If you care about "pro opinion" Huey was pretty lukewarm on it in his draft cap vid as are most of the pros who have done BTG draft vids for Channel Fireball so far. I've been keeping an eye on it and I'm still not impressed with it. It does the job you expect it to but that's all I can say for it.
Wait what? All the Channel Fireball videos I've watched the Pros have had nothing but good things to say about the card. The only lukewarm responses I've seen were from before the cards were released.
Bitterblossom should return slightly back down. I can't see the demand sitting at $60-70 that pros don't want to use. Not saying it will drop a ton but can't keep up that price tag if no one is currently playing the deck.
I'm upset we didn't take the skywatch, because I would have another good white heroic card here, but that's how it goes. Sudden Storm is looking like the only pick I actually like in this draft.
So the other GP's seem to show which playmat will be given away at the GP. But GP Beijing doesn't have one listed on the event page. Is it possible that this event isn't giving out playmats?
Centaurs are getting drastically underrated here. People don't seem to realize we have access to tons of ramp and can get that guy out early and can keep swinging and pumping out Nessian Courser every turn!
That card is MUCH better than Vulpine Goliath.
I think the point is that if you are able to "keep swinging" with a 5/5 you've probably won anyway. Most of his value is in being a 5/5 for 6. That is surely not nothing, but the games where you are going to pump out more than one or two of those are pretty rare and you probably would have won them even if he was just a vanilla 5/5 for 6 (or, say, a 6/5 trample).
Actually I have used him twice successfully against the aforementioned Servant. Who would normally be able just to absorb a fatties attack for free and drain you, but when I play t4-5 centaur and then make a 3/3 every turn for the rest of the game things get out of control pretty quick.
Centaurs are getting drastically underrated here. People don't seem to realize we have access to tons of ramp and can get that guy out early and can keep swinging and pumping out Nessian Courser every turn!
Well, there's nothing stellar here, but Servant of Tymaret/Pheres-Band Raiders are fine, both in B/G generally, and in UB/UG in particular. Servant isn't the ideal early drop for UB, but it does alright and it has some late-game value that helps. Likewise, Raiders is a serviceable green fatty (which UG and most other Gx decks want some number of); no Nessian Asp and very replaceable, but it works.
I don't know, it's kind of a toss-up. I'm going to vote for Servant of Tymaret with the reasoning that if our final deck wants a Servant, it will be harder to pick up an almost-as-good replacement than it will be to pick up a Vulpine Goliath or something if we want big green beef.
All of this. While I would be sorely tempted to take the Pain Seer, I doubt he'd be at his best in this deck (and may outright kill us.) Servant of Tyramet.
A note regarding Raiders: I haven't played with/against it; do people find that they really want to be tying up their mana at the six-seven mark churning out centaurs? I can see it happening, but I also know that's Bestow o'clock..
Getting a 3/3 every turn is nice, particularly when you don't have to expend cards to do so. If you have more pertinent things to do than make a 3/3 than do something else, otherwise it's a pretty quick clock for a kill or a way to trade off opponent's fatty.
Pheres-Band Raiders-Strongest card in the pack. High curve card. Tons of value! Attack for 5 eat a blocker, make a Nessian Courser! He's one of the six-drops I really like in this set because of the creature-making ability.
I wouldn't be upset about taking Elite Skirmisher but I feel like that was for my original plan of P1P1 Skyguard and not first pick blue 5 drop.
Servant is close to Skirmisher even if unexciting, U/B is very playable in this format.
Raiders have the highest upside by a pretty high margin. If we go for Skirmisher it leaves us more open to a totally different game plan though which might become conducive.
The stats you are referencing are meaningless at this point. Tons of people haven't played in that pool of results and the set is still very young. We'll have to see a few GP results to know the overall strength of the card. Right now, the cards power level is very solid and well-balanced for this limited environment.
GP results are not necessarily a good guide to the effectiveness of cards in draft - they're only ever a very small sample of drafts, not to mention a potentially atypical draft environment. Whereas the Goldfish stats are currently coming off a pool of 23620 games, and the sample for Sudden Storm is 1461 games. That's not information you can just dismiss out of hand. It's certainly true that changes in the format can change the value of cards - but that's a long way from meaning that the initial numbers are irrelevant, especially when the result is so striking. 45% is spectacularly low (and look at the commons people that are fairly uncontroversially high picks - Fall of the Hammer, Retraction Helix, Bolt of Keranos, Skyguard, all right up in the high 50s where you would expect them to be). If the card was good in most situations and most decks, that simply would not happen.
There are so many examples of good cards performing lower than expected in those kind of lists I can easily dismiss it. Just as you feel you can dismiss high-level grand prix results.
Since I've read several articles and watched pros draft online continually touting how impressed they've been with the card and the fact that these sentiments also mirror my own experiences with the card I can easily come to the conclusion that it's a fine card.
If you want to disagree than go ahead, but don't discredit others data (GP results) and think your data is somehow more relevant, it's not.
Wait what? All the Channel Fireball videos I've watched the Pros have had nothing but good things to say about the card. The only lukewarm responses I've seen were from before the cards were released.
Faeries was passed over but put 50% in day two. Zoo is dominant.
New decks emerging...
Can anyone comfirm whether or not there is a playmat for this event?
Actually I have used him twice successfully against the aforementioned Servant. Who would normally be able just to absorb a fatties attack for free and drain you, but when I play t4-5 centaur and then make a 3/3 every turn for the rest of the game things get out of control pretty quick.
That card is MUCH better than Vulpine Goliath.
Getting a 3/3 every turn is nice, particularly when you don't have to expend cards to do so. If you have more pertinent things to do than make a 3/3 than do something else, otherwise it's a pretty quick clock for a kill or a way to trade off opponent's fatty.
Pheres-Band Raiders-Strongest card in the pack. High curve card. Tons of value! Attack for 5 eat a blocker, make a Nessian Courser! He's one of the six-drops I really like in this set because of the creature-making ability.
I wouldn't be upset about taking Elite Skirmisher but I feel like that was for my original plan of P1P1 Skyguard and not first pick blue 5 drop.
Servant is close to Skirmisher even if unexciting, U/B is very playable in this format.
Raiders have the highest upside by a pretty high margin. If we go for Skirmisher it leaves us more open to a totally different game plan though which might become conducive.
There are so many examples of good cards performing lower than expected in those kind of lists I can easily dismiss it. Just as you feel you can dismiss high-level grand prix results.
Since I've read several articles and watched pros draft online continually touting how impressed they've been with the card and the fact that these sentiments also mirror my own experiences with the card I can easily come to the conclusion that it's a fine card.
If you want to disagree than go ahead, but don't discredit others data (GP results) and think your data is somehow more relevant, it's not.