I also played Orzhov, going 4-2, winning three vs Boros, losing to a curved out bonkers Simic deck, and splitting a match each with Dimir.
I punted one of the games vs Dimir, by blocking his 7/7 flying, lifelinking Abberation with a 2/3, and then tried to finish it off with the -5/-5 BW spell. Sigh, should have double blocked.
The other Dimir player managed to cast Obzedat against me, without ever drawing any of his white mana - the Nightveil Specter stole a plains and a Orzhov Keyrune which allowed him to smash my face in. Not that I was winning vs unblockable Specter anyway. Actually, Orzhov do seem to have a little trouble dealing with flying creatures.
Oh, and Simic just went Crocanura, Ivy Street Denizen, Fathom Mage, 4/3 Trample guy that gives your creatures trample, - I gum up the ground at this point - Sapphire Drake, hit me in the air for 10. He had Clan Defiance still in hand, so I would have lost anyway, but Drake is obscene.
Although the top 3 spots were taken by Boros decks in our prerelease, I never really felt in trouble against them, losing only 1 game, when a Firemane Avenger suddenly freed himself from One Thousand Lashes.
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Original quote byTacosnape "All ideas that give me knowledge without any effort involved on my part are good ideas. Chop chop, my dear fellow."
DCI L2 Judge GP:Madrid 2010 45th GP:Amsterdam 2011 74th GP:London 2013 67th Bazaar of Moxen 2013 32nd
Good news: getting paid to judge an event, which was unexpected and kinda fun.
Bad news: most of my matches. Built some interesting decks, but got run over by rares, mostly. I made a couple of misplays that were kinda awkward, but both of them were punished by opponents immediately topdecking insane rares, so it's really hard to say they were huge errors --- they were just blunders that happened to get punished in the worst way possible.
As I always say this time of year, it takes me probably between 20-30 events in a format before I can even pretend to have a grasp on it. I'm totally fine learning/losing during prerelease week. Clearly, the Charlotte GP is a much more important tournament, so I'll definitely take what I learned into that event.
I was extremely underwhelmed by fathom mage. I just could never seem to get that card to do anything -- it's basically a useless creature in combat, and I was never really able to get decent value out of it, despite getting it out quite often. It's just a complete joke against boros to tap out for a four mana 1/1, for example.
I punted one of the games vs Dimir, by blocking his 7/7 flying, lifelinking Abberation with a 2/3, and then tried to finish it off with the -5/-5 BW spell. Sigh, should have double blocked.
As I always say this time of year, it takes me probably between 20-30 events in a format before I can even pretend to have a grasp on it. I'm totally fine learning/losing during prerelease week. Clearly, the Charlotte GP is a much more important tournament, so I'll definitely take what I learned into that event.
I tend to do worse as a format matures. I think I have good intuition on how to build a deck when nobody is familiar with the cards as I always seem to do well at prerelease and early events. But once the set has been out for 1-2 months my success rate falls. I attribute this to the fact that I just don't play as much as most people, and eventually they all outpace me on their understanding of the format.
You say it takes you 20-30 events before you start to feel comfortable in a given limited format. I might not even play in 20 events throughout Gatecrash's lifespan, so when I hop into a draft in April I'll be way behind the curve.
It's more that people always overvalue removal. Really, if they make a card ":symb:: Sorcery: As an additional cost, get F'd in the A. Destroy target creature." people will say "removal is removal" and first-pick it.
I tend to do worse as a format matures. I think I have good intuition on how to build a deck when nobody is familiar with the cards as I always seem to do well at prerelease and early events. But once the set has been out for 1-2 months my success rate falls. I attribute this to the fact that I just don't play as much as most people, and eventually they all outpace me on their understanding of the format.
You say it takes you 20-30 events before you start to feel comfortable in a given limited format. I might not even play in 20 events throughout Gatecrash's lifespan, so when I hop into a draft in April I'll be way behind the curve.
Yeah, I just play a lot. I pretty much always make a ton of mistakes when I don't know the cards that well. It takes a lot of repetitions for me to really get a feel for the format. I think it's because I base a lot of my ingame decisions on things like probability and making reads on my opponent. Both of those things are a lot more difficult to do when you're learning as you go. For example, I definitely learned about the rare bloodrush guys today. Yikes.
Also, I try and push formats as much as possible in terms of curves, mana, and just general attrition-based strategies, especially in sealed. Today, I found that my control deck was just way too slow. I didn't have enough early game to really reach the 6-7 mana I needed to cast my bombs, despite having 3-4 premier ramp spells. So, I learned a lot about pick orders/composition of control decks in this format, because I can see where my deck fell short and the kinds of cards it needs to perform better. I would rather have a middling finish on day one and learn some valuable lessons than just open boros nutdraws and win a few packs today, for example. I'm all about sustaining long-term success.
