I was thinking about taking this to a local tournament as a metagame decision. I thought it was pretty far in the rogue category until I saw this. Anyway, I was wanting input on this since it is at least slightly related to this archetype.
The goal with this deck is to have multiple ways to do everything that this deck does. I'm assuming that there are a million sideboard cards that shut this deck down, and instead of trying to prevent hate from happening, I just have a plan B for everything. This creates a trap for opponents sideboarding.
There are two different draw engines. Looter il-kor and howling mine can provide continuous draw/filtering. With the presence of abrupt decay, I am just going to take the removal of howling mine for granted, and if it sticks, that's great. The other draw engine functions off of locket of yesterdays. It reduces the cost of everything over time. Soon you can play thirst for knowledge and compulsive research for U. More importantly, you will be able to play whispers of the muse late game with buyback for U. Keep in mind that your timewalk spells costs are also reduced, so it's more managable that you would think. If graveyard hate happens, it's not a big deal because I have alternatives.
I run three timewalk variants. Exhaustion is the only one needing discussion. While it isn't a timewalk, it eats up a bunch of time if you can catch your opponent tapped out. Against a creature based deck, this shouldn't be a problem since they are trying to race and use their mana as efficiently as possible to shut me down. This also enables me to go off more quickly.
I have two win conditions. One is continuously swinging with looter il-kor while I am timewalking. The other is forcing the opponent to draw their entire deck. To do this, I draw to the bottom card of my deck, and play memory's journey. I put these three cards on top of my deck: timewarp, memory's journey, and compulsive research on top of my deck. I draw all three by whatever means I have and then I play all three. Locket of yesterdays can bring this process all the way down to UUUU so it is a bit more manageable than you'd think.
I pretty much threw the sideboard together and it's not set in stone. Considering that it's bad matchups are most likely decks with counterspells, defense grid is in the sideboard. Gigadrowse is also there for similar reasons.
I intend to play this deck exclusively as a rogue deck. Once someone plays it once, I don't expect it to work on the same person again. This is why I don't run any counterspells in the main. I can get away with it because others players have to respect that possibility until they know that I don't run them.
I also run nothing but islands as lands. There are a few reasons for this. 1. I don't deal damage to myself. 2. whispers of the muse and locket of yesterdays practically necessitates a pure blue manabase. 3. I'm immune to blood moon and other nonbasic land hate. 4. I can't really seem to think of any lands that would really help. The ones I have thought about just don't seem to be worth it. 5. I can't get colorscrewed. If anyone can think of a land that would be worth adding, please mention it. It's really bizzare to have a deck built exclusively with basic lands.
If you can give him flash, you can just wait for an opponent to take damage to cast him. this might not be insanely helpful early game, but later on, it will help if you lose board position.
In other words, I wouldn't worry about it happening again.
Short version: If you want to prevent something like this from happening again, just make sure that their deck is pile shuffled in-between games.
Long version:
Pure statistics don't take shuffling tendencies into account, which is probably the real cause of this problem. You know how some people pick up all their lands and then their permanents after a game before shuffling? Something along those lines probably happened here with BTE's.
I can almost guarantee that your opponent didn't pile shuffle; this would have dissolved the clump of burning trees. I had a fairly similar situation happen a few years ago and I was pretty upset about it too. 3 archive traps were sided in against me alongside poor shuffling. And since it never got broken up in standard shuffling, there was a realistic chance of 3+ copies showing up in his opening hand because they were all contiguous, and it happened. It's a very human occurrence and also a very unintended occurrence.
Mindequalsblown is completely right about the statistics though. As long as the opponents deck is sufficiently randomized, this shouldn't be a problem. Just make sure that these human shuffling tendencies are counteracted. The easiest suggestion I have for you is to pile shuffle your opponent's deck if he doesn't do it on his own.
Gambling is the perfect word for what you are doing when you open packs. Consistency is always more valuable than potential in this game. The biggest strike that opening packs has against it is that there is no guarantee that a money card that you open will be traded or used. It's value is still volatile as well. If you don't trade or use an asset, it's value is literally zero.
