My friend and I just got back into the game after a 20 year hiatus. I bought a couple lots on eBay and we did some Winston drafts with old cards and then new cards. We were surprised how much we liked Ixalan more than playing with Chronicles/7th Edition. (Granted, Chronicles was never a good set, but still, we expected nostalgia to be the most important factor.)
Does anyone have any suggestions as to the next set we should try? I really like how strong the flavor of the sets has gotten, so I'd like to stay within a set. I'm thinking next time we'll get a 2x complete set of commons and 1x complete set of uncommons for one set and use that to draft. (Rares are just too expensive for it to be fun.) So, what set has fun flavor and mechanics that works well without having any rares? I'm kind of interested in Kamigawa...
And any other tips for setting up/executing these kinds of drafts would be appreciated.
I don't really have that high opinion of ravnica. I dislike force-feeding color pairs, especially in a narrowish way.
I agree with the article that commons and uncommons need to be at a higher power level like they were in TSP, but I still would autoban sprout swarm if I had a tsp block cube
Thanks for recommending the article. I haven't been able to find a lot about which sets work best for limited and really nothing when comes to sets for peasant. (Probably because peasant seems to be mostly a cube thing.) So my question seems to be the one you answered at the end of your post: Which well-loved sets don't do so well without rares and mythic rares?
From reading the article you attached and a bunch of other best of articles and a threads about limited drafts here and on Reddit, the sets that come up a lot are:
- Innistrad (this seems to be the consensus best set ever)
- Ravnica
- Return to Ravnica
- Mirage
- Rise of the Eldrazi
- Urza's Saga
- Future Sight (or all of Time Spiral...)
- Champions of Kamigawa
- Lorwyn
You and @leelue seem to agree that Ravnica doesn't work well for peasant. Do you recall if any of these other sets have that issue?
The easiest places to start are Innistrad, triple Khans of Tarkir (the rest wasn't as good), Rise of the Eldrazi and Vintage Masters. Triple Khans is my favorite format of all time. Magic Origins is also a good place to start drafting if you've been away for a long time, although it's not necessarily one of the best formats, it's a great baseline for how limited works now and the sets should be super cheap.
Some of the older sets will be expensive to buy and the article has some really strange sets as well (Mercadian Masques and Urza's Saga in particular). I like Invasion block, but it's an acquired taste by today's limited standards, very durdly. Can't comment on the original Ravnica, but Lorwyn and Kamigawa are not exactly known to be great limited sets, not sure where that is coming from.
Of the older sets I'd recommend Odyssey, Tempest or the MTGO version, Tempest Remastered. But that's about it. Wizards has gotten a lot better at creating limited formats over the years and a lot of the older sets you'll see mentioned are there more because of nostalgia rather than on merit imho.
Wasn't the main problem people had with Lorwyn that board states became too complex for newer players? If you could get past that I thought the general consensus was moderately positive.
I always got the impression of Kamigawa limited that CCC was good to great, CCB was okay to good, CBS was horrid.
I always got the impression of Kamigawa limited that CCC was good to great, CCB was okay to good, CBS was horrid.
Yeah. This is what I had been reading, though I'm probably looking for reasons to put Kamigawa on the list because I have a pro-Japan bias. (Purplemurasaki may share this bias perhaps?)
For Lorwyn, though, I think I had just read an article or two where the author said something along the lines of "Lots of people don't like Lorwyn, but I like its __________________." Being contrarian myself, that probably piqued my interest. I guess that's in line with what you're saying. And, yeah, that doesn't scream, "Go buy sets so you can draft this."
I'll probably start by buying the uncommons for one of the three sets that came in the original new card lot I purchased — Ixalan, Amonkhet, and Aether Revolt. We'll continue to play them (we've only tried Ixalan so far), figure out the one we like, then purchase the uncommons. The more I read about pauper and peasant, the less I'm sure that having uncommons will improve the draft/playing experience.
After that, I'll go to Innistrad or Khans next (depending on which is cheaper/easier to get). Then, once I know what a great set is like, we'll see.
As I look around the internet, I'm kind of surprised this topic doesn't come up. People talk about which sets are best for limited, but no one seems to talk about drafting pauper or peasant limited. Is it that the cubes that people make for pauper and peasant are so much more superior to the confining oneself to one set? I guess I'm surprised there aren't more people who want the flavor of limited, but don't want to pay for the rares and mythics. Or maybe they just don't feel the need to talk about it.
Is it that the cubes that people make for pauper and peasant are so much more superior to the confining oneself to one set?
I'm not sure this is entirely accurate, but it is fair to say that the pauper or peasant cubes are more aligned to regular limited, and that the cube manager can put whatever themes they (or their playgroup) prefer or like. I suppose initially cube in general was the 'best of the best' cards, though I think over time most cube manager have more distinct overall cube design goals, such as enabling the major theatres of play for most colours (aggro, midrange, control, and combo in some cases), enabling particular synergies or archetypes their group likes etc. You have more depth to achieve that goal if you look at all of what peasant has to offer, whereas one set gives you only the things that set particularly cared about.