As you said, it becomes an advantage as we move later into a format. At SCG dallas last week, I was able to easily win the draft open, because I had probably drafted the set more often that the other people in the event combined.
Had a ton of fun so far with Gatecrash. Played the midnight prerelease and went 4-1 with Simic, including Zegana and Giant Adephage. The deck was super fun, and I drew all the cards! Today, I went Orzhov and ended up 5-0 with what I thought was a pretty mediocre pile. I didn't have a ton of removal, no real bombs, and I just got there with 8 Extort guys and tight play.
So far, the set seems really enjoyable to me.
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Providing a plethora of pompous and pedantic postings here since 2009.
:dance:Fact or Fiction of the [Limited] Clan:dance:
Signalling is like farting: it's a natural thing that helps people avoid being where you are, and if you try to do it deliberately, things turn to crap fast.
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The BW spell can only target a creature that has dealt damage this turn. As soon as it deals damage, my creature dies, and the Abberation becomes an 8/8. I then play the spell, giving it -5/-5, which is then also put into the graveyard, making it in the end a 4/4 with 2 damage marked on it.
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Original quote byTacosnape "All ideas that give me knowledge without any effort involved on my part are good ideas. Chop chop, my dear fellow."
DCI L2 Judge GP:Madrid 2010 45th GP:Amsterdam 2011 74th GP:London 2013 67th Bazaar of Moxen 2013 32nd
The BW spell can only target a creature that has dealt damage this turn. As soon as it deals damage, my creature dies, and the Abberation becomes an 8/8. I then play the spell, giving it -5/-5, which is then also put into the graveyard, making it in the end a 4/4 with 2 damage marked on it.
Ah yes of course. I was thinking of the wrong card entirely.
It's more that people always overvalue removal. Really, if they make a card ":symb:: Sorcery: As an additional cost, get F'd in the A. Destroy target creature." people will say "removal is removal" and first-pick it.
I did so well at Prerelease with my pile, that I wondered if I should have built a different pool instead! (Hint: I bombed.)
I would, uh, greatly appreciate some advice on the pool I opened. Things... did not go so hawt tonight for my Orzhov pack. I think I may have punted a few games without realizing it, but I think the simple truth is that I should've just built it different (I did W/B/r when maaaaybe it should've been more W/R/g or close to that).
Long story short: Help me Obi-Lim Kenobi, you're my only hope. (That is, I respect the opinions of people in this thread enough that I can get an idea of where I went so horribly, horribly wrong today.)
Two pre-releases for me. Played Simic in the first and Orzhov in the second. I only went 1-2 with the Simic pool. It didn't help that two of my rares were Biovisionary and Biovisionary. Fathom Mage drew me cards, but often not much else. Had lots of tricks, but so did the Gruul decks that were attacking. I think Simic is fine in draft, but in sealed it seemed underwhelming.
The Orzhov deck I played had a ton of removal, and a bunch of Extort guys. I went 4-1. My only loss was to Clan Defiance. That card is awesome. Highlight came when I managed to beat a deck that had 3 Foundry Champion. That was a little awesome.
Today the 4 of us decided to play Simic. Only one of us ended up playing UG though. I built RWb Boros Aggro. It was fun when I sat down for R1, my opponent saw my Simic deck box, and said "Oh, am I happy you are not playing Boros". I went 4-2, winning vs Orzhov, Simic, Dimir, lost to Gruul (G1 mono red, G2 only swamps and plains, G3 1 land), won a hard match vs Simic, and lost to Gruul, where I wasn't drawing very well, and he cast Assemble the Legion on an empty board.
Overall the impression of the set is good, limited will be good, although very aggressive. A lot of people said they are fond of Boros in draft and might be forcing it in the first few drafts.
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Original quote byTacosnape "All ideas that give me knowledge without any effort involved on my part are good ideas. Chop chop, my dear fellow."
DCI L2 Judge GP:Madrid 2010 45th GP:Amsterdam 2011 74th GP:London 2013 67th Bazaar of Moxen 2013 32nd
A lot of people said they are fond of Boros in draft and might be forcing it in the first few drafts.
I so hope that happens on MtGO, since I want to draft Orzhov and don't want everyone else doing the same.
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MTGSalvation Articles: 1-20, plus guest appearance on MTGCast #86!
<Limited Clan>
Yeah, with how dominant Boros was at the prerelease, I'm expecting it will start out being overdrafted the majority of the time.
I think the prerelease dominance was mostly thanks to Boros having the best promo in terms of limited power, if not we might have to worry about balance at future sealed tournaments. Hopefully, if wizards continues to let promos be playable at prereleases, they'll pick cards of more even power level.
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I'll bet you wish you had a non-unglued/unhinged card that shared your first name.
Can't believe they banned BBE in modern. No idea what I'm going to play on saturday at the PTQ now.
