I think/hope it will feel more like drafting triple Khans than FKK in the sense that rares aren't on the same bomb level and DTK comes first in drafting, so that bomb you may have first-picked in your Fate draft could end up being one you have to either pass or take the consequences of making a late splash for in DDF. It also seems to me like a lot of premium removal is being added.
I think/hope it will feel more like drafting triple Khans than FKK in the sense that rares aren't on the same bomb level and DTK comes first in drafting, so that bomb you may have first-picked in your Fate draft could end up being one you have to either pass or take the consequences of making a late splash for in DDF. It also seems to me like a lot of premium removal is being added.
I'm actually worried about the format for that reason. Seems like a lottery to see who happened to be in the right colors, ie. the colors that have the most bomb rares opened at the end. No way to plan for it, and encourages hate drafting.
Just looking at the current spoiled cards, it seems quite bomb-y to me, with giant flyers in every color. 2 cycles of uncommon dragons, 2 cycles of rare dragons and 1 mythic dragon cycle.
There is however a ton of pushed Red/Black agro cards. If the table is all going 5-6-7 drop dragons and you go Zurgo, Mardu Scout, Dashed Warbringer, Dashed Warbringer + Heelcutter you could steal a lot of games. I still think UR agro beats will still be a thing, and from looking at the red cards so far could be even better.
First two weeks: OMG Dragons! Everyone plays lots of Dragons. The format is slow and bomby.
Next two weeks: Hmm maybe Dragons aren't the best plan. Format speeds up a little as people play 2-drops and avoid the least efficient of the dragons.
Rest of the format: Dragons are garbage, only play the rare ones, and if you don't get any early then go Red-X aggro and ignore all of these 6 and 7 drops.
My suggestion if you want to get ahead of the curve is remember the fundamentals, that cards like 3/3 Flying for 6 or 4/4 Flying for 7 are not good and that you can punish people trying to play those cards by focusing on aggro.
Lord, I hope it's not going to end up a "two-drop aggro is actually the best deck" format. That's so miserable. I hope it's more like Rise, where games go longer and everyone casts lots of big bomby things.
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Ambush Krotiq makes me laugh so much. I keep rereading the card and it keeps not having Flash. In what sense is this an ambush again? I just have visions of this huge Krotiq poorly concealed in some bushes, feeling slightly sad that his carefully planned ambushes never seem to work.
Lord, I hope it's not going to end up a "two-drop aggro is actually the best deck" format. That's so miserable. I hope it's more like Rise, where games go longer and everyone casts lots of big bomby things.
I hope so too, but I'm worried that the set is loaded with expensive drops and doesn't have a mechanic like Eldrazi Spawn to help lower their costs. That would leave the door wide open for aggro dominance.
(At Rare)
2/1 can't be blocked except by 2 for 2. (3/2 if morphed)
2/2 for 1
(Uncommon)
1/1 Firebreather for 1.
3/3 dash guy who makes other dash cheaper for 4.
(Common)
2 goblins for 2.
5/4 Dasher for 5/4.
Black has some similar aggro creatures. And we've not seen that much of the set yet. I don't want to be casting a 6 drop 4/4 flyer when my opponent is curving 1/2/3/4. Heck even green has some very aggressive beaters, but they seem at higher rarity. Its going to be interesting to see the disparity between aggro and dragons for this set. Basically everything we've seen is either super cheap or dragons. Which makes sense. It fits for the theme this set is doing. Basically the dragons are dominant and all the strong people from before are pushed down, subservient or dead.
Yeah, the problem is we don't know much right now other than rares and some uncommons, which is always going to give a very skewed perspective on the format.
Certainly seems like B/R aggro is going to be a thing, but it's far too early to say with only a handful of commons spoiled. Its entirely possible that the commons are going to be beefier than usual to make sure draft isn't too bomb-centric, and green looks to have some strong responses to aggressive starts so far.
As for dragons, I'm skeptical of any strategy based around cards that don't exist at common. It could end up being a weird scenario where all the uncommons are dragon-based but none of the commons are, so you get insanely clear signals when someone is drafting the dragon archetype, but more likely they're just going to be curve filler apart from the rares, while "dragons matter" cards never get taken.
assuming it does, suppose MetaA shifts into MetaB which later shifts into MetaC, similar to Phyrre's prediction.
here's my question: do the decks best in MetaC always do well in MetaA?
and less general, supposing Phyrre is correct in their prediction, will aggro decks always do amazing in the "OMG Big Dragons!" slow and bomby meta?