And I guess that is the beauty of cube. Putting together what you believe is the perfect 360 cards (or whatever size) to achieve the specific goals that you want.
Thanks. The flashy names — pauper and peasant — have been distracting me from my specific goal: to play really, really affordable limited. I don't really care about rarity. I'm just cheap. Did some searching and found that you can get about 250 cards from sets that are no longer in standard (like Khans and Innistrad) before you start breaching the 10 cents/card barrier. (This was on TCG Player. If anyone has a better site, I'm all ears.) That includes some rares, too, and I think that's what I really want.
more because of nostalgia rather than on merit imho.
Oooooh, yeah. You better believe I'm going to get a bunch of cheap Ice Age cards at some point and draft with them. I've always loved Ice Age (even if I actually hate most of the cards in the set).
Ultimately peasant is an arbitrary restriction. It's one that interested me from a budget perspective initially, but I think I'm pretty happy with the general power level of peasant. There are certainly a bunch of rare cards that are around the same level that do different things than what is actually available, but while interested I haven't felt a need to grab any yet.
If you're in Europe you can use magiccardmarket. There are quite a few people who offer common and uncommon sets, usually the commons cost 50 cent to 1€ and the uncommon sets about 4,50 to 5,50. For the older sets you sometimes pay a lot more though (an Invasion common set is 5, a Lorwyn common set will cost you 14€ currently) but usually that's because you get money cards that you can sell on afterwards if you want to. I'm sure you can find similar offers somewhere if you're in America.
Does anyone have any suggestions as to the next set we should try? I really like how strong the flavor of the sets has gotten, so I'd like to stay within a set. I'm thinking next time we'll get a 2x complete set of commons and 1x complete set of uncommons for one set and use that to draft. (Rares are just too expensive for it to be fun.) So, what set has fun flavor and mechanics that works well without having any rares? I'm kind of interested in Kamigawa...
And any other tips for setting up/executing these kinds of drafts would be appreciated.
milse
I agree with the article that commons and uncommons need to be at a higher power level like they were in TSP, but I still would autoban sprout swarm if I had a tsp block cube
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
From reading the article you attached and a bunch of other best of articles and a threads about limited drafts here and on Reddit, the sets that come up a lot are:
- Innistrad (this seems to be the consensus best set ever)
- Ravnica
- Return to Ravnica
- Mirage
- Rise of the Eldrazi
- Urza's Saga
- Future Sight (or all of Time Spiral...)
- Champions of Kamigawa
- Lorwyn
You and @leelue seem to agree that Ravnica doesn't work well for peasant. Do you recall if any of these other sets have that issue?
Alright, I guess I'm just going to have to try it out. I'll update this thread someday if I find one set works better than others. Thanks.
Some of the older sets will be expensive to buy and the article has some really strange sets as well (Mercadian Masques and Urza's Saga in particular). I like Invasion block, but it's an acquired taste by today's limited standards, very durdly. Can't comment on the original Ravnica, but Lorwyn and Kamigawa are not exactly known to be great limited sets, not sure where that is coming from.
Of the older sets I'd recommend Odyssey, Tempest or the MTGO version, Tempest Remastered. But that's about it. Wizards has gotten a lot better at creating limited formats over the years and a lot of the older sets you'll see mentioned are there more because of nostalgia rather than on merit imho.
I always got the impression of Kamigawa limited that CCC was good to great, CCB was okay to good, CBS was horrid.
Yeah. This is what I had been reading, though I'm probably looking for reasons to put Kamigawa on the list because I have a pro-Japan bias. (Purplemurasaki may share this bias perhaps?)
For Lorwyn, though, I think I had just read an article or two where the author said something along the lines of "Lots of people don't like Lorwyn, but I like its __________________." Being contrarian myself, that probably piqued my interest. I guess that's in line with what you're saying. And, yeah, that doesn't scream, "Go buy sets so you can draft this."
I'll probably start by buying the uncommons for one of the three sets that came in the original new card lot I purchased — Ixalan, Amonkhet, and Aether Revolt. We'll continue to play them (we've only tried Ixalan so far), figure out the one we like, then purchase the uncommons. The more I read about pauper and peasant, the less I'm sure that having uncommons will improve the draft/playing experience.
After that, I'll go to Innistrad or Khans next (depending on which is cheaper/easier to get). Then, once I know what a great set is like, we'll see.
And I guess that is the beauty of cube. Putting together what you believe is the perfect 360 cards (or whatever size) to achieve the specific goals that you want.
This.
Thanks. The flashy names — pauper and peasant — have been distracting me from my specific goal: to play really, really affordable limited. I don't really care about rarity. I'm just cheap. Did some searching and found that you can get about 250 cards from sets that are no longer in standard (like Khans and Innistrad) before you start breaching the 10 cents/card barrier. (This was on TCG Player. If anyone has a better site, I'm all ears.) That includes some rares, too, and I think that's what I really want.
Until I get other goals. Thanks, guys.
Oooooh, yeah. You better believe I'm going to get a bunch of cheap Ice Age cards at some point and draft with them. I've always loved Ice Age (even if I actually hate most of the cards in the set).