Packs are always in demand because of drafts and on occasion, packs are also tradable goods. Both A and C are good options, the better one of those two depends on whether or not you know someone is interested in those packs.
In the GU deck there were almost no plays turn 2. Only an omenspeaker and a copy of voyage's end. Are there some archetypes in this format that the 2 drop slot is weak enough that you could completely omit it? I think that this also might be evidence that the two drops in this set are fairly underwhelming. Both of these two points are debatable. Anyone care to give me some input?
I've played U/B twice in the last two weeks and I will say a few things.
If you even think that you are going to be in these colors, make sure you have bounce spells. These will be the difference between getting there or not. They also give you a chance if something gets too big.
You will have a ton of flyers, particularly in blue.
Returned phalanx is incredibly good in this archetype. 3/3 turn two is broken in this format. It slows just about every archetype down to a grinding halt until about turn 5 barring flyers. In the meantime, you have a ton of flyers and will be closing the game from the air. If you get the chance to attack will him he hits hard in both early and late game. I should also mention that they are picked pretty late from my experiences.
Most of the creature base will be blue while playing black mainly for removal.
Removal can be hit or miss depending on what you're opponent is playing. You will likely be siding removal in and out depending on what creatures you are seeing.
Be wary of players gobbling up blue. I think that most players that draft frequently are aware of how good blue is in this set. You may see some really good blue cards in the first few picks and then see absolutely no decent blue for the rest of the pack.
I will say one things for sure. The OP got the stone cold nuts in this draft. 3 nimbus naiads is a feat in and of itself.
I think that 3 color is extremely weak in theros draft. Mana acceleration will be grabbed up by anyone making significant use of monstrous. Furthermore, the presence of bombs (the main reason you would want to splash) is a lot weaker than it normally is. The bombs themselves also seem to be significantly weaker as well. Green is the only color that I would want to give this significant consideration for in limited since nylea's presence looks like it might go later than all of the other mana fixing.
Sealed is a slightly different case. You don't have to worry about other players gobbling up mana acceleration before you get it so it is more reasonable. I have heard of people successfully splashing in sealed, but this is only out of 1 sealed event.
It has been played against me twice so far and both in R/B decks while I was playing UB control/flyers. It's heroic was triggered twice through two separate games and didn't strongly affect the board. It might be bad in that archetype.
I haven't heard anyone mention yet, but I think that it's worth noting that enchantments are safe to cast if your opponent is tapped out or doesn't have relevant mana available.
I have a tendency to agree with the OP due to this article, and my experiences so far. I have lost at least 2 games partially because of bestow retaining board position.
Tonight something funny happened to me. My opponent is at 29, with only lands in play and no hand. I have 4 cards in hand and sitting on a monstrous triggered shipbreaker kraken. I should win in three turns. I tapped out to make him monstrous. Next turn she plays portent of betrayal.
I lose.
I was a bit dissapointed, but I still think it was funny.
Whoever shot that video of the meteor coming down deserves an award of some sort. I don't care if it wasn't professional or that it was just by chance.
I kind of feel sorry for all the people that have to repair stuff now since it's all going to come out of their own pockets. There's no way in hell that insurance covers this. I mean meteorite insurance sounds like something out of a comic book.
I am legitimately happy that this article was published. I believe that more needs to follow. Money and economics are an important part of the game with a far reach hitting everything from the metagame to whether a LGS can sustain itself to provide tournament play.
This is important information for players, and especially those who sell cards. I've seen a lot of stores open up and close again, and I believe that the pricing of cards has a lot to do with things.
A few things I have to mention:
This article wasn't very layman friendly. I learned most of the information from the article from reading the text. A lot of the people who aren't friendly with numbers might not know what regression is among other things.
"promissory estoppel" - I can make a good guess as to what this is from the context surrounding it, but I'm not entirely sure that I know what this is or if it's common knowledge that I have somehow missed. Things like this should be defined directly and in the simplest way possible.
You covered a lot of information in this article. This could have been more effectively delivered in my opinion if it was spread out into 3 to five articles.