(oh well. at least grindy Sultai was doable in KKK and i loved it, so i had my fun )
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Goblins have poor impulse control. Don't click this link!!
some of my favourite flavour text:
Wayward Soul "no home no heart no hope"
—Stronghold graffito
Raging Goblin He raged at the world, at his family, at his life. But mostly he just raged.
assuming it does, suppose MetaA shifts into MetaB which later shifts into MetaC, similar to Phyrre's prediction.
here's my question: do the decks best in MetaC always do well in MetaA?
and less general, supposing Phyrre is correct in their prediction, will aggro decks always do amazing in the "OMG Big Dragons!" slow and bomby meta?
(oh well. at least grindy Sultai was doable in KKK and i loved it, so i had my fun )
I think the meta tends to go like this:
Early on, people don't know what they're doing, and this is particularly the case online, people who don't play a ton show up, do a few drafts of the new set, use up their budget for the set, and disappear for the duration. My win percentage and rating always spike immensely in a new format.
Early on, cards that aren't immediately and obviously powerful go late. These tend to be things like the best common creatures, or uncommon spells that do powerful things but aren't templated like the obviously powerful cards.
Examples of this from recent sets in the past would be the Izzet Value guys in guildpact, the premium suspend creatures in Time Spiral (and then in Modern Masters), Sanctum Gargoyle in Shards, Pith Driller in New Phyrexia, Dark Thicket Wolf and Travel Preparations in Innistrad, Trusty Forcemage and Mist Raven in Av Restored, the cheap extort guys in Gatecrash, the common bestow and heroic guys in Theros.
Early on in sets, you can do things like get a deck with 6 Kingpin's pets, 9 Timberpack wolves, or 4 Mist Ravens and just destroy people. And if you don't get those, you may get paired against it. So the format is dominated by the better drafters building insane decks early on.
That goes away around the time release events start wearing down, though. However, there still may be fringe decks usually based around uncommons that can still be drafted. Furnace celebration, Spider Spawning, etc. Eventually, as people figure out those decks are powerful and fun, they'll dry up as well.
Lord, I hope it's not going to end up a "two-drop aggro is actually the best deck" format. That's so miserable. I hope it's more like Rise, where games go longer and everyone casts lots of big bomby things.
I hope so too, but I'm worried that the set is loaded with expensive drops and doesn't have a mechanic like Eldrazi Spawn to help lower their costs. That would leave the door wide open for aggro dominance.
While it's true there aren't any mechanics that give you extra mana, megamorph will probably have a similar effect in that it prevents your expensive cards from rotting in your hand until turn 7+
On the whole, the power level of rares seems lower that that of Fate, which is a good thing in my book. A lot of rares (like the 2 cmc megamorph cycle, or Zurgo) seem like solid cards that will be strong role-players in the right deck, but not huge bombs that have you windmill-slamming your first pick. I think that will make for more interesting drafting, which I'm looking forward to.
Dorvan: do you just pray that the colour(s) of your last pack (ie your Fate Reforged pack) match up with the colours of your deck? i wonder if some person with a mediocre deck after two packs might all of a sudden get a ridiculously good deck because of getting passed 3 FRF rares in their colours (ie because the people who opened those rares weren't playing its colours)?
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Goblins have poor impulse control. Don't click this link!!
some of my favourite flavour text:
Wayward Soul "no home no heart no hope"
—Stronghold graffito
Raging Goblin He raged at the world, at his family, at his life. But mostly he just raged.
We know literally 11 commons at the moment. We know vaguely what Wizards was hoping for from the format, but we can't tell how it will actually play out until we get the other 90 on Friday.
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I primarily play limited, so most of my spoiler season comments view cards through that lens.
I am actually from the future and can predict everything with perfect accuracy:
FRF rares won't be as dominant because mana fixing isn't anything like as plentiful, and you won't get to draft around them nearly as much, so the format shouldn't be as rare-focused.
The uncommons like Draconic Roar and Scaleguard Sentinels will end up being very high picks; the actual dragons much less so. Dragon tribal will work sorta like 5-color did in Dragon's Maze.
Megamorph cards will feel pretty strong early on but then become largely unplayable as people get better at putting together stronger synergies.
Any form of mana accel/cost reduction will be at a high premium because of loads of mana sinks.
Mono-colored decks, or decks with a very light splash, will be unexpectedly strong.
Dorvan: do you just pray that the colour(s) of your last pack (ie your Fate Reforged pack) match up with the colours of your deck? i wonder if some person with a mediocre deck after two packs might all of a sudden get a ridiculously good deck because of getting passed 3 FRF rares in their colours (ie because the people who opened those rares weren't playing its colours)?
That's a possibility in any format, but it's no more likely than average here. Splashing is also a realistic option for the more expensive FRF bombs, as I expect most decks to be base 2 color.
