MTG Salvation

Stromkirk Captain. I hear first striking 2/2's are really good in draft.

You know what..it's fine.

You guys play your Helvaults, and then when you cry and say how bad of a card it is, you can blame me for not getting the point across enough that it's bad.

Quote from Spicay

Well let's see..the turn that you played this, you basically wasted it, so they're already up on you by at least one creature.

Sure I'm down a card until I can activate it; the casting cost is not really relevant, because it is highly unlikely you will not find a window to drop this "for free" before you get to 7 land...you're almost never going to max out your mana on your first 7-10 turns, so the only 'real' drawback this card has on the early game is the same as any other expensive card.

And if you're playing this in hopes to win the game with it, I'd assume that you're also playing other bad cards too.

Yeah, thats a good reason

I almost ALWAYS play slower control decks in Innistrad Limited, and not once would I ever want this card, because guess what..it wouldn't do me anything.

Well if everyone you're drafting with is playing Spiderspawning.dec, I guess this card is rather mediocre. If they're playing some kind of creatures to win the game, which - as I've heard - seems to happen from time to time in limited, this is exactly what every slower deck wants.

This is the best use for Helvault. Using it defensively is way better than trying to derp your way to victory.

Yeah, right; you are worried about this card not doing much, and then you are trying to use it in a way this card has a tough time being ever worth it; of course, this card also gives you some boni against removal, morbid, prevents things that both remove something and give an advantage (tribute to hunger your only creature, some pacifism-enchantment on unholy fiend, even traitorous blood etc.), this is not very relevant and definitely NOT a good use of a card, esp. because many of those even need you to spend another card to get access to the creatures again, one that you have maybe like...one in your deck, so you're probably not going to draw both very often...yeah thats a good use of this card
(BUT it should be noted that you do gain all of those advantages in your way to, well, just killing your opponent)

Game 2, they bring in Ancient Grudge/Naturalize.

You're sitting there with a derpish grin on your face, in magical christmas land of course, exiling their creatures once per turn.

You go in for the big swing kill!..and it gets destroyed, and you get 100% blown out of the water.

What a good card!

Yeah, that's about as good as an argument as "if you're playing this, you're probably playing other bad cards as well so its bad", it is obviously void. Just because you play this card does not mean you have to play like a retard. Of course you have to account for Naturalize or similiar stuff postboard. This does make it much worse, but really, if you have the Helvault online, drastically speaking, you do not have much incentive to attack with more than a bear, so you are not going to get completely blown out. If they don't have the Naturalize, they lose because you traded Helvault for their entire board, if they have it, it is back to a normal one for one (which may or may not lose you the game; if you were behind on board without the helvault, this probably means you are going to be pretty behind after it gets destroyed too, maybe even a bit worse because you lost a lot of tempo; still, it doesn't change that helvault on an even or advantegous board does not blow you out if destroyed, and if it is destroyed, well at least it gave you a shot of coming back into the game)

EDIT:
Tower of Calamities was decent, but far from a spoiler. It was really only good in decks that tried to stretch really far into the lategame. Helvault has a cheaper effect (1 mana difference is pretty big in those higher regions), and is also in a much artifact-friendlier environment.

Quote from Spicay

You know what..it's fine.

You guys play your Helvaults, and then when you cry and say how bad of a card it is, you can blame me for not getting the point across enough that it's bad.

Thank you. Mighty white of ya.

Feel free to pass Helvaults, and then when you cry about how badly it owned the board late game because your opponent didn't just drop it on turn 3 and then sit there with his thumb up his ass and allow you to run over him, you can blame me for not getting the point across enough that it's a limited bomb.

Fair?

Honestly, in another thread you argued that a 3BB removal spell is a first pick. This ability is 2 mana more - granted - but it's also colorless and repeatable removal that exiles in a block with graveyard shenanigans.

People saying Helvault is bad never had the joy of killing everything with a Tower of Calamities .

Helvault is good, certainly not unplayable but not an auto pick either.