The ones out of this set do nothing of the sort. Being above the curve is not relevant any more by the time you hit 4 mana. I would cross apply this to other sets as well.
The other thing that bothers me are the mythic X spells. People don't seem to realize that by the time they have paid the initial cost they won't have any mana leftover unless it's late game. By that time it's already a win more card, or a dead card because you died before you can use it. Blue sun's zenith and mind shatter saw minimal use. I don't see anything that makes them significantly more playable now.
4 thirst for knowledge
4 whispers of the muse
4 locket of yesterdays
4 walk the aeons
4 time warp
2 memory's journey
4 exhaustion
4 howling mine
4 looter il-kor
4 gigadrowse
4 repeal
4 muddle the mixture
3 defense grid
I was thinking about taking this to a local tournament as a metagame decision. I thought it was pretty far in the rogue category until I saw this. Anyway, I was wanting input on this since it is at least slightly related to this archetype.
The goal with this deck is to have multiple ways to do everything that this deck does. I'm assuming that there are a million sideboard cards that shut this deck down, and instead of trying to prevent hate from happening, I just have a plan B for everything. This creates a trap for opponents sideboarding.
There are two different draw engines. Looter il-kor and howling mine can provide continuous draw/filtering. With the presence of abrupt decay, I am just going to take the removal of howling mine for granted, and if it sticks, that's great. The other draw engine functions off of locket of yesterdays. It reduces the cost of everything over time. Soon you can play thirst for knowledge and compulsive research for U. More importantly, you will be able to play whispers of the muse late game with buyback for U. Keep in mind that your timewalk spells costs are also reduced, so it's more managable that you would think. If graveyard hate happens, it's not a big deal because I have alternatives.
I run three timewalk variants. Exhaustion is the only one needing discussion. While it isn't a timewalk, it eats up a bunch of time if you can catch your opponent tapped out. Against a creature based deck, this shouldn't be a problem since they are trying to race and use their mana as efficiently as possible to shut me down. This also enables me to go off more quickly.
I have two win conditions. One is continuously swinging with looter il-kor while I am timewalking. The other is forcing the opponent to draw their entire deck. To do this, I draw to the bottom card of my deck, and play memory's journey. I put these three cards on top of my deck: timewarp, memory's journey, and compulsive research on top of my deck. I draw all three by whatever means I have and then I play all three. Locket of yesterdays can bring this process all the way down to UUUU so it is a bit more manageable than you'd think.
I pretty much threw the sideboard together and it's not set in stone. Considering that it's bad matchups are most likely decks with counterspells, defense grid is in the sideboard. Gigadrowse is also there for similar reasons.
I intend to play this deck exclusively as a rogue deck. Once someone plays it once, I don't expect it to work on the same person again. This is why I don't run any counterspells in the main. I can get away with it because others players have to respect that possibility until they know that I don't run them.
I also run nothing but islands as lands. There are a few reasons for this. 1. I don't deal damage to myself. 2. whispers of the muse and locket of yesterdays practically necessitates a pure blue manabase. 3. I'm immune to blood moon and other nonbasic land hate. 4. I can't really seem to think of any lands that would really help. The ones I have thought about just don't seem to be worth it. 5. I can't get colorscrewed. If anyone can think of a land that would be worth adding, please mention it. It's really bizzare to have a deck built exclusively with basic lands.
Short version: If you want to prevent something like this from happening again, just make sure that their deck is pile shuffled in-between games.
Long version:
Pure statistics don't take shuffling tendencies into account, which is probably the real cause of this problem. You know how some people pick up all their lands and then their permanents after a game before shuffling? Something along those lines probably happened here with BTE's.
I can almost guarantee that your opponent didn't pile shuffle; this would have dissolved the clump of burning trees. I had a fairly similar situation happen a few years ago and I was pretty upset about it too. 3 archive traps were sided in against me alongside poor shuffling. And since it never got broken up in standard shuffling, there was a realistic chance of 3+ copies showing up in his opening hand because they were all contiguous, and it happened. It's a very human occurrence and also a very unintended occurrence.