I think they're honestly destroying what people like about modern.
"It's an eternal format that you don't need to spend a ton of money on! Cause, you know, shocks and fetches and goyfs and mythics are so cheap."
Hm, seems good... slightly cheaper than legacy, although a ton of sweet cards are missing...
"Oh, your deck won two events in a row. We're nuking it now."
All those people playing jund who have to build like... windbrisk heights or whatever isn't banned now, sorry you guys have to rebuy into the format.
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As for limited, went 4-0 and 3-1 at the prerelease, picking simic both times. It was a lot of fun!
I'm really enjoying this format so far. Most of the rares aren't stupidly good, or if they are, they cost seven. And seven is really hard to get to in this format for most decks.
It's nice to sit down across from someone with three unbeatable bombs and know that you're probably going to kill them when you both have 4-5 lands in play.
I'm really enjoying how HARD simic and boros are to play, though. I haven't gone boros, but sitting across the table from it, Boros is the first aggro deck I've seen in a while that... constantly has horrible attack options, but yet is somehow still good, if you're patient and use combat tricks well.
And simic is harder to play than most EDH decks I've seen. Trying to decide whether to run out an evolver or a giant 3/1 flier on turn three, thinking about what's in your deck, what's in your hand, your plan for the next four or five turns... baiting tricks, baiting removal. Such a hard deck, but incredibly rewarding.
So hey, any limited officers (or other people who are here a lot) who want to be clan rep and/or clan leader? You don't really have to do much, since most limited people don't want to do contests. You'd pretty much just have to make new Limited threads once or twice a year.
I'll still be around a bit, but I'm not on this site that often, so like... if I'm clan rep, and a contest comes up, and people want to do it, I might just never see the PM. So I'd like someone more active to take over.
Banning Bloodbraid Elf seemed like a great call to me. Modern is easily my favourite Constructed format at the moment due to WotC's habit of stomping unbalanced decks responsively.
Annoying to have to find a new deck at short notice, but that's why B&R announcements are scheduled, so you can (to some degree) see it coming.
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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>
Is Bloodbraid's banning really the death knell for Jund? Yeah, I mean it makes the deck a lot stronger, but it isn't exactly central to Jund's strategy. Just play a different random 4-drop like Huntmaster or Thrun or Falkenrath Aristocrat? These are worse, sure, but given that you'd be slotting them into the best deck in the format, who's to say they won't be good enough to still be competitive?
Wit's End is the PERFECT answer to your opponent's Monomania however.
Just hold on to your Wit's End when they Monomania, so you can Wit's End them on your next turn!!!
I think this is fairly reminiscent of the "Jace Battles" we have seen in past standards.. My guess is we will soon witness the great Monomania-Wit's End battles.
Bloodbraid Elf isn't even the best card in Jund. And I don't think Jund is so dominant that it deserved bans anyway. Also, it seems healthy for a format that the best deck is a fair deck. The only really overpowered card that Jund has is Tarmogoyf, so that would be the more logical ban. Except, of course, they want to print Goyf in Modern Masters, and it'll help sell the set, so they can't ban it. So they go after BBE.
Seething Song is a bit bizarre as well. Their argument that "Storm is a tier 1 deck" is pretty shallow - it's pretty much on par with all the other combo decks in the format. Maybe it's the best combo deck, but that's hard to tell for sure, and regardless, the best combo deck at any given point is the one that draws the least hate. "It can reliably kill on turn 3" doesn't mean much either; so can Infect, and several other decks have a realistic shot at it. Storm is probably "the best deck that can with some consistency win on turn three" but it didn't really need bans.
I don't think the bans will change all that much. Maybe they will slightly improve the format, but the very fact that they won't change much essentially means they weren't needed. You can certainly make a case for "unneeded" bans not being a bad thing, but it does feel a bit awkward.
You really just need to embrace the rage. I keep a small colony of hamsters next to my computer and every time I lose a match to mana screw I throw one against the wall.
The argument @ turn three kills also struck me as weird for the same reasons as those you mention - infect can very easily kill on turn 3, but I don't really see Glistener Elf or Blighted Agent getting the axe any time soon.
Banning Bloodbraid Elf is fine by me though. The combination of "patently insane" and "really random" is not a good one in my opinion.
Wizards' goal with Modern bannings is pretty clearly different from those of other formats. In Standard, the format changes often enough that bans are only used when a deck is so popular that it affects tournament attendance. In Legacy, there's this kind of implicit goal of maintaining a format with as few bans as possible.
Modern was set up with the explicit goal of not having consistent 3rd turn kills. You can debate what "consistent" means, but apparently Storm was over the line. As long as they're consistent with it, I don't think it's unreasonable to have a standard like that, even if it seems arbitrary now.