I'm not feeling too positive about this format. The "Dragon draft archetype" makes me wanna puke.
Such a cycle of disappointment.
If you're referring to the uncommon Dragon cycle, I think you're misunderstanding the cards. They are 2/2s for 3 that are very late game mana sinks. They're not going to be high picks, and you're not going to draft around them, and they're rarely if ever going to add counters to other Dragons. But Morph means they'll be playable.
I actually think they've handled the dragons pretty well so far. The rares are good (which you would expect), the gold uncommons are decent but a bit slow and require some building around, and the mono colored uncommons are fairly weak but have Morph so that they're not just garbage.
Dorvan: do you just pray that the colour(s) of your last pack (ie your Fate Reforged pack) match up with the colours of your deck? i wonder if some person with a mediocre deck after two packs might all of a sudden get a ridiculously good deck because of getting passed 3 FRF rares in their colours (ie because the people who opened those rares weren't playing its colours)?
Running the (quick mental) math on this tells me it's not much of something to worry about.
If we accept the rough figure that 1/3 of FRF packs contain bombs, then the chance of 3 people in a row opening bombs is already down to 1/27. That's further reduced by the fact that a significant portion of the time one of the first two seats in the chain will take one of the bombs before it gets to the third seat, and sometimes the third seat won't actually be able to use them anyway.
There may be times when the two seats to someone's right are fighting over RG and BR and he or she just gets passed three insane WU cards in a row. It would probably be a very frustrating experience to play against that player, but that's the kind of thing you'll probably only run into once or twice in the entire format, if at all.
As others have mentioned, we really need to see the commons to be well-informed about how that format will shake out. That's all good in this thread though as it is a "prediction" thread after all. My prediction is that we will see plenty of low-cost creatures at common that are going to balance out all the super-expensive uncommon and rare dragons. I certainly hope so anyway.
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I get the feeling it will be like drafting ROE after months of drafting ZEN/WWK. That is...not even remotely similar.
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I'm actually worried about the format for that reason. Seems like a lottery to see who happened to be in the right colors, ie. the colors that have the most bomb rares opened at the end. No way to plan for it, and encourages hate drafting.
Next two weeks: Hmm maybe Dragons aren't the best plan. Format speeds up a little as people play 2-drops and avoid the least efficient of the dragons.
Rest of the format: Dragons are garbage, only play the rare ones, and if you don't get any early then go Red-X aggro and ignore all of these 6 and 7 drops.
My suggestion if you want to get ahead of the curve is remember the fundamentals, that cards like 3/3 Flying for 6 or 4/4 Flying for 7 are not good and that you can punish people trying to play those cards by focusing on aggro.
I hope so too, but I'm worried that the set is loaded with expensive drops and doesn't have a mechanic like Eldrazi Spawn to help lower their costs. That would leave the door wide open for aggro dominance.
(At Rare)
2/1 can't be blocked except by 2 for 2. (3/2 if morphed)
2/2 for 1
(Uncommon)
1/1 Firebreather for 1.
3/3 dash guy who makes other dash cheaper for 4.
(Common)
2 goblins for 2.
5/4 Dasher for 5/4.
Black has some similar aggro creatures. And we've not seen that much of the set yet. I don't want to be casting a 6 drop 4/4 flyer when my opponent is curving 1/2/3/4. Heck even green has some very aggressive beaters, but they seem at higher rarity. Its going to be interesting to see the disparity between aggro and dragons for this set. Basically everything we've seen is either super cheap or dragons. Which makes sense. It fits for the theme this set is doing. Basically the dragons are dominant and all the strong people from before are pushed down, subservient or dead.
As for dragons, I'm skeptical of any strategy based around cards that don't exist at common. It could end up being a weird scenario where all the uncommons are dragon-based but none of the commons are, so you get insanely clear signals when someone is drafting the dragon archetype, but more likely they're just going to be curve filler apart from the rares, while "dragons matter" cards never get taken.
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does limited have a meta-game, too?
assuming it does, suppose MetaA shifts into MetaB which later shifts into MetaC, similar to Phyrre's prediction.
here's my question: do the decks best in MetaC always do well in MetaA?
and less general, supposing Phyrre is correct in their prediction, will aggro decks always do amazing in the "OMG Big Dragons!" slow and bomby meta?
(oh well. at least grindy Sultai was doable in KKK and i loved it, so i had my fun )
Goblins have poor impulse control. Don't click this link!!
some of my favourite flavour text:
Wayward Soul
"no home no heart no hope"
—Stronghold graffito
Raging Goblin
He raged at the world, at his family, at his life. But mostly he just raged.