Mindequalsblown is completely right about the statistics though. As long as the opponents deck is sufficiently randomized, this shouldn't be a problem. Just make sure that these human shuffling tendencies are counteracted. The easiest suggestion I have for you is to pile shuffle your opponent's deck if he doesn't do it on his own.
Packs are always in demand because of drafts and on occasion, packs are also tradable goods. Both A and C are good options, the better one of those two depends on whether or not you know someone is interested in those packs.
In the GU deck there were almost no plays turn 2. Only an omenspeaker and a copy of voyage's end. Are there some archetypes in this format that the 2 drop slot is weak enough that you could completely omit it? I think that this also might be evidence that the two drops in this set are fairly underwhelming. Both of these two points are debatable. Anyone care to give me some input?
If you even think that you are going to be in these colors, make sure you have bounce spells. These will be the difference between getting there or not. They also give you a chance if something gets too big.
You will have a ton of flyers, particularly in blue.
Returned phalanx is incredibly good in this archetype. 3/3 turn two is broken in this format. It slows just about every archetype down to a grinding halt until about turn 5 barring flyers. In the meantime, you have a ton of flyers and will be closing the game from the air. If you get the chance to attack will him he hits hard in both early and late game. I should also mention that they are picked pretty late from my experiences.
Most of the creature base will be blue while playing black mainly for removal.
Removal can be hit or miss depending on what you're opponent is playing. You will likely be siding removal in and out depending on what creatures you are seeing.
Be wary of players gobbling up blue. I think that most players that draft frequently are aware of how good blue is in this set. You may see some really good blue cards in the first few picks and then see absolutely no decent blue for the rest of the pack.
I will say one things for sure. The OP got the stone cold nuts in this draft. 3 nimbus naiads is a feat in and of itself.
Sealed is a slightly different case. You don't have to worry about other players gobbling up mana acceleration before you get it so it is more reasonable. I have heard of people successfully splashing in sealed, but this is only out of 1 sealed event.
He seems a million times better if you have copies of any of these.
phalanx leader
bident of thassa
purphoros, god of the forge
spear of heliod
http://blog.mtgmadness.com/index.php/theros-limited-initial-impressions-and-strategies/tiago-chan
I haven't heard anyone mention yet, but I think that it's worth noting that enchantments are safe to cast if your opponent is tapped out or doesn't have relevant mana available.
I have a tendency to agree with the OP due to this article, and my experiences so far. I have lost at least 2 games partially because of bestow retaining board position.
I went 3-0-1 today with UB flyers/control
I ran 17 lands with 6 scry cards with 2 fate foretold and 2 triton fortune hunter.
I will say that the scry cards helped me immensely with land issues and that 17 was definitely the right number of lands for this deck.
I lose.
I was a bit dissapointed, but I still think it was funny.
I kind of feel sorry for all the people that have to repair stuff now since it's all going to come out of their own pockets. There's no way in hell that insurance covers this. I mean meteorite insurance sounds like something out of a comic book.
This is important information for players, and especially those who sell cards. I've seen a lot of stores open up and close again, and I believe that the pricing of cards has a lot to do with things.
A few things I have to mention:
This article wasn't very layman friendly. I learned most of the information from the article from reading the text. A lot of the people who aren't friendly with numbers might not know what regression is among other things.
"promissory estoppel" - I can make a good guess as to what this is from the context surrounding it, but I'm not entirely sure that I know what this is or if it's common knowledge that I have somehow missed. Things like this should be defined directly and in the simplest way possible.
You covered a lot of information in this article. This could have been more effectively delivered in my opinion if it was spread out into 3 to five articles.
The ones out of this set do nothing of the sort. Being above the curve is not relevant any more by the time you hit 4 mana. I would cross apply this to other sets as well.
The other thing that bothers me are the mythic X spells. People don't seem to realize that by the time they have paid the initial cost they won't have any mana leftover unless it's late game. By that time it's already a win more card, or a dead card because you died before you can use it. Blue sun's zenith and mind shatter saw minimal use. I don't see anything that makes them significantly more playable now.