As for the Elf, I honestly think they tried to choose a card that wouldn't kill Jund, just weaken it. Plus Bloodbraid is not a well-designed card in any case; it's easy to see why it'd be a relief to have it gone.
Wit's End is the PERFECT answer to your opponent's Monomania however.
Just hold on to your Wit's End when they Monomania, so you can Wit's End them on your next turn!!!
I think this is fairly reminiscent of the "Jace Battles" we have seen in past standards.. My guess is we will soon witness the great Monomania-Wit's End battles.
I can see why they'd ban BBE, but Seething Song makes me salty. In my limited experience, storm was a fine deck that didn't seem too overpowered and with plenty of hate available for it.
I was getting over some kind of sickness this weekend so I only stuck around for one event. I figured I'd do terribly and go home. I ended up going Dimir and ended up on the mill plan. I had a deck that had Mind Grind (stupid, stupid card), 2x Grisly Spectacle, Deaths Approach, Hands of Binding, Aetherize, Dimir Charm, Psychic Strike, Spell Rupture, Stolen Identity, 2x Balustrade Spy, Undercity Informer, Wight of Precinct Six, infinity flyers including the 2/5 mill 5 on death guy and Nightveil Specter. Most of the games would end up involving the 2/5 flying Mill 5 guy with Stolen Identity and Undercity Informer or me milling them until they hit 6-7 lands with Mind Grind. I ended up going 4-0-2. Good times with one of the most obnoxious decks I've ever played.
Highlight of the event was blowing someone out when he bloodrushed a 7 power dude with that 5/1 guy and I got him with a Spectacle.
Bloodbraid Elf isn't even the best card in Jund. And I don't think Jund is so dominant that it deserved bans anyway. Also, it seems healthy for a format that the best deck is a fair deck. The only really overpowered card that Jund has is Tarmogoyf, so that would be the more logical ban. Except, of course, they want to print Goyf in Modern Masters, and it'll help sell the set, so they can't ban it. So they go after BBE.
Seething Song is a bit bizarre as well. Their argument that "Storm is a tier 1 deck" is pretty shallow - it's pretty much on par with all the other combo decks in the format. Maybe it's the best combo deck, but that's hard to tell for sure, and regardless, the best combo deck at any given point is the one that draws the least hate. "It can reliably kill on turn 3" doesn't mean much either; so can Infect, and several other decks have a realistic shot at it. Storm is probably "the best deck that can with some consistency win on turn three" but it didn't really need bans.
I don't think the bans will change all that much. Maybe they will slightly improve the format, but the very fact that they won't change much essentially means they weren't needed. You can certainly make a case for "unneeded" bans not being a bad thing, but it does feel a bit awkward.
Personally, I would actually be OK with a goyf banning, though abrupt decay is a reasonable answer in the format. If they were going to ban a card in jund, I would have chosen thoughtseize - $60-70 thoughtseizes are just absurd, and it's definitely one of the cards that actually makes jund oppressive, rather than BBE which while ban-worthy on power level, isn't really all that oppressive in gameplay.
As of now, I'm probably just going to replace BBE with a few other things. I'm thinking of using 4 one-ofs rather than a 4-of, though. I'm thinking of choosing cards from the following list:
Some combination of those cards probably is what I'll do. It's possible that liliana gets worse too, given that you can't cascade into it. I'm still on jund for sure. I think you just need to up the hand disruption even more. You still have deathrite, bob, goyf, and a bunch of removal and disruption.
Even if the deck is only at 80-90% of its effectiveness, it's still probably the best deck in the format. It's really that good, IMO.
Adding white seems terrible. What matchups are Souls and Teeg going to help with? You'd be increasing self-damage from your mana base and reducing your ability to curve reliably, so you're not helping your aggro matchup at all, and you're slowing your deck down vs combo, to the point where racing them is going to be somewhat less viable.
Losing Bloodbraid Elf means the deck is slower overall, and less resilient versus countermagic. Versus combo, Jund normally used discard to buy enough time to race; that may very well not be a reliable tactic anymore. More discard is only going to slow combo down a little more; you need to find ways to keep up the speed of its clock. Versus counters, Jund didn't have a problem before, since all of its 4-drops were resilient to them. This is not a strength anymore. Running more Thruns or maybe something like Deadbridge Goliath might be an option.
If it were me, though, I'd run some mix of Thundermaw Hellkites and Falkenrath Aristocrats. The large power and haste mean they can screw up planning for combo decks, they have nice synergy together versus Lingering Souls, they're fast clocks that come out easily on curve, and neither are super easy to kill.
Olivia and Huntmaster are reasonable cards, too. But there's no question that they're both much slower than BBE and that hurts your odds against combo, which we already know is Jund's weakest matchup when it can't race perfectly.
Wit's End is the PERFECT answer to your opponent's Monomania however.
