This Reddit user came up with a way to not only win with Aetherflux Reservoir, but to win with it on turn 1. Of course, it liberally uses Masterpieces that other drafters would have to open and pass to you.
Seriously though, I agree with you. MTGO is completely unusable for the average person, and the type of immersive game you are describing would get lots of new players interested.
I really think they don't add anything too interesting to the format, so I'll voice my opinion once again that I'd prefer this duplicate draft to not make DFCs public information.
Aligned Hedron Network, Captain's Claws, and Inspired Charge are mediocre to unplayable cards that don't really add anything to your deck. I would cut all of them for Sweep Away, Ondu Rising, and Void Shatter.
I would be interested in this. After doing a couple of IRL drafts of the new set this past weekend, I see the value of knowing what colors your neighbors are in. However, I ran into a problem. Sometimes people take cards because there is nothing else for them in the pack; either they are speculating or hate-drafting. At one point in pack 2 I was in GW but I grabbed a late Breakneck Rider because the card is busted and there literally wasn't another playable in Green or White. My neighbor assumed that I was in Green and Red (since all the other DFCs I took that draft were Green) but he was wrong. He slightly shifted his plan for pack 3, when he knew I would be passing to him. That particular situation didn't mess up my draft, but it could have if my neighbor took a late Pious Evangel even though he probably wasn't planning to be White.
I guess my point is that "free" signals can often be misleading, unless people adjust their drafting to make choices they wouldn't previously make to not be confusing. I'm not sure if the issue of sending mixed signals is more important than making the "correct" pick. Maybe you should always ship the off-color DFC no matter what? Or maybe it's more valuable to mess up the signals on purpose so your opponents can't purposely cut you? It depends on if you view a draft as cooperative or competitive.
I'm very happy that GU seems to have an actual honest-to-God deck archetype (Clue manipulation).
Thanks for reminding me of DFC draft rules. I'll have to remember that for the 8-Ways.
Also, as you said, I like 'minigame' aspects, and DFCs lend themselves well to that. The fact that there is a lot of other minigames in SOI makes me happy.
I hope you aren't planning to reveal all the double faced cards in an 8 way draft. If you've ever drafted Innistrad online, you'll know that it treats DFCs like any other card, and does not reveal them. The only reason they have that weird rule for paper drafts is because no one drafts with sleeves, and it creates an awkward situation where only some people might get extra information by catching a glimpse of the opposite side of a card. It turns out that drafting digitally is an advantage because it lets you avoid that. The rule is a workaround to enable the existence of DFCs, and I'm sure Wizards would prefer if it could be avoided.
I am also looking for one more person for GP DC. I suspect that it will be difficult to find single players at this point because many of us had our third teammate drop out at the last minute, and now we're all stuck in groups of 2 that we are unwilling to break up.
Local metas are self-policing. If this was not the first time one of the locals noticed shenanigans, there's an easy solution: You just grab his Gideon and put it in your box/wherever.
One of two things will happen:
1) He's a wimp and does nothing about this. You get a free Gideon! Sweet. Who cares about whether he cheated now.
2) He calls the judge over and complains that you stole his card. You, a regular, then say you don't know what he's talking about and that Gideon was yours. When the judge asks if there are any witnesses who saw the other guy go "yay! Gideon!" when he opened his pool, chances are there will be no one, because hax and all.
But I would not advise this unless you and others were very certain he's cheating. Give such players ample benefit of the doubt first. At large events, there's inevitably someone who opened an Expedition, a planeswalker, and a foil of that planeswalker. Unlikely but possible. Maybe ask to see the rest of his pool when the game is done.
I truly, deeply thought about this before coming to the conclusion that he was likely cheating. In fact, in all the years I've been playing Magic, this is the first time I have ever suspected an opponent of cheating. I've seen many absurd pools, some playing 6 mythics of the same color, but I have never seen a pool that had those mythics plus multiples of every good common and uncommon, zero filler, and perfect mana fixing to top it off. There was just something about his deck that set of my bull***** detector. Limited decks don't look like that. Of course I could be wrong, and he got the most godly pool that will ever exist in this format, but it's a lot likelier that he was cheating. (Also, this event was relatively small, with under 30 people. I haven't seen decks approaching this quality at GPs with thousands of players.)
I wish I had asked to see the rest of his pool, but it seemed like he was only willing to show off the absurd number of rares and mythics he was playing, and I couldn't get a peek at the rest of his deck. I suspect that if I found anything shady about his pool, he would have explained it away as getting mixed up with the other pools he had earlier in the weekend, and there would still be no way to prove anything. In any case I wasn't confidant enough in the moment to accuse him of cheating to his face. I will be keeping an eye of him in the future if I see him at any events.
Last night I went to a prerelease. It was the 6th or 7th flight my LGS held over the weekend, so plenty of people there had already played a number of times. I built a pretty mediocre UW deck, then sat down to face my first opponent.