I think Feed the Pack is the pick, that card seems insane. Play it, sac a 4 toughness dude, get 4 2/2s. It impacts the board the turn it comes into play and will in all likelihood take over the game, and enchantments can be very hard to deal with. Sacing a 4 toughness guy is basically an 8/8 for 6 mana, AND you get to keep converting your guys into wolves until you overwhelm your opponent. This reminds me of Spider Spawning except you don't need to build your whole deck around it, you just need a couple fat 3 or 4 drops lying around.

I'd pick Griptide for sure.

The main reason for this is that there's several playable blue cards in the pack that I'd be glad to wheel ... and most importantly, the one that has the best chance of wheeling (Shriekgeist) has FANTASTIC synergy with Griptide, making it removal for anything (including undying creatures!) if the dinky 1/1 flying with a downside connects.

I think with all the self-milling in this block, the opportunity presented by Griptide as an instant is extraordinary. Grasp of Phantoms was already an outstanding tempo card and it was damn near impossible to lose a game where you had two copies of it and any pressure at all on the board. Now we have it again, at common, at instant speed, which gives it the capacity to be hard removal in response to any milling effect on your opponent's library. It's much, much stronger than many of the people in this thread seem to be giving it credit for.

Also, like I said in the last "what would you first pick," blue is so far ahead of the rest of the set's power curve (best common creature, best uncommon creature, 3 out of top 5 rare bombs, tons of fliers) that forcing it in this situation seems like a fine idea. You will CERTAINLY wheel something (because Gather the Townsfolk, Helvault, Stromkirk Captain, Burden of Guilt, and Harrowing Journey will almost certainly all get picked, and there are 3 other blue cards), and it will most likely be something that synergizes strongly with Griptide as a first pick. The more I think about this the easier it sounds.

Quote from Crimson

People saying Helvault is bad never had the joy of killing everything with a Tower of Calamities .

Both are not even 1st picks.

Pack 1? I believe I would have to take Helvault. It doesn't restrict you to any colors right away and I am pretty sure Helvault is a pseudo-Karn in limited.
Blue is ridiculous in that pack so you don't wanna place yourself in blue because the other playable blue in that pack WILL NOT table to you and I wouldn't pick the Stromkirk Captain either because it restricts you to R/B Vamps.
If the player to the right of me picked the helvault and passed the pack to me then it will be a different story and I will probably then pick up the Vampire or feed the pack.

Helvault is a major trap. yes, it's colorless removal, yes, it's on Karn duty late game. the problem is the beats are usually too hard. triple INN might be a different format, but go watch some of LSV's INN draft videos. ask yourself if that format sans a pack of INN would really make Helvault a healthy pick.

oh, and keep in mind, if they happen to have an Ancient Grudge laying around for game 2 or 3, your vault's for ****. it's worse than Griptide, realistically. at least Griptide means they aren't seeing anything fresh off the top.

if you were greedy, I'd say Helvault. if you weren't a straight-up gambler, I'd say Soul Seizer or Burden. for me, it'd be Seizer since I can probably pick up a Burden later in the pack.

Soul Seizer is no Mind Control. You have to wait a turn, AND you have to connect. Too situational.

Burden of Guilt is what I'd pick. Aside from Gather the Townsfolk, no other white, you're going to cut that color. Other people will fight over the good blue.

Quote from redthirst

Honestly, in another thread you argued that a 3BB removal spell is a first pick. .

It is first pickable. There is a WORLD of difference between 5 and 7 mana, not to mention if they bring in any artifact removal, you are boned. The vault is poo.

Helvault is obviously powerful, as it gives control decks a very solid way to put the game away once it goes long. Very few decks will have maindeck artifact destruction in draft (this is more common in sealed, one reason I think Helvault will be worse there), and plenty of draft decks will just literally have no outs to it even postboard.

I do think it's wrong to say that it's not committing, though. It doesn't necessarily commit you to a particular color, but it does commit you to a control deck, which I think is at least as big.

I'm not sure what the pick here is yet... Helvault, Feed the Pack, and Soul Seizer all seem very strong, and there are a number of other good cards that I think are nonetheless below those three. And of those, I'm more inclined toward either Soul Seizer or Feed the Pack, but this one requires some more thought.

