying the card is bad. I'm saying playing against the card you don't see the times when a player is holding it wishing he could kill that madcap bear or whatever. So it's hard to gauge how good it is by playing against it.
I'm thinking we need to invent a drinking around "doing it write/wrong" people, myself included say it way to much.
Flame infraction. - Blinking Spirit
Calling someone a Commie is flaming and must be stopped, but turning the word Conservative into a loaded pejorative and using it over and over again is perfectly acceptable.
I cut that card from my sealed and never looked back. I didn't want the games to get far enough in where it would matter. "Play guys, Kill you" is my favorite strategy by far for boros.
I suppose If I had two I'd consider slowing down, but only for fun.
My CubeCobra (draft 20 card packs, 2 packs.)
430, Peasant, Very Unpowered
Why you should take your hybrids out of your gold section
Manamath Article
I had to laugh a little at my last FNM draft when my opponent played Assemble the Legions and I followed up the next turn with a Guardian of the Gateless.
I extorted him to keep the game going until I got to mill him out with Undercity Informer. I actually won several matches like that despite only having that, a Grisly Spectacle and a Ballustrade Spy as far as mill went in my Orzhov deck.
That kind of second type of inevitability for my Orzhov deck is something I probably will look to have in the future. Grinding any time I would lose a creature to a removal spell or to combat is strong enough that your opponent may want to kill this guy rather than an otherwise stronger creature.
Nah, that can't be right at all. The thing is, even if your primary plan is to be as aggressive as possible, there are definitely a nonzero number of games where things just don't play out the way you want them to. In a draft, I somewhat understand cutting a card like this (even though I would never, ever do it), because you only have to win six out of a possible nine games. It's certainly possible that in a number as small as nine games, you'll never have a situation where your "plan A" of aggression doesn't work and you need to grind out a victory some other way.
However, if we're talking about a high level sealed such as a GP or even a PTQ, we're now talking about having to win perhaps 7-8 matches or more. That means we might play three or even four times as many games in the course of a day than we ever would in a draft. That creates a pretty large sample size of games, and the chance of hitting multiple games throughout the day that don't go as planned is much higher. For this reason, you should always play cards in your sealed that are extremely powerful, even if they don't fit your deck's "plan." Playing stock archetypes is going to be much more effective in draft and even there I find it to be significantly worse than being creative in your deckbuilding.
*DCI Rules Advisor*
Nah man, I would never play a card that provides inevitability in the form of a constantly growing stream of attackers and chumps. That would be the wrong play for sealed, an environment with some of the highest variance limited games MTG has to offer.
Hehehe.
The funniest thing that happened with my third round opponent, was that he milled me for three twice with that cypher spell, then encoded both of them on his unblockable rogue and milled me for six again. Then I untapped and killed it lol.
Orzhov was what ended up winning our pod. The Boros player I lost to (who went 2-1) lost to the Orzhov player. It was tempting to go Orzhov with all of the removal that was being passed to me, but I decided to stick to my colors.
Feels like I often have to 2nd pick something very meh like a bear.
Also being on the play is such a massive advantage, more so than usual. Boros mirror is stupidly swingy.
I don't think this format is very good, but at least it's got adequate removal and no stupid rares like pack rat or mizzium mortars below mythic. Closest are Firemane Avenger and Clan Defiance.
GTC limited really starts in earnest today, so we'll see how things flesh out, but I'm willing to bet you're correct. I read an article on pure MTGO a little while ago that near the end of triple RTR when all was said and done, Golgari generally had the overall highest win % in RTR draft. The limited meta shifts around, and it takes a while for players to really understand how to utilize each guild (let alone which strategy to use for each guild), and what to draft to further that. The aggro guilds are always is the first to be figure out, and it takes awhile for the rest. I know that after about halfway through RTR I was very happy to be in golgari almost every time, and I only felt good about being rakdos if along with my aggro curve I had some lobber crews and a Rix Maadi or two.
Standard:
RW Boros devotion/Purphoros combo
RGB Jund Midrange
Modern:
WB Martyr.proc
That sounds like Constructed, not Limited.
The archetypes people find early in Limited are the ones which have strong, easy-to-play-correctly Commons in them. Dimir Mill in Ravnica, City of Guilds, Merfolk in Lorwyn and U/B self-mill in Innistrad were all discovered early because the cards make them obvious. They're all control decks.
(I'm on on this site much anymore. If you want to get in touch it's probably best to email me: dom@heffalumps.org)
Forum Awards: Best Writer 2005, Best Limited Strategist 2005-2012
5CB PotM - June 2005, November 2005, February 2006, April 2008, May 2008, Feb 2009
MTGSalvation Articles: 1-20, plus guest appearance on MTGCast #86!
<Limited Clan>
DOn't have any idea where they get their 'stats' but Golgari was still the worst guild at the end of RTR.