Perhaps I am biased in retrospect, but my opponent acted strangely when we started chatting. He mentioned how uncomfortable he was at live events and how he hadn't been playing Magic for very long. He also said he was excited to play in his first GP in the near future. Finally, he mentioned that he had played in almost every prerelease event the store held that weekend. "Cool," I thought, "Another new player is learning the game. This will be fun."
In game 3, he slammed a turn 4 Gideon, Ally of Zendikar. At that point I actually laughed out loud because I had never seen a sealed pool with so many of the best rares and mythics split between 2 colors, and I had seen a lot of crazy sealed pools over the years I've played Magic. Not only that, but there wasn't a single mediocre common or uncommon in his deck. No random bears with no abilities, no filler at all. It was almost as if he had hand picked every good blue and white card from multiple sealed pools and put them together... and that's when it dawned on me. He probably did exactly that after building a collection from playing all weekend. Was the whole conversation about being a new, nervous player an act to throw me off?
So I went to talk to his next opponent. He agreed that the pool was completely unrealistic, and revealed to me that the guy actually had even more rares and mythics than I saw: he had a total of 7 of the very best blue and white rares and mythics between BFZ and OGW (the extra was the foil Quarantine Field). We went together to talk to the organizer running the event. Apparently, we were not even the first people to bring it up. The organizer said that there was no way to verify the pool, and that because the guy wasn't running more rares and mythics than were possible to open in packs, he couldn't do anything about it. The end.
Of course, the guy with the insane deck went undefeated with little trouble. After leaving the store, I thought that another possible solution was to find out who was sitting next to him in deck construction and ask if he remembered him pulling back-to-back mythics from every pack. At that point everyone had left, so it was too late. Still, if I really wanted to I could track them down and ask.
But then I thought better of it; even if this guy did blatantly cheat and essentially stole money from kids who were just playing for fun, isn't that punishment enough? I can't even imagine how sad and pathetic someone's life must be to add cards to a sealed pool at a prerelease. If they ever tried something like that at an event with deck registration there is a good chance they would be caught, especially if they were so blatant about it. If I were theoretically trying to cheat in a sealed event, I would at least try to make my deck believable by adding in some filler, and not having a laundry list of the very best uncommons, rares, and mythics.
What would you guys do in that situation? Based on my retelling of the story, do you think he cheated?
What are the chances that we face a really grindy matchup and splash March from the Tomb out of the sideboard? I don't think it's zero, so I want to take the March.
Spells:
Lithomancer's Focus, Gideon's Reproach, Sure Strike, Tandem Tactics, Stasis Snare, Smite the Monstrous, Stonefury
Based on this layout, we already have to cut some cards. It doesn't seem like we really need any of the white cards in this pack, although we are lacking 4 drops. Still, that's not enough of a reason to take the underwhelming Ondu Greathorn. Maybe we should just take the second Smite the Monstrous because that card has the highest upside if we need to side it in against a deck with a lot of targets. I just don't see us wanting a 6th 2/2 for 2.
Call me crazy, but I don't think we need a third Bladewhirl. At the end of the day it doesn't matter that our creatures have first strike if our opponent can block our 2/2s with a 2/3. Nettle Drone immediately jumps out at me here; it gives our deck reach, it has more than 2 power, and it starts to maybe justify playing Barrage Tyrant. Again, I could be totally wrong on this, so feel free to keep your vote and we can randomize the pick. Three Bladewhirls would make our deck very consistent.
https://www.reddit.com/r/magicTCG/comments/52l5pb/magical_christmas_land_deterministic_turn_1_kill/?st=it4nelgm&sh=e0d76c0e
Seriously though, I agree with you. MTGO is completely unusable for the average person, and the type of immersive game you are describing would get lots of new players interested.
I really think they don't add anything too interesting to the format, so I'll voice my opinion once again that I'd prefer this duplicate draft to not make DFCs public information.
I guess my point is that "free" signals can often be misleading, unless people adjust their drafting to make choices they wouldn't previously make to not be confusing. I'm not sure if the issue of sending mixed signals is more important than making the "correct" pick. Maybe you should always ship the off-color DFC no matter what? Or maybe it's more valuable to mess up the signals on purpose so your opponents can't purposely cut you? It depends on if you view a draft as cooperative or competitive.
I hope you aren't planning to reveal all the double faced cards in an 8 way draft. If you've ever drafted Innistrad online, you'll know that it treats DFCs like any other card, and does not reveal them. The only reason they have that weird rule for paper drafts is because no one drafts with sleeves, and it creates an awkward situation where only some people might get extra information by catching a glimpse of the opposite side of a card. It turns out that drafting digitally is an advantage because it lets you avoid that. The rule is a workaround to enable the existence of DFCs, and I'm sure Wizards would prefer if it could be avoided.
