MTG Salvation

Quote from magicmerl

But then it just becomes a T5 Pack Rat, no?

Syncopate, cancel, essence backlash... or even double removal. The spanish inquisition can't be expected, otherwise its power is reduced. When your spells have a single target, I would think it makes it a lot easier to correctly identify it.

I think the best strategy is the one bji outlined: sideboard into 29swamps.dek in game two, then re-sideboard back in game three when they brought all their now mostly useless stuff...

Quote from DeftJackal

I do agree that the three best cards in the pool are probably desecration demon, rakdos and the guildmage, but if you don't draw those or they are answered I think the RBu deck just loses. The bears you are forced to run don't particularly matchup with with centaurs, other unleashed guys, or even the golgari walls. I think the RUw deck has a more consistent game plan that depends less on drawing a few key cards. Both builds are far from what I would like to open though ;).

I don't have access to the pool, but from the posted deck, I see that red has at least splatter thug, bloodfray giant, frostburn weird and lobber crew. That's quite enough extras on top of the crazy threesome. Given that the two demons are almost auto-wins and the crew auto-enable rakdos, it sounds like a good base, and I don't even know the rest of the pool!

Edit: took a quick look: double thug, shred freak, sewer shambler, assassin's strike, perilous shadow, launch party, double weird. Looks like a good rakdos base.

If anyone has standard-legal cards to trade for legacy cards, I'm open! I don't have any legacy card, but this 20 dollars bill here was gotten by selling a 20 dollars legacy card, so it's actually worth 30$ when I use it to pay for your standard-legal cards.

Am I doing this right? Or are prices prices?

Quote from bji

* 64% chance of drawing it if you are willing to mulligan to 1, and then if you mulligan to 1 and still don't have it, you have one more chance to draw it on turn 2, which gets you to 65.5% total chance to play it on turn 2.

You have to subtract the probability that your opponent will have an answer to it. If I see someone play 29swamps.dek, I'll sideboard in as much cheap removal and coutnerspells that I can. I only have to answer one card to win. Your opponent can mulligan to 1 to draw his eletrickery, too. I don't think people are aware of this strategy enough to do it, but now that I've read this thread, if I see it played and aggressively mulliganed, I see that it as a good a counter-strategy as any other.*

By definition, the winning deck of a sealed has better than 66% wins (only 66% if he won all round 2-1); at *best* you're aiming at just a bit lower than that stats, assuming no one ever has the answer on-hand. There is more variance in sealed, more so in 4 boosters-sealed.

(* then someone will read this and sideboard the 29 swamps out just to trick me!)

Entreat was strong, but it was only really strong when top-decked with about 7 lands out. The rat is good on the second turn. The angels also had the good taste of winning the next turn, while you either concede or spend a painful 5 turns vs. the rats.

Edit: my hope is that dev spend a Friday how they came up with the rat being admitted in the set.

Quote from magicmerl

Your chances of having pack rat in a conventional hand is 23%.

Your chance of having pack rat if you mull aggressively for it is 64%.

Please, do the research and return with an informed opinion. The above percentages are FACTS, and greatly influence your chance of winning the match.

Please, please please, do tell me where I claimed it was not 66%, or dear master? I didn't, so why don't you pack your condenscence back into your suitcase?

Yes. Yes it is.

So, you can count on auto-losing one game in each match. if your opponent has no answer, then you got vchance of winning the other two. If your opponent has an answer in 1 game, you lose the match.

I think it's idiotic. Run mono-black if you wish to, but not running any other cards except swamp is idiotic. There is no math involved.

EDIT: actually, tehre is, since having asnwer and blocker means you increase your chance of pkaying the rat. But go ahead, play 29 swamps. You won't 3-0 with that strategy.

Eeek! Never, ever, ever do something as stupid as putting 29 swamps + rat n a deck. You can get the rat normally, you can get your swamp normally. Making 33% of your match auto-concede is... good?

For the deck, cut:

- dynacharge (doesn't do enough)
- swindler (yerk)
- goblin rally (oh well, i guess it combo with dyna)

Add:

- mind rot
- brute
- cackler or doorkeeper (i'd go cackler as a rakdos enabler)

You're light on removal. Last night, I also got pack rat and another demon. I went 2-1, losing final round 2-1 to double manascrew, too.

If Wizards proposed a limited ban on pack rat, I'd be all for it. The annoying bit is that it's under-powered for constructed, so it's strictly a limited idiocy. I should know, I got it and desecration demon together last night. Most. Boring. Idiotic. Games. Ever. (... then I lost in the final to double mana screw. )

Stab wound at 1 life wouldn't get played as much I think. It would be a ho-hum pick, good to get rid of early threats.

I have a special place for mercurial chemister. It's like a weaker equivalent of the rat pack. Left alone, it single handedly wins the game. Repeated card advantage and repeated removal in one card? Duh.

Quote from SorinsVengeance

He attacks with spawn (cause bloodfray giant is detained by the martial law), i then flash in hussar patrol and cast swift justice twice with all of my remaining mana. He just scooped afterwards and said "sure why not, thats realistic"

Who scoops on that? Like bateleur said, you 2-for-1'ed yourself. He's got 5 mana, 3 colors and 6 cards. He can't beat a 2/2 and a 2/4?

p1p1... p3p1...

I would have gone with WGr. You got nice early beat in smiter and goliath, double giant growth and healer, courser, and the gigantic land. SPlash red for double impact and myabe traitorous instinct. With arrest, arrow, armory guard and rootborn defense, you should survive the early game.

Quote from NoHeavenNoHell

I would never almost never attack in the mercurial situation though, unless my opponent was at low life. Then again, depending on the mana they had open, I would probably never block with the chemister either.

Contradiction? Or trying to over-analyze and be too byzantine?

(The situation was just an example, but to comment on it, when mercurial chemister lands, you either have removal, go all in, or lose. It's one of those insane turn-around card that I absolutely hate to face, because it doesn't win /instantly/, so you can't just concede on the spot, but there is no way you can win against it without removing it, unless you were about to win anyway.)

Quote from bateleur

It's not unfathomable. It's for exactly the reason you just illustrated: if they allow it then people will scam each other constantly, generating work for the support crew and bad PR all over the place.

I meant supporting it with an automatic split with a button, just like dropping.

Quote from Sene

I think you guys have been approaching this format pretty incorrectly. It is not based on luck and praying that your guild is open, it is drafting the open guild. If you just don't commit too heavily in the first picks, and are prepared to completely switch guilds and abandon your first few picks if you have to, you probably won't face the "dude-to-my-right-drafted-my-guild-so-now-my-deck-is-a-pile" problem, and you probably won't have to draft three colors either.

Try that in Swiss Sometimes it works, most times, I'm confused as to what my neighbours do. Or maybe I've just been unlucky this week so far; there were always two seemingly open directions and I've picked the wrong one three times out of four. It's maddening to see stuff like annihilating fire 5th in the second pack while in selesnya...

Last night someone complained about being defrauded when splitting the final round and the ORC said that splitting is illegal on MTGO and can get you banned. (He may not have used 'banned' but he said it was forbidden and could be sanctioned.) So clearly Wizards still don't support it online, for some unfantomable reasons.