Just hold on to your Wit's End when they Monomania, so you can Wit's End them on your next turn!!!
I think this is fairly reminiscent of the "Jace Battles" we have seen in past standards.. My guess is we will soon witness the great Monomania-Wit's End battles.
Adding white seems terrible. What matchups are Souls and Teeg going to help with? You'd be increasing self-damage from your mana base and reducing your ability to curve reliably, so you're not helping your aggro matchup at all, and you're slowing your deck down vs combo, to the point where racing them is going to be somewhat less viable.
Losing Bloodbraid Elf means the deck is slower overall, and less resilient versus countermagic. Versus combo, Jund normally used discard to buy enough time to race; that may very well not be a reliable tactic anymore. More discard is only going to slow combo down a little more; you need to find ways to keep up the speed of its clock. Versus counters, Jund didn't have a problem before, since all of its 4-drops were resilient to them. This is not a strength anymore. Running more Thruns or maybe something like Deadbridge Goliath might be an option.
If it were me, though, I'd run some mix of Thundermaw Hellkites and Falkenrath Aristocrats. The large power and haste mean they can screw up planning for combo decks, they have nice synergy together versus Lingering Souls, they're fast clocks that come out easily on curve, and neither are super easy to kill.
Olivia and Huntmaster are reasonable cards, too. But there's no question that they're both much slower than BBE and that hurts your odds against combo, which we already know is Jund's weakest matchup when it can't race perfectly.
uh, the deck already has white in it It plays 2-3 lingering souls already as well as 5-6 white sideboard cards.
I would only run aristocrat if I had kitchen finks to sac to it. As is, I have pretty much zero creatures in the main that I would ever want to sacrifice to save it. I mean, I'm not giving up a tarmogoyf to maybe save an aristocrat. I think huntmaster and olivia are a lot better, actually (olivia was also already in the sideboard, so it's not a huge stretch to move it main).
I think you undervalue gaddock teeg. It stops a lot of shenanigans including karn and splinter twin. They basically have to kill it on the spot if they're a deck that needs a card like that to win. Sure, the white splash is pretty mild, but I will probably add another white dual (temple garden probably) to accommodate these cards.
I so hope that happens on MtGO, since I want to draft Orzhov and don't want everyone else doing the same.
Drafted Orzhov today, and easily went 3-0. Kingpin's Pet is the best Wind Drake ever. The 1/1 for 1 Extorter is good too. I actually wish they named it something else, it rolls off the tongue badly "and extort you for 1..." for every spell you play.
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Original quote byTacosnape "All ideas that give me knowledge without any effort involved on my part are good ideas. Chop chop, my dear fellow."
DCI L2 Judge GP:Madrid 2010 45th GP:Amsterdam 2011 74th GP:London 2013 67th Bazaar of Moxen 2013 32nd
Wit's End is the PERFECT answer to your opponent's Monomania however.
Just hold on to your Wit's End when they Monomania, so you can Wit's End them on your next turn!!!
I think this is fairly reminiscent of the "Jace Battles" we have seen in past standards.. My guess is we will soon witness the great Monomania-Wit's End battles.
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I punted one of the games vs Dimir, by blocking his 7/7 flying, lifelinking Abberation with a 2/3, and then tried to finish it off with the -5/-5 BW spell. Sigh, should have double blocked.
The other Dimir player managed to cast Obzedat against me, without ever drawing any of his white mana - the Nightveil Specter stole a plains and a Orzhov Keyrune which allowed him to smash my face in. Not that I was winning vs unblockable Specter anyway. Actually, Orzhov do seem to have a little trouble dealing with flying creatures.
Oh, and Simic just went Crocanura, Ivy Street Denizen, Fathom Mage, 4/3 Trample guy that gives your creatures trample, - I gum up the ground at this point - Sapphire Drake, hit me in the air for 10. He had Clan Defiance still in hand, so I would have lost anyway, but Drake is obscene.
Although the top 3 spots were taken by Boros decks in our prerelease, I never really felt in trouble against them, losing only 1 game, when a Firemane Avenger suddenly freed himself from One Thousand Lashes.
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GP:Madrid 2010 45th
GP:Amsterdam 2011 74th
GP:London 2013 67th
Bazaar of Moxen 2013 32nd
Bad news: most of my matches. Built some interesting decks, but got run over by rares, mostly. I made a couple of misplays that were kinda awkward, but both of them were punished by opponents immediately topdecking insane rares, so it's really hard to say they were huge errors --- they were just blunders that happened to get punished in the worst way possible.
As I always say this time of year, it takes me probably between 20-30 events in a format before I can even pretend to have a grasp on it. I'm totally fine learning/losing during prerelease week. Clearly, the Charlotte GP is a much more important tournament, so I'll definitely take what I learned into that event.