I think the meta tends to go like this:
Early on, people don't know what they're doing, and this is particularly the case online, people who don't play a ton show up, do a few drafts of the new set, use up their budget for the set, and disappear for the duration. My win percentage and rating always spike immensely in a new format.
Early on, cards that aren't immediately and obviously powerful go late. These tend to be things like the best common creatures, or uncommon spells that do powerful things but aren't templated like the obviously powerful cards.
Examples of this from recent sets in the past would be the Izzet Value guys in guildpact, the premium suspend creatures in Time Spiral (and then in Modern Masters), Sanctum Gargoyle in Shards, Pith Driller in New Phyrexia, Dark Thicket Wolf and Travel Preparations in Innistrad, Trusty Forcemage and Mist Raven in Av Restored, the cheap extort guys in Gatecrash, the common bestow and heroic guys in Theros.
Early on in sets, you can do things like get a deck with 6 Kingpin's pets, 9 Timberpack wolves, or 4 Mist Ravens and just destroy people. And if you don't get those, you may get paired against it. So the format is dominated by the better drafters building insane decks early on.
That goes away around the time release events start wearing down, though. However, there still may be fringe decks usually based around uncommons that can still be drafted. Furnace celebration, Spider Spawning, etc. Eventually, as people figure out those decks are powerful and fun, they'll dry up as well.
While it's true there aren't any mechanics that give you extra mana, megamorph will probably have a similar effect in that it prevents your expensive cards from rotting in your hand until turn 7+
Goblins have poor impulse control. Don't click this link!!
some of my favourite flavour text:
Wayward Soul
"no home no heart no hope"
—Stronghold graffito
Raging Goblin
He raged at the world, at his family, at his life. But mostly he just raged.
Interested in Custom Card Creation.
My Cube:Cardinal Custom Cube
A custom version of a third modern masters: MM2019
(filter->rarity to see in set rarity).
FRF rares won't be as dominant because mana fixing isn't anything like as plentiful, and you won't get to draft around them nearly as much, so the format shouldn't be as rare-focused.
The uncommons like Draconic Roar and Scaleguard Sentinels will end up being very high picks; the actual dragons much less so. Dragon tribal will work sorta like 5-color did in Dragon's Maze.
Megamorph cards will feel pretty strong early on but then become largely unplayable as people get better at putting together stronger synergies.
Any form of mana accel/cost reduction will be at a high premium because of loads of mana sinks.
Mono-colored decks, or decks with a very light splash, will be unexpectedly strong.
Blue will be the best color, green the worst.
That's a possibility in any format, but it's no more likely than average here. Splashing is also a realistic option for the more expensive FRF bombs, as I expect most decks to be base 2 color.
Such a cycle of disappointment.
UR Melek, Izzet ParagonUR, B Shirei, Shizo's CaretakerB, R Jaya Ballard, Task MageR,RW Tajic, Blade of the LegionRW, UB Lazav, Dimir MastermindUB, UB Circu, Dimir LobotomistUB, RWU Zedruu the GreatheartedRWU, GUBThe MimeoplasmGUB, UGExperiment Kraj UG, WDarien, King of KjeldorW, BMarrow-GnawerB, WBGKarador, Ghost ChieftainWBG, UTeferi, Temporal ArchmageU, GWUDerevi, Empyrial TacticianGWU, RDaretti, Scrap SavantR, UTalrand, Sky SummonerU, GEzuri, Renegade LeaderG, WUBRGReaper KingWUBRG, RGXenagos, God of RevelsRG, CKozilek, Butcher of TruthC, WUBRGGeneral TazriWUBRG, GTitania, Protector of ArgothG
If you're referring to the uncommon Dragon cycle, I think you're misunderstanding the cards. They are 2/2s for 3 that are very late game mana sinks. They're not going to be high picks, and you're not going to draft around them, and they're rarely if ever going to add counters to other Dragons. But Morph means they'll be playable.
I actually think they've handled the dragons pretty well so far. The rares are good (which you would expect), the gold uncommons are decent but a bit slow and require some building around, and the mono colored uncommons are fairly weak but have Morph so that they're not just garbage.
Running the (quick mental) math on this tells me it's not much of something to worry about.
If we accept the rough figure that 1/3 of FRF packs contain bombs, then the chance of 3 people in a row opening bombs is already down to 1/27. That's further reduced by the fact that a significant portion of the time one of the first two seats in the chain will take one of the bombs before it gets to the third seat, and sometimes the third seat won't actually be able to use them anyway.
There may be times when the two seats to someone's right are fighting over RG and BR and he or she just gets passed three insane WU cards in a row. It would probably be a very frustrating experience to play against that player, but that's the kind of thing you'll probably only run into once or twice in the entire format, if at all.