Captain. First strike and +1/+1 is just nuts. The most relevant combat stats are those that make blocking hard or attacking seem less attractive. Don't know about you guys but needing a field of 4/4 just to survive combat sounds like no fun. If you look at the other vampires in the set they all have high power and mostly lower toughness. This card, like the other captains should be first picked unless something bomby is in the pack.

I feel like people on here dont play limited enough.
The options here are Feed the pack, Griptide, Hellvault and Sould seizer

Mind control is good in any limited format and Sould seizer is probably the pick here.
Feed that pack just seems insane in limited, i can't find a reason not to take this over soul seizer except for the fact that green is weaker and Mind control effects are just so powerful. So i wouldn't disagree if someone took this over soul seizer
Griptide is a nice trick, but given the other to cards just can not be considered
Stromkirk captain is not the pick. It color commits you pick 1 and unless you get 4-5+ vampires, i don't think it holds value on its own
Hellvault will also take some play to see how good it is. I mean 7 mana exile a permanent seems pretty freaking good late game.
So its preference between the first two i believe. Im going to vote Soul seizer just because of my experience with blue in innistrad limited

It doesn't actually matter that Soul Seizer is the worst mind control effect ever. Mind Control was a card more ridiculous than your average bomb mythic. A bad, situational mind control is still very good.

There's nothing in this pack better than Soul Seizer.

Helvault. After reading a bunch of posts in draft picks, you guys seem to think that removal is the best thing ever. Guess what, as long as I have 1 mana up, your removal is a dead card. Chump blocking? No problem, throw it in the helvault. NOW once I get to 7 mana, YOU will start loosing creatures at a much slower rate than I was. Haters here think that breaking the Helvault will get all their creatures back, and that I won't get my creatures back for some reason... If you break the helvault, you will get one or two scary guys back, and I will get all the guys you tried to remove, as well as my chump blockers. Please, by all means find your artifact removal so I don't have to. If you have no artifact removal after I hit 7 mana, you are going to lose that match anyway. this card is going to cause some slow blowouts and cause people to hold on to their removal. Seems solid. The wolf maker is also cool, but Helvault is a bit more tricky.

Some more detailed thoughts on the noteworthy cards:

Helvault - Let's get this one out of the way first. I don't want to first-pick it, but I suspect it's pretty good as long as you're drafting a control deck. It is very expensive, and you probably need to board it out against decks running red or green, but it's upside is still game-winning. And yes, Tower of Calamities was very good in MSS draft. This coming from someone who initially thought it was unplayable. By the end of that format, I was just drafting RG Dinosaurs every time, and I'd come to see Tower as one of the top "dinosaurs" in the format. I did very well with those decks too; MSS and NMS were easily my most-winning draft formats to date. This format has much less artifact removal... but it's also likely to remain faster, so Helvault really looks like something I want to pick up early, but not until I've decided to go control if there are more consistent first-pick options available.

Feed the Pack - Seems very, very good. There aren't a lot of non-evasive creatures I wouldn't be happy to sacrifice for 2-4 grizzly bears. This should put games away in a manner similar to Kessig Cagebreakers pretty often.

Soul Seizer - Certainly no Mind Control, but close enough to still be at least a reasonable first pick. I think I'd take Feed the Pack over it, but I'm not 100% sure.

Stromkirk Captain - Very good uncommon lord, but he's only really amazing if you draft full-on RB vampires. Another early pick that I don't really want to first pick.

Griptide - I agree a little that comparisons to Grasp of Phantoms might be causing this to be a little overrated, but not by too much. Being an instant gains you back a good chunk of the value from losing flashback. And so what if it is an instant, creature-only Excommunicate? Excommunicate has probably never been better than in this block. Werewolves, skaabs, and the existence of strong blue tempo decks all make this effect a lot better than normal.

A little shoutout at the end to Burden of Guilt, which I think is being unfairly maligned. Spicay makes this case well, but with the ability to hit anything, this really is in the same league as Avacynian Priest.