I was extremely underwhelmed by fathom mage. I just could never seem to get that card to do anything -- it's basically a useless creature in combat, and I was never really able to get decent value out of it, despite getting it out quite often. It's just a complete joke against boros to tap out for a four mana 1/1, for example.
*DCI Rules Advisor*
I'm confused. Why would this not work?
I tend to do worse as a format matures. I think I have good intuition on how to build a deck when nobody is familiar with the cards as I always seem to do well at prerelease and early events. But once the set has been out for 1-2 months my success rate falls. I attribute this to the fact that I just don't play as much as most people, and eventually they all outpace me on their understanding of the format.
You say it takes you 20-30 events before you start to feel comfortable in a given limited format. I might not even play in 20 events throughout Gatecrash's lifespan, so when I hop into a draft in April I'll be way behind the curve.
Proud bearer of the Sigil of Distinction, bestowed by the Limited clan.
Yeah, I just play a lot. I pretty much always make a ton of mistakes when I don't know the cards that well. It takes a lot of repetitions for me to really get a feel for the format. I think it's because I base a lot of my ingame decisions on things like probability and making reads on my opponent. Both of those things are a lot more difficult to do when you're learning as you go. For example, I definitely learned about the rare bloodrush guys today. Yikes.
Also, I try and push formats as much as possible in terms of curves, mana, and just general attrition-based strategies, especially in sealed. Today, I found that my control deck was just way too slow. I didn't have enough early game to really reach the 6-7 mana I needed to cast my bombs, despite having 3-4 premier ramp spells. So, I learned a lot about pick orders/composition of control decks in this format, because I can see where my deck fell short and the kinds of cards it needs to perform better. I would rather have a middling finish on day one and learn some valuable lessons than just open boros nutdraws and win a few packs today, for example. I'm all about sustaining long-term success.
As you said, it becomes an advantage as we move later into a format. At SCG dallas last week, I was able to easily win the draft open, because I had probably drafted the set more often that the other people in the event combined.
*DCI Rules Advisor*
So far, the set seems really enjoyable to me.
:dance:Fact or Fiction of the [Limited] Clan:dance:
The BW spell can only target a creature that has dealt damage this turn. As soon as it deals damage, my creature dies, and the Abberation becomes an 8/8. I then play the spell, giving it -5/-5, which is then also put into the graveyard, making it in the end a 4/4 with 2 damage marked on it.
DCI L2 Judge
GP:Madrid 2010 45th
GP:Amsterdam 2011 74th
GP:London 2013 67th
Bazaar of Moxen 2013 32nd
Ah yes of course. I was thinking of the wrong card entirely.
Proud bearer of the Sigil of Distinction, bestowed by the Limited clan.
I would, uh, greatly appreciate some advice on the pool I opened. Things... did not go so hawt tonight for my Orzhov pack. I think I may have punted a few games without realizing it, but I think the simple truth is that I should've just built it different (I did W/B/r when maaaaybe it should've been more W/R/g or close to that).
Long story short: Help me Obi-Lim Kenobi, you're my only hope. (That is, I respect the opinions of people in this thread enough that I can get an idea of where I went so horribly, horribly wrong today.)
1x Assault Griffin
1x Basilica Guards
1x Daring Skyjek
1x Knight of Obligation
2x Aerial Maneuver
1x Angelic Edict
3x Guildscorn Ward
1x Murder Investigation
1x Smite
Blue
1x Frilled Oculus
2x Leyline Phantom
1x Metropolis Sprite
1x Mindeye Drake
1x Realmwright (foil)
1x Sapphire Drake
1x Last Thoughts
1x Scatter Arc
1x Totally Lost
Black
2x Basilica Screecher
1x Crypt Ghast
1x Gateway Shade
2x Horror of the Dim
1x Shadow Alley Denizen
1x Slate Street Ruffian
1x Wight of Precinct Six
1x Contaminated Ground
1x Killing Glare
1x Midnight Recovery
1x Bomber Corps
1x Cinder Elemental
1x Skinbrand Goblin
1x Towering Thunderfist
1x Warmind Infantry
1x Furious Resistance
2x Madcap Skills
2x Mugging
1x Structural Collapse
Green
1x Adaptive Snapjaw
1x Crocanura
1x Crowned Ceratok
2x Disciple of the Old Ways
3x Ivy Lane Denizen
2x Scab-Clan Charger
1x Hindervines
1x Naturalize
1x Ooze Flux
Multicolor
1x Cartel Aristocrat
1x Kingpin's Pet
1x Treasury Thrull (promo)
1x Vizkopa Guildmage
1x Executioner's Swing
1x Purge the Profane
1x Dimir Charm
1x Ordruun Veteran
2x Wojek Halberdiers
1x Assemble the Legion
1x Zhur-Taa Swine
1x Biovisionary
1x Mystic Genesis
1x Simic Charm
Hybrid
1x Beckon Apparition
1x Pit Fight
1x Merfolk of the Depths
1x Bioshift
Artifact
1x Armored Transport
1x Gruul Keyrune
1x Riot Gear
1x Simic Keyrune
Land
1x Orzhov Guildgate
1x Godless Shrine
1x Dimir Guildgate
1x Boros Guildgate
Past Ruminations
Links are broken, will fix in near future.