I truly, deeply thought about this before coming to the conclusion that he was likely cheating. In fact, in all the years I've been playing Magic, this is the first time I have ever suspected an opponent of cheating. I've seen many absurd pools, some playing 6 mythics of the same color, but I have never seen a pool that had those mythics plus multiples of every good common and uncommon, zero filler, and perfect mana fixing to top it off. There was just something about his deck that set of my bull***** detector. Limited decks don't look like that. Of course I could be wrong, and he got the most godly pool that will ever exist in this format, but it's a lot likelier that he was cheating. (Also, this event was relatively small, with under 30 people. I haven't seen decks approaching this quality at GPs with thousands of players.)
I wish I had asked to see the rest of his pool, but it seemed like he was only willing to show off the absurd number of rares and mythics he was playing, and I couldn't get a peek at the rest of his deck. I suspect that if I found anything shady about his pool, he would have explained it away as getting mixed up with the other pools he had earlier in the weekend, and there would still be no way to prove anything. In any case I wasn't confidant enough in the moment to accuse him of cheating to his face. I will be keeping an eye of him in the future if I see him at any events.
Perhaps I am biased in retrospect, but my opponent acted strangely when we started chatting. He mentioned how uncomfortable he was at live events and how he hadn't been playing Magic for very long. He also said he was excited to play in his first GP in the near future. Finally, he mentioned that he had played in almost every prerelease event the store held that weekend. "Cool," I thought, "Another new player is learning the game. This will be fun."
In game 1, he quickly defeated me with a perfect curve of Tide Drifter, Eldrazi Skyspawner, Cyclone Sire, Clutch of Currents, and finally a foil Quarantine Field to exile two of my creatures. I also saw Isolation Zone, Immolating Glare, and multiple Meandering Rivers the fix his mana. This guy was clearly not a new player. I started sideboarding for game 2 while thinking that he drew all of the best cards in his deck. I was wrong.
In game 2, he played Eldrazi Displacer (in my opinion the best white rare in the set), Linvala, the Preserver, Guardian of Tazeem, and Quarantine Field again. Somehow I was able to win the game despite the absurd quality of his deck. Other notable cards that I saw included Angel of Renewal, Halimar Tidecaller, Wall of Resurgence, and Sheer Drop.
In game 3, he slammed a turn 4 Gideon, Ally of Zendikar. At that point I actually laughed out loud because I had never seen a sealed pool with so many of the best rares and mythics split between 2 colors, and I had seen a lot of crazy sealed pools over the years I've played Magic. Not only that, but there wasn't a single mediocre common or uncommon in his deck. No random bears with no abilities, no filler at all. It was almost as if he had hand picked every good blue and white card from multiple sealed pools and put them together... and that's when it dawned on me. He probably did exactly that after building a collection from playing all weekend. Was the whole conversation about being a new, nervous player an act to throw me off?
So I went to talk to his next opponent. He agreed that the pool was completely unrealistic, and revealed to me that the guy actually had even more rares and mythics than I saw: he had a total of 7 of the very best blue and white rares and mythics between BFZ and OGW (the extra was the foil Quarantine Field). We went together to talk to the organizer running the event. Apparently, we were not even the first people to bring it up. The organizer said that there was no way to verify the pool, and that because the guy wasn't running more rares and mythics than were possible to open in packs, he couldn't do anything about it. The end.
Of course, the guy with the insane deck went undefeated with little trouble. After leaving the store, I thought that another possible solution was to find out who was sitting next to him in deck construction and ask if he remembered him pulling back-to-back mythics from every pack. At that point everyone had left, so it was too late. Still, if I really wanted to I could track them down and ask.
But then I thought better of it; even if this guy did blatantly cheat and essentially stole money from kids who were just playing for fun, isn't that punishment enough? I can't even imagine how sad and pathetic someone's life must be to add cards to a sealed pool at a prerelease. If they ever tried something like that at an event with deck registration there is a good chance they would be caught, especially if they were so blatant about it. If I were theoretically trying to cheat in a sealed event, I would at least try to make my deck believable by adding in some filler, and not having a laundry list of the very best uncommons, rares, and mythics.
What would you guys do in that situation? Based on my retelling of the story, do you think he cheated?
Creatures:
1: Cliffside Lookout (x2?)
2: Serene Steward, Kor Castigtor, Felidar Cub, Kor Bladewhirl x2
3: Valakut Predator, Firemantle Mage, Shadow Glider, Nettle Drone
4: Courier Griffin, Ondu Champion
5: Barrage Tyrant(?), Resolute Blademaster, Encircling Fissure
6: Angel of Renewal, Sheer Drop
Spells:
Lithomancer's Focus, Gideon's Reproach, Sure Strike, Tandem Tactics, Stasis Snare, Smite the Monstrous, Stonefury
Based on this layout, we already have to cut some cards. It doesn't seem like we really need any of the white cards in this pack, although we are lacking 4 drops. Still, that's not enough of a reason to take the underwhelming Ondu Greathorn. Maybe we should just take the second Smite the Monstrous because that card has the highest upside if we need to side it in against a deck with a lot of targets. I just don't see us wanting a 6th 2/2 for 2.