I'd go with the Soul Seizer. It's too early to know how well it will actually play, but in the dark I like taking the weaker Mind Control effect.

I come back and find other people also saying that Helvault is a complete piece of trash too?

Why thank you!

Quote from Silver Seraph

Yeah, right; you are worried about this card not doing much, and then you are trying to use it in a way this card has a tough time being ever worth it; of course, this card also gives you some boni against removal, morbid, prevents things that both remove something and give an advantage (tribute to hunger your only creature, some pacifism-enchantment on unholy fiend, even traitorous blood etc.), this is not very relevant and definitely NOT a good use of a card, esp. because many of those even need you to spend another card to get access to the creatures again, one that you have maybe like...one in your deck, so you're probably not going to draw both very often...yeah thats a good use of this card
(BUT it should be noted that you do gain all of those advantages in your way to, well, just killing your opponent)

How is countering removal a "worse" function? When you start taking out their creatures, you have a counter balance for their removal on it. They won't pop it if you have 2 or 3 creatures under it, when they only have one or two under it as well.

When you use it to counter removal, you are storing away CA for later. Every time you remove a creature instead of letting it die, you are creating a virtual advantage that can and will change into a real advantage when your opponent pops it after you start eating their creatures.

Quote from redthirst

Thank you. Mighty white of ya.

Feel free to pass Helvaults, and then when you cry about how badly it owned the board late game because your opponent didn't just drop it on turn 3 and then sit there with his thumb up his ass and allow you to run over him, you can blame me for not getting the point across enough that it's a limited bomb.

Fair?

Honestly, in another thread you argued that a 3BB removal spell is a first pick. This ability is 2 mana more - granted - but it's also colorless and repeatable removal that exiles in a block with graveyard shenanigans.

Solid removal is always a first pick. Also, the major factor for this card is that your opponent will always have removal for it, because it's Mythic. Every time you draft or open it in sealed, your opponent will likely open a hand full of answers to it.

In my first draft and not knowing much about the new format I would take helvault. It goes into any deck and can win on its own and it's one heck of a late game topdeck. I think the new format will be slow enough for it to take over a game. If your opponent is green or red (the only colors in this format that can kill artifacts) then maybe you board it out after game 1, but even then I think it would be fine to keep in.

If that wasn't there then I'd take feed the pack, which seems like a legitimate bomb. Most expensive green enchantments like this are too slow to be good, but this one has an (almost) immediate impact and a good one at that.

After that I think the captain is the next best, but it's not ideal to first pick a double colored card.

Griptide is no grasp of phantoms, and soul seizer is no mind control (obviously). They're both fine cards though.

Is screeching skaab really not worth considering? I feel like the gravetrip alone has incredible potential for a number of archetypes, and the body is very respectable for the cost.

I went with the lord. Red is nonexistant and black is pretty lame after the pass, so you're sending awesome signals. Still, could potentially screw you over.

Helvault actually is probably the right pick. If they aren't packing artifact removal, it's pretty much win target game if you get it going. also, no color commitment.

Soul seizer seems dangerous. you're still passing a lot of blue, and soul seizer is no mind control. a 1/2 flying blocker nullifies it, they get a turn to do something before it can attack, they can kill it as a creature OR an enchantment, they can bait it out if they haven't already played their bombs....it's not terrible, but it's way, way worse than mind control.

Helvault or stromkirk, imo.

Quote from Yamikiri

How is countering removal a "worse" function? When you start taking out their creatures, you have a counter balance for their removal on it. They won't pop it if you have 2 or 3 creatures under it, when they only have one or two under it as well.

When you use it to counter removal, you are storing away CA for later. Every time you remove a creature instead of letting it die, you are creating a virtual advantage that can and will change into a real advantage when your opponent pops it after you start eating their creatures.




Solid removal is always a first pick. Also, the major factor for this card is that your opponent will always have removal for it, because it's Mythic. Every time you draft or open it in sealed, your opponent will likely open a hand full of answers to it.

There's removal for only Mythics?