- Kaladesh
- Zendikar
- Rise of the Eldrazi
- Alara Reborn
- Innistrad <- Personal Favorite
- Dark Ascension
- Avacyn Restored
- Theros
- Return to Ravnica
- Tarkir
The Orzhov deck I played had a ton of removal, and a bunch of Extort guys. I went 4-1. My only loss was to Clan Defiance. That card is awesome. Highlight came when I managed to beat a deck that had 3 Foundry Champion. That was a little awesome.
Overall the impression of the set is good, limited will be good, although very aggressive. A lot of people said they are fond of Boros in draft and might be forcing it in the first few drafts.
DCI L2 Judge
GP:Madrid 2010 45th
GP:Amsterdam 2011 74th
GP:London 2013 67th
Bazaar of Moxen 2013 32nd
I so hope that happens on MtGO, since I want to draft Orzhov and don't want everyone else doing the same.
(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>
I think the prerelease dominance was mostly thanks to Boros having the best promo in terms of limited power, if not we might have to worry about balance at future sealed tournaments. Hopefully, if wizards continues to let promos be playable at prereleases, they'll pick cards of more even power level.
*DCI Rules Advisor*
I think they're honestly destroying what people like about modern.
"It's an eternal format that you don't need to spend a ton of money on! Cause, you know, shocks and fetches and goyfs and mythics are so cheap."
Hm, seems good... slightly cheaper than legacy, although a ton of sweet cards are missing...
"Oh, your deck won two events in a row. We're nuking it now."
All those people playing jund who have to build like... windbrisk heights or whatever isn't banned now, sorry you guys have to rebuy into the format.
-----
As for limited, went 4-0 and 3-1 at the prerelease, picking simic both times. It was a lot of fun!
I'm really enjoying this format so far. Most of the rares aren't stupidly good, or if they are, they cost seven. And seven is really hard to get to in this format for most decks.
It's nice to sit down across from someone with three unbeatable bombs and know that you're probably going to kill them when you both have 4-5 lands in play.
I'm really enjoying how HARD simic and boros are to play, though. I haven't gone boros, but sitting across the table from it, Boros is the first aggro deck I've seen in a while that... constantly has horrible attack options, but yet is somehow still good, if you're patient and use combat tricks well.
And simic is harder to play than most EDH decks I've seen. Trying to decide whether to run out an evolver or a giant 3/1 flier on turn three, thinking about what's in your deck, what's in your hand, your plan for the next four or five turns... baiting tricks, baiting removal. Such a hard deck, but incredibly rewarding.
So hey, any limited officers (or other people who are here a lot) who want to be clan rep and/or clan leader? You don't really have to do much, since most limited people don't want to do contests. You'd pretty much just have to make new Limited threads once or twice a year.
I'll still be around a bit, but I'm not on this site that often, so like... if I'm clan rep, and a contest comes up, and people want to do it, I might just never see the PM. So I'd like someone more active to take over.
PM me if you're interested!
Annoying to have to find a new deck at short notice, but that's why B&R announcements are scheduled, so you can (to some degree) see it coming.
(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>
Bloodbraid Elf isn't even the best card in Jund. And I don't think Jund is so dominant that it deserved bans anyway. Also, it seems healthy for a format that the best deck is a fair deck. The only really overpowered card that Jund has is Tarmogoyf, so that would be the more logical ban. Except, of course, they want to print Goyf in Modern Masters, and it'll help sell the set, so they can't ban it. So they go after BBE.
Seething Song is a bit bizarre as well. Their argument that "Storm is a tier 1 deck" is pretty shallow - it's pretty much on par with all the other combo decks in the format. Maybe it's the best combo deck, but that's hard to tell for sure, and regardless, the best combo deck at any given point is the one that draws the least hate. "It can reliably kill on turn 3" doesn't mean much either; so can Infect, and several other decks have a realistic shot at it. Storm is probably "the best deck that can with some consistency win on turn three" but it didn't really need bans.
I don't think the bans will change all that much. Maybe they will slightly improve the format, but the very fact that they won't change much essentially means they weren't needed. You can certainly make a case for "unneeded" bans not being a bad thing, but it does feel a bit awkward.
Banning Bloodbraid Elf is fine by me though. The combination of "patently insane" and "really random" is not a good one in my opinion.
Wizards' goal with Modern bannings is pretty clearly different from those of other formats. In Standard, the format changes often enough that bans are only used when a deck is so popular that it affects tournament attendance. In Legacy, there's this kind of implicit goal of maintaining a format with as few bans as possible.
Modern was set up with the explicit goal of not having consistent 3rd turn kills. You can debate what "consistent" means, but apparently Storm was over the line. As long as they're consistent with it, I don't think it's unreasonable to have a standard like that, even if it seems arbitrary now.
As for the Elf, I honestly think they tried to choose a card that wouldn't kill Jund, just weaken it. Plus Bloodbraid is not a well-designed card in any case; it's easy to see why it'd be a relief to have it gone.
I was getting over some kind of sickness this weekend so I only stuck around for one event. I figured I'd do terribly and go home. I ended up going Dimir and ended up on the mill plan. I had a deck that had Mind Grind (stupid, stupid card), 2x Grisly Spectacle, Deaths Approach, Hands of Binding, Aetherize, Dimir Charm, Psychic Strike, Spell Rupture, Stolen Identity, 2x Balustrade Spy, Undercity Informer, Wight of Precinct Six, infinity flyers including the 2/5 mill 5 on death guy and Nightveil Specter. Most of the games would end up involving the 2/5 flying Mill 5 guy with Stolen Identity and Undercity Informer or me milling them until they hit 6-7 lands with Mind Grind. I ended up going 4-0-2. Good times with one of the most obnoxious decks I've ever played.
Highlight of the event was blowing someone out when he bloodrushed a 7 power dude with that 5/1 guy and I got him with a Spectacle.
Personally, I would actually be OK with a goyf banning, though abrupt decay is a reasonable answer in the format. If they were going to ban a card in jund, I would have chosen thoughtseize - $60-70 thoughtseizes are just absurd, and it's definitely one of the cards that actually makes jund oppressive, rather than BBE which while ban-worthy on power level, isn't really all that oppressive in gameplay.
As of now, I'm probably just going to replace BBE with a few other things. I'm thinking of using 4 one-ofs rather than a 4-of, though. I'm thinking of choosing cards from the following list:
Thoughtseize
Lingering Souls
Huntmaster
Olivia
Thundermaw
Gaddock Teeg
Abrupt Decay
Terminate
Kitchen Finks
....
Some combination of those cards probably is what I'll do. It's possible that liliana gets worse too, given that you can't cascade into it. I'm still on jund for sure. I think you just need to up the hand disruption even more. You still have deathrite, bob, goyf, and a bunch of removal and disruption.
Even if the deck is only at 80-90% of its effectiveness, it's still probably the best deck in the format. It's really that good, IMO.
*DCI Rules Advisor*
Losing Bloodbraid Elf means the deck is slower overall, and less resilient versus countermagic. Versus combo, Jund normally used discard to buy enough time to race; that may very well not be a reliable tactic anymore. More discard is only going to slow combo down a little more; you need to find ways to keep up the speed of its clock. Versus counters, Jund didn't have a problem before, since all of its 4-drops were resilient to them. This is not a strength anymore. Running more Thruns or maybe something like Deadbridge Goliath might be an option.
If it were me, though, I'd run some mix of Thundermaw Hellkites and Falkenrath Aristocrats. The large power and haste mean they can screw up planning for combo decks, they have nice synergy together versus Lingering Souls, they're fast clocks that come out easily on curve, and neither are super easy to kill.
Olivia and Huntmaster are reasonable cards, too. But there's no question that they're both much slower than BBE and that hurts your odds against combo, which we already know is Jund's weakest matchup when it can't race perfectly.
uh, the deck already has white in it It plays 2-3 lingering souls already as well as 5-6 white sideboard cards.
I would only run aristocrat if I had kitchen finks to sac to it. As is, I have pretty much zero creatures in the main that I would ever want to sacrifice to save it. I mean, I'm not giving up a tarmogoyf to maybe save an aristocrat. I think huntmaster and olivia are a lot better, actually (olivia was also already in the sideboard, so it's not a huge stretch to move it main).
I think you undervalue gaddock teeg. It stops a lot of shenanigans including karn and splinter twin. They basically have to kill it on the spot if they're a deck that needs a card like that to win. Sure, the white splash is pretty mild, but I will probably add another white dual (temple garden probably) to accommodate these cards.
*DCI Rules Advisor*
Drafted Orzhov today, and easily went 3-0. Kingpin's Pet is the best Wind Drake ever. The 1/1 for 1 Extorter is good too. I actually wish they named it something else, it rolls off the tongue badly "and extort you for 1..." for every spell you play.
DCI L2 Judge
GP:Madrid 2010 45th
GP:Amsterdam 2011 74th
GP:London 2013 67th
Bazaar of Moxen 2013 32nd
That's pretty cool, but maybe monowhite would be better? I don't anyone's really explored the potential of monowhite Jund, but